Exposure Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton

The Exposure Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton is an excellent rear light that provides very good visibility and impressive runtimes along with a couple of cool features that lift its performance above the norm. This puts it right up there with the lights in our best rear lights buyer's guide.

> Buy now: Exposure Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton for £90 from Tredz

In creating the new Boost-R, Exposure has taken the highly regarded Trace-R – which scored a whopping nine out of 10 when reviewed here on road.cc – and doubled the runtimes while adding just 10g to the weight. The result is really impressive.

What you get here is an anodised 6063 aluminium body that contains a 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery and a red XPE-R LED. The aluminium is tough – as is the thick plastic lens – although, not surprisingly, the anodising can mark if you drop it.

You get to choose between various different programs using Exposure's Optimised Mode Selector system. You just press the function button until the LED flashes once to select mode one, press it until the LED flashes twice for mode two, and so on. Simple. The light remains in the mode you've selected until you change it, no matter if you turn it off or recharge it.

You don't need to remember the details of each mode because they're written on the side of the body. Mode one is the brightest, giving you a six-hour run time with constant light or 12 hours if you prefer it to flash. The figures for mode three are 24 hours and 48 hours respectively.

On top of those, you get two of Exposure's other existing functions, ReAKT and Peloton, which you can turn on or off.

ReAKT means that there's an accelerometer tucked away inside that makes the light flare up to 150 lumens when you brake. I wouldn't say I've ever felt that bikes need brake lights, but it does work well to draw extra attention from other road users when you slow down.

The ReAKT tech also allows the light to 'intelligently adapt to the surrounding ambient light conditions to maintain maximum contrast and visibility', according to Exposure. For example, if you turn from a dark area to a road with streetlights, the LED brightens to keep up the contrast. Again, this feature works really well.

The Peloton feature is designed for group riding at night. Essentially, the Boost-R recognises when there's a front bike light right behind you and automatically dims. The idea is to prevent dazzling in a chain gang, the auto-adjustment working to keep the rider behind happy. The light resumes its usual intensity when the front light is no longer there – so when you're at the back of the pack.

Exposure says that the light sensor is 'tuned' to reduce lumen output only when a light is directly behind it, and then it only reduces to a level that's still visible to traffic, so there's no danger from car headlights.

It's not going to make or break the deal for most people, but Peloton is a nifty little addition – especially given that the Boost-R is very bright in its upper setting.

One more thing to note on the functioning of the light itself is that you get a fuel gauge that tells you how much juice is left in the battery. Each time you turn the light off, it'll glow for a few seconds, the colour indicating whether you need to recharge or not.

Speaking of recharging, that's done via a Micro USB charge cable that comes in the pack. The port is positioned below a tight rubber ring that sits towards the head of the light so no water can get in.

The Exposure Boost-R comes with an IP65 rating, which means it's dust-tight and that water projected by a nozzle (6.3mm) from any direction will have no harmful effects. In the real world, I've been using this on every ride over the winter, including plenty of wet ones, and no water has got inside.

The Boost-R fits to your bike via a quarter-turn mount that's held in place by a stretchy rubber strap. As with something like a Garmin computer, nothing happens if you just try to turn the light on the mounting. You need to push it inward slightly and then turn in order to remove the light, so it's virtually impossible that it'll ever come out accidentally.

In reality, I rarely took the light out of the mount, I just removed the whole thing from the bike when it was time for recharging, mount and all. It's a two-second job to remove or replace the rubber strap, so it makes little difference.

Value

There are certainly cheaper rear lights out there (if you want to go really cheap, the Prime 360 Super Bright Rear Light that Shaun reviewed is currently £9.99 on Wiggle) but the Exposure Boost-R is far from a bog-standard blinky. The materials and build quality are high and it's made in Britain.

On top of that, the ReAKT technology is really strong and the Peloton feature could be useful to you too. All of this elevates the price. Personally, I'm happy to pay a higher price for something if I'm getting a higher quality and performance. That seems reasonable, so I think that the Boost-R offers decent value.

Compared with other lights from the Exposure stable, the Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton has twice the runtimes of the equivalent TraceR and costs £25 more. I'd say that's worth it, and I certainly think it's a better proposition than the £115 Exposure Blaze MK3 ReAKT + Peloton that offers very similar technology.

Overall, the Exposure Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton is a great little light. It's bright enough to get you seen whatever the conditions, you can select from a range of different modes, and the ReAKT and Peloton features are genuinely useful rather than gimmicky extras. Add in excellent materials and build quality and you've got yourself an outstanding light that should last you years.

Verdict

Excellent rear light with impressive runtimes, a high build quality and useful features