Bontrager Ion / Flare 200 Daytime Running Lights

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by David Cohen
Maryland National Capital Park Police Reserve Unit

In the Gears & Gadgets column that appeared in IPMBA News, Volume 28, Number 3, the 2019 Board Issue, I discussed daytime running lights (DLRs) as both a tool for public safety cyclists and essential safety gear when riding off duty. The DRLs that I used as the basis for the column were the Bontrager Ion (front) and Flare (rear) RT bike light set.

The Bontrager lights can be purchased individually, but it is more cost-effective to purchase them as a set. The retail price for the set is $114.99. That is a fairly steep price, especially when compared to some of the DRL offerings found online. However, the quality of the construction, in combination with reliability and effectiveness under all conditions, certainly justify the price.

The Ion/Flare come packaged together with a single micro USB cable to charge the lights. This is a slight inconvenience, as the lights can only be charged one at a time and the lack of an adapter for a wall outlet limits your charging options to being at or near a computer. It’s more of a nuisance than a genuine hindrance, particularly since most of us have a few spare cables and adaptors lying around, but a cable that would enable both lights to be charged simultaneously would be a welcome feature, as would a wall adapter.

Battery life is monitored by a smaller LED in the unit. Anything above a 75% charge will give a green flash, at 25–75%, the LED flashes red, and below 25%, the LED becomes solid red. When the battery falls below 5%, the light goes to a low power mode, producing a minimum amount of light for about 30 minutes. Charging time is approximately two hours per light to full charge. The lights will give you 500 cycles to full charge before battery life begins to shorten, but with the run times available, these lights will likely last years before battery operation becomes unsatisfactory.

Mounting the Ion and Flare to the bicycle or a helmet is simple enough. They have a pretty typical rubber “watchband” mount, with a hook to secure it. The mounting band is large enough to fit easily around handlebars, seat posts, head tubes, and even the reflector mount on some models of rear panniers. Optional hardware is available to mount the Flare in the location for the rear reflector on racks and panniers, too. Regardless of the location, the lights are small enough that they cause little obtrusiveness into the bicycle’s normal operations.

The Ion/Flare each have a quick release feature that enables you to remove the light while the mount remains on the bicycle. The quick-release is the typical friction-type mount that employs a plastic tab to hold the light in place. It is very easy to use, but upon reinstallation, it is essential to make sure the plastic tab is fully engaged. Much to my chagrin – and that of my wallet – I learned that lesson when I glanced down during a ride, only to discover that my Ion had disengaged from its mount.

Once on the bike, the Ion/Flare provide a dazzling array of lighting options. Up front, the Ion has high/medium/low steady, day flash and night flash options; while in the rear, the Flare offers day/night steady, day/night flash, and a setting called “all-day flash”. Both lights have automatic settings that choose the proper lighting as determined by their onboard sensors. They can also be controlled by a transmitter remote as well as by some Garmin and Bontrager GPS/computer models. For people like me, who still embrace certain old-school technology, there is a manual mode that lets you choose specific settings. Switching between settings is simply a matter of pressing the button on the unit until you reach the desired one. The Ion/Flare will also remember the last setting when you power it up, so there’s no need to cycle through all the different settings to get to the one that you want.

For almost all my riding, I use the day flash setting. The Ion’s day flash produces a 100-lumen flash, with an amazing 12-hour run-time at that setting. Facing the rear, the Flare’s day flash setting produces a 90-lumen flash with a six-hour run time. The “all-day flash” cuts the lumen output to 45, but increases the battery run-time to match the Ion’s 12 hours. Such bright flash settings would be blinding to drivers at night, so the night settings considerably reduce the flash to only a mere five lumens for both the Ion and Flare. The run-times at the night flash settings are 30 hours and 15 hours, for front and rear, respectively. The point of these settings is simply to get drivers to notice you, not for you to be able to navigate. The Ion’s high/medium/low steady settings produce light outputs of 200/100/5 lumens, with resulting run times of 1.5/3/30 hours. I would not consider these to be sufficient for any kind of night cycling and would only consider them as a backup source.

The Flare has only a high/low rear steady of 25 and 5 lumens, with run-times of 4.5 and 13.5 hours. Personally, I almost always prefer a flash to a steady light under just about any circumstance, but the option is available for those with other preferences.

While the lumen output is the typical measurement used for lighting, beam pattern and focus are probably the more important aspects of an effective light. This is where the Bontrager units really shine (pun intended). The design of the reflective material in the LED housing, combined with the lens over the lights, yields a very effective lighting pattern visible at almost breathtaking distances. Trek claims the lights can be seen up two kilometers away (about 1.25 miles), and my real-world observations seem to confirm that, having detected these lights at distances of greater than a mile. For more information about the efficacy of DRLs, refer to the above-mentioned “Gears & Gadgets” column.

Being able to provide adequate lighting at distance doesn’t mean anything unless the lights operate reliably. The Bontrager Flare/Ion combination has proven to be exceptionally rugged and reliable in virtually any conditions. Temperature seems to have little effect on battery life, whether riding in 90+ degrees or all the way down to sub-freezing temperatures. The lights work reliably in wet conditions ranging from drizzle to a full-on cloudburst. Even vibration from riding in off-pavement conditions doesn’t faze these units. Bottom line is, as long as the battery has a charge, these lights are going to work, no matter what conditions you find yourself in, period.

There is no doubt that I am a huge fan of daytime running lights. I consider them to be as essential as a helmet and gloves for safe riding. Like any safety gear, they need to be of high-quality construction, durable, and reliable to be effective. Despite the minor nuisances with regards to the charging procedure, the performance and reliability of the Bontrager Ion/Flare 200 combo more than make up for those shortcomings.

David is a 12 year volunteer with the Maryland National Capital Park Police. When he isn’t riding or tinkering with bicycles, David can be found tinkering with vintage cars or World War II airplanes. An avid historian, David enjoys researching and writing as well. He can be reached at onyxsax@aol.com.

Photos courtesy David Cohen.

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