Exposure

Toro Mk6 Headlight

Great Britain-based manufacturer Exposure Lights are an example of a company that takes to heart its chosen tasks. The company's employees aren't just massively enthusiastic about things like heat-managing software and which types of alloys are best to utilize for various components of LED light construction, they are also enormously critical of their own products and in a relentless pursuit to ensure they are their industry's best. Knowing all this, it's easy to be as enthusiastic as they are in presenting lights like the Exposure Toro Mk6 Headlight, assured that all of its performance and features mean this light — if you'll forgive the pun — really shines.

Sure, there's the beautifully CNC-machined and laser-etched body, but let's start with a number: 1800. That's the quantity of lumens that the Toro is capable of producing via its 3 XML LEDs, which is more than double the average car headlamp. That's remarkably bright for a 232-gram light. Toggling those LEDs are various programmable light functions, available via the Optimized Mode Selector. An interface called Capacitive Switching means that the entire backcap of the light acts as a touch-sensitive button, making the changing of those modes easy, even if you're wearing thick winter gloves. And our favorite lighting feature? Reflex Technology, an intricate series of accelerometers and yaw sensors, not only accurately assesses your speed, but also your angle of travel. While trudging uphill, for example, the light is smart enough to reduce its beam, keeping your field of vision bright while conserving battery power and reducing the unit's heat output. Pointed downhill, the light will feel you rocketing over the steep terrain and open floodgates to light the way at full blast.

You'd probably think the Toro comes with a clunky external battery and dangling cable that you'll have to awkwardly tape or zip-tie to your frameset somehow, but you'd be wrong. Hiding behind the collimated lens that precisely disperses an even beam pattern, the Toro, like all Exposure lights, efficiently utilizes a compact, rechargeable internal Li-ion battery. Being entirely self-contained, it's a far brighter and lighter torch than almost anything else nearly as bright. The OLED Status Display, or OLS, not only gives a battery life countdown, it displays program and mode information, and while charging, lets you know precisely how much more time you'll need until the light is fully charged.

The Exposure Toro Mk6 Headlight comes in one size and one color only. It is rechargeable via included USB cable, and the light includes a quick-release handlebar mount that can accommodate virtually any handlebar diameter.