mechBgon

My backordered Bontrager Flare3 taillight arrived yesterday.






From the product description, I initially thought this would be a 2 AA light, but it's actually a 2 AAA light.




The light has a pretty nice clip, tall and wide. The ON/OFF button is mounted on the top. It has an audible and tactile "CLICK." Its cycle is off, steady-on, flashing, back to off.




The light also includes a rubber-strap mount to fit non-round seatposts (e.g. Trek Madones), two sizes of round clamp-on mounts, and they've included a threaded hole if you want to bolt the light onto a reflector bracket.



The light has two large emitters facing the rear, and two smaller LEDs that aim sideways. All of them are red. The big ones are claimed to be 1/2-watt emitters.



The beam pattern is, uh... unusual. I bet the BBC could use this on the Doctor Who set somewhere. EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!



In steady mode, the light runs just one of its two main emitters, and doesn't run the side-facing emitters at all. I suppose they don't want to use both of the big emitters at once because it would result in short runtimes, but I would've at least added the side emitters.



In flashing mode, the light blinks one main emitter, then multi-flashes the side emitters, then blinks the other main emitter. Since it never fires both main emitters at once, there is no logical reason for it to have two of them (other than marketing, of course). Visually, I don't think the flash pattern is as noticeable from the rear as the ubiquitous SuperFlash, which double-strobes the main emitter. It does seem a little more noticeable than a SuperFlash from the side.

rfomenko

Nothing special from what I see. Sorry MechBgon. I'd send it back for refund unless you need it for your collection For $29 you can almost get two Superflashes. On the other hand, enjoy your new DiNotte! I saw a Very bright yesterday on a bike path & it was the 400 version. It was a sunny day & it was Very visible from at least half a mile away. I am sure yours is not much different from that light & what I like the most is that it's self-contained with no hustle with wires, external pack etc....

mechBgon

I agree, the Flare3 doesn't look like a compelling value to me either. I gave it to a co-worker The next one I really want to test is the Cateye TL-LD560, since it has a pretty sizeable passive reflector and some sort of high-powered LED in the center, but they haven't shown up at our distributors yet:



If the output is good, this could be a nice all-in-one rear-rack light. I remember you also found the Serfas TL-SSR to be good for that, so maybe I'll order one of those so I can do a comparison.

rfomenko

Those Cateyes look very cheap to me. Also they're AAAs with half of the battery life comparing to Serfas & probably twice the price. IMHO, there is no reason that a rack light shouldn't use AAs. I mean the weight is not an issue there but the battery life is...