Hailing from Somerset, England, Custom Idea are on a mission to make the ultimate mountain bike lights, and their Tiger Lights have a number of features that deal neatly with our usual lighting quibbles.
The lamp units are chunky CNC aluminium and use high quality Cree LEDs, with a choice of spot or wide lenses. They mount with tool-free quick-release brackets.
A lightweight 2.5Ah lithium polymer battery is housed in a neoprene pouch with elastic Velcro strap, and an ultra-fast 90-minute charger is supplied.
Connections are solid click-fit sockets and on the back of each head unit is a six-LED fuel gauge giving, at a button-press, instant notification of how much juice is left. The soft switch works well with gloves and there’s a simple choice of high or low beams, with an emergency mode that kicks in when the battery’s close to empty.
Each lamp is rated at a maximum of 825 lumens, but we found running the single flood on low to be more than sufficient for all but the fastest trails. Fitting the second lamp and switching to high pushed out an astonishing amount of white light that scorched holes in nearby undergrowth and sent badgers and who knows what else scurrying for cover.
We were pleased to discover that the eight-hour low/2.5-hour high run times for a single lamp are conservative, squeezing nearly nine hours out at times.