Thanks for tuning in this is the Sweet
Cyclists and today we're gonna be looking at
the Fenix BC21R v2.0 bicycle
headlight. Here we have the Fenix BC21R
version two light in its
packaging
I want to thank Fenix for
sending this out. Fenix is a company that is
better known for their flashlights, but
they've sold a few bicycle lights and
just released this updated
BC21R this October 2019.
We'll go ahead and take it out of the
packaging. Looking at the specs of this
light its kind of a hybrid between a
flashlight and a normal bicycle light.
This updated version offers a 1000 lumens
and all metal light body. You get four light modes:
three constant modes and a blinking
mode. USB type-c charging, which is
really rare to see. Also there is a single
button interface with a battery
indicator, and the cool thing is this
battery indicator actually works when
the light is off which is a really nice
feature you don't typically see. You also get
this handlebar specific mount with
different spacers all for
$75 dollars which is what it's
currently listed for. If we go look at
the contents of the packaging we have
the user manual, which I'm sure everyone
reads, you get your warranty card and we have
a USB type-c charging cable. Again
this is a really nice feature that the light
industry has been slow to
adopt. Also ithere are different thickness
straps here made of rubber
for mounting to different
thickness handlebars and you get the spare
o-ring for the body itself in case the
other one wears out. I will go ahead and
take it off the mount, you
pull back here and then the light slide forward.
Here's the mount by itself, this is actually
kind of really cool as it is indexed so you
can rotate it a bit in both
directions. You get this pivoted mount
here and this bolt here so
no tools are required. If we look at the
light itself, there's a warning to remove
the divider on the inside. Let's
go ahead do that, the great thing about this
is with the flashlight
style it has a removal battery.
If the battery ever failed, you can just
simply replace it or for longer rides
you can carry a
spare battery. Here is the light head,
battery and the rear
battery cover. The battery
is a 2600 mAh Fenix branded lithium ion
battery that is
rechargeable, and you can also buy
additional ones of these like I said for
longer rides. We'll go ahead and
remove the little plastic insert here
and then reassemble it.
The metal light head
feels really nice and again no
tools are needed which is great. You just
rotate the back portion. Lets do a
quick weight check now, as everyone
always a weight weenie when it comes to
additional bike accessories. The light
head comes in at 116 grams,
the mount is 32 grams and that's with
the additional spacer that comes in the
packaging. Combined we're at
148 overall, it is really light and
small. It's primarily the battery and
then the light head. Alright now
let's take a little closer look at the
fit and finish of the light I'll do a
little 360 of the light.
What's really cool about this is it has
a dual beam design and you can see
the deflectors actually built into
the headlight. The upper 50% of the lens you have
these downward pointing deflectors which
will push the light down and
prevent people from being blinded and
give you more light on the road itself.
The aluminum lighthead has these
little raised portions that work as
heat sinks, the rear portion
is plastic and twists off which
is really nice. In the Magicshine Monteer
1400 review I did point out something
similar but they use a coin slot
style cap with a quarter degree turn to
unlock the rear portion. A quick twist
and it's open or closed.
If you go around, there is not much on the
rear end of the light.
Here we have the USB
Type-c port that might
be a bit close to the edge of the
mount. You definitely have to
remove it if you ever want to charge
the light.
Let's look at
the battery checker, what I really like
about this is that usually with these kind of
rechargeable devices you'll just run out
of battery randomly because there's no
battery indicator it just turns red
while you're riding, that's about it. With
this Fenix you can actually check it
so even though you don't have a screen
you just click once once off and then
the light color will indicate the
battery level those are really nice
feature and it's got multiple colors so
it has more granularity some of the
Magicshine lights I've used. Where 20% and above is one
color than anything below that is a
different color, which makes it difficult to
tell how much battery is left. This indicator has a lot
more granularity. Now let's look at the
mount itself, this is an all
plastic mount. And as I showed before, it
has this nice indexed rotation.
You can see there's a little bolt here
to prevent it from going off and it is
easy to use.
It comes with the
different straps here so you can see
they have a little raised cylinder
called portions that'll go into the
slots of the pad and the
mount. The mount is more sturdy than
the rubber straps that
we're seeing a lot now. This is a more
secure design and it's also toolfree and
it's the first time I've seen
this pivoting arm style.
The round portion here
where the bolt slots in and then rotated
sign down. Alright so now we're gonna
take a look at the mounting of the
Fenix light on a bike. Here
is the mount again, and the pivoting
rear part. You simply lift and
rotate this and then a little simple
clasp here to turn to open it and close
it. So I'll go ahead and put it on here
I'm using the thinner rubber strap
and secure the bolt underneath.
Then tightened down by hand,
really easy to
use we'll go ahead and grab the light.
You slide it from the front to the back and
and then release
the rear handle to secure it.
Note, you do see that there's a little bit of play
because this is a rotatable mount. That
is a nice feature but unfortunately
because of that in each position you get
a kind of a side-to-side play. This is one
reason most manufacturers don't do this
anymore.
If we compare this to the Eagle mount
from Magicshine you can see this one
requires a tool and it's a lot more
complicated. It also has a little bit of
play but not as much as the Fenix. We
can also see here that these
are really similar lights. This is a
hundred dollar, 1400 lumens
Magicshine Monteer 1400 with two
lithium-ion batteries while the Fenix
has only one 18650 Li-ion battery. The lights are
similar in length, with the batteries taking a majority
of the length. It's an interesting
comparison with a single beam the
Fenix is a lot thinner so it's a
little bit lighter and easier to mount
as well. Now let's look at the five
different output modes of the Fenix
light low is fifty lumens medium is 150
high is four hundred and turbo mode is
the full 1000 lumen output. In flash mode
the light alternates between 450 lumens and 50.
Note the camera makes the lower light
settings darker than they really are.
With the big jump in power there is a
clear difference between low high and
turbo and the dual beam design gives a
beam pattern a unique appearance looking.
Looking closer at the beam you can
see the beam light output is
concentrated below the horizon. The beam
cutoff ensures there's more light on the
road and does not blind oncoming traffic.
Riding with the light you can see that
the low and medium aren't sufficient for
riding in full darkness while the high in
turbo are bright and illuminate the road
ahead of you. However the light output is
more of a spotlight than a floodlight
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All right now let's go over some of the
pros and cons for the Fenix BC21R v2.0
light. I think one of the best
pros is he competitive price at
seventy-five dollars it's a really good
deal especially with a thousand lumens
and it also features a lot of high-end
type features that you don't typically
see like the USB type-c charging and the
battery indicator when the light is
actually off. Those are really nice
features that are great to see at this
price point. The other thing that's
really excellent about the light is the
dual beam design this has a built in
diffuser that prevents you from blinding
oncoming traffic with a beam cut
off. It's really nice to see this
especially at this price point. Some of
the cons I think are the single button
interface, even though they do a really
good job with this single button you can
cycle through modes without going
through flash and you can see the battery
when it's a the light is turned off with
a single click. You don't get the LED
screen you see with some
higher-end models which would show you
actual run time. The other thing is the
thousand lumens is limited to
turbo mode which has a limited
two hour runtime use.
Finally the proprietary design with the
mount kind of prevents you from easily
using like GoPro mounts or
interchangeable mounts that are more
common today. Now let's give the Fenix
BC21R v2.0 a final rating. I
think out of 10 I would give it a 9 out
of 10 it has a lot of high-end features
at a budget price like the USB type-c
charging the dual beam the replaceable
batteries. These are a great features,
especially at the $75 asking price. I
think the light really does a great job
of blending between a typical flashlight
with its form factor replaceable battery
serviceability and kind of a typical
bicycle headlight. Thanks for watching
this review don't forget to Like and
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reminding you to enjoy the ride.
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