Gloworm X2 MTB light review

Gloworm X2 MTB light review

Tough and practical lights the way

Our rating

4

229.00
180.00
290.00

Published: November 5, 2017 at 10:00 am

Our review
One of our favourite compact, customisable lights gets significantly tougher for this winter Buy if, You want a small light with a lot of performance and custom-tuning potential

Pros:

Compact but powerful, long-running and very adaptable

Cons:

Short remote cable and slippery hardshell battery can be a faff to fit

Gloworm has been evolving the extremely adaptable X2 over the years and this latest version of the neat twin-LED unit is the toughest and most practical yet.

The most obvious improvements in this incarnation are the cables and their junctions, which were a previous weak point. The wires themselves are now properly stout with robust connections to the light-unit itself, the wired remote and the boxy battery.

It’s supplied with an extension cable and a helmet clip-mount so you can stick the sub-100g head-unit on your lid. There’s also a GoPro-compatible mount that can be bolted in place of the default 25.4/31.8mm bar mount. In this configuration it’s light and angle-adjustable enough to work with a helmet front or even peak mount too, reducing the chance of clobbering it on low branches etc.

Helmet mounting suits the default tightly focused, long-reaching and clean-edged 1500 Lumen output, as you can aim it to mitigate against the lack of peripheral coverage.

Change the beam pattern yourself by unscrewing the face plate and switching to the additional diffuser or spot lenses

Uniquely for any light we’ve tested recently you can change the beam pattern yourself by unscrewing the face plate and switching to the additional diffuser or spot lenses included. That makes it more useable with the offset, cam closed bar mount that centralises it over the stem for extra neatness points.

The main three-mode trail or two-mode commuter settings can be custom-tuned in incremental steps to give your ideal output/run time results.

The 6800mAh battery gives a generous run-time and recharging is much faster than most systems. Small LEDs set deep into the battery face make the five-stage run-time indicator slightly awkward to read, but it’s in there somewhere if you need it.

The cable for the wired remote is on the short side if you run wide bars, and the Velcro plinth needs careful sticking down to stay put. The hardshell battery with its stretchy strap can slide around on tapered tube frames, and we had to use a supplementary strap for guaranteed security on some bikes. Reliability has been excellent otherwise and it’s reasonably priced for such a comprehensive kit.

  • Weight: 340g
  • Run time (max power): 3hr 40mins
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