The Seca Race is a lightweight contender, offering good power in a small form factor
This competition is now closed
By Alex Evans
Published:
The Light and Motion Seca Race uses the brand’s 2,000-lumen output head unit (146g) matched with a lightweight (197g) three-cell battery.
Fitted with a rubberised tool-free bar mount as standard, a Velcro-strap helmet mount is also included.
A hard-wired 127cm cable connects the battery and head unit, and the battery can be attached to the bike using a supplied Velcro strap, or clipped onto an item of clothing.
With four modes, claimed run times vary from 12 hours in the 500-lumen flashing mode, to 1 hour 30 minutes in its maximum-output mode. It’s controlled by a single head-unit mounted illuminated button that doubles as a battery indicator.
The system has an IP67 dust and waterproof rating and an FL-1 impact and submersion rating.
Four Cree LEDs create a 25-degree spread of light claimed to improve depth perception.
The single-button operation of the Seca Race makes it easy and quick to cycle through modes, where no long pushes or additional input is required to select outputs.
The button is backlit, which makes finding it on the move easy, but because it’s located on the head unit operating it is trickier.
Its simple strap mount is easy to fit to the bar and tighten up, meaning the light is quick to swap between bikes. However, the width of the strap and off-centre nature of the unit mean it takes up a fair amount of space.
Supplied is a helmet mount, but the Velcro straps are too long, which makes them hard to tighten, and I found they got stuck to the internal pads of my helmet.
The low weight of the head unit makes the light well suited to helmet-mounting, however, and a GoPro-style fitment is available separately if you don’t get on with the supplied strap.
A long Velcro strap for the battery makes it possible to mount it in various places. The strap secures to the battery by looping under a clip.
While the clip is perfect for securing the lightweight battery to clothing, it did slip round a little when attached to the bike’s frame.
With 2,000 lumens on tap, the Seca Race has plenty of power for blue and red-graded trail-centre style trails.
However, once things got technical, speeds needed to decrease to keep within the confines of the amount of light emitted, because some technical features, even within the beam’s focal point, remained in shadow.
There is plenty of light thrown down the trail, but much less spreads out to the sides.
That said, the beam cut-off to the sides is gradual and the general pattern of the light is broad, although the usability of that spread is limited by how much power the Seca Race puts out. A bit more muscle would do the beam pattern’s width more justice.
In the peripheries, because only so much light is on tap, context was limited, but not as much as for a light with a narrower spread. Downward light projection is limited, too, where going up take-offs or riding over crests plunges the backside of the undulation into darkness.
A white/blue hue improves the contrast and clarity of obstacles and features, providing a richly saturated field of vision, and thanks to its low-ish power output, it isn’t harsh and doesn’t cause any bleaching of colour.
In the run time test, the Seca Race lasted for 1 hour 27 minutes on maximum power, just three minutes shorter than Light and Motion’s claims.
Thanks to its light weight and small form factor, the Seca Race is well-suited to cross-country riding and racing, as long as the trails remain pretty tame.
If you’re only riding gnarly trails, you wouldn’t want to rely on it as your sole illuminator, but it would be a good helmet-mounted option paired with a more powerful bar-mounted unit. Cost is also quite high for the power available, limiting how highly it scores.
This year, we tested 10 of the best mountain bike lights that enable you to embrace the darkness and see riding after nightfall as an opportunity. Well-ridden routes become a fresh and exciting challenge after dark, and the crackle of ice under your tyres on a starlit night is a special experience.
Senior technical editor
Alex Evans is BikeRadar’s senior mountain bike technical editor. He started racing downhill at the tender age of 11 before going on to compete across Europe. Alex moved to Morzine in the French Alps at 19 to pursue a career as a bike bum and clocked up an enormous amount of riding. Hitting those famous tracks day in, day out for eight years, he broke more bikes than he can remember. Alex then moved back to the UK and put his vast knowledge of mountain biking to good use by landing a job working for MBUK magazine as features editor. Since working for MBUK, Alex’s focus has moved to bike tech. He’s one of BikeRadar’s lead testers and knows how to push bikes and products to the limit, searching out the equipment that represents the best value for money. Alex is also a dedicated eMTB rider, and still dabbles in racing of a sort, doing his best to top the Strava leaderboard on the steepest, gnarliest and twistiest trails the Tweed Valley has to offer – just for fun, of course. Alex is also a regular on the BikeRadar YouTube channel and BikeRadar podcast.
Sign up to receive our newsletter!
Thanks! You’ve been subscribed to our newsletter.
Already have an account with us? Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences
Would you like to receive offers, updates and events from BikeRadar and its publisher Our Media Ltd (an Immediate Group Company)?
Save 25% + Race Face Handlebar (worth over £45) when you subscribe to MBUK magazine
Get an Aqua Evo Rucksack when you subscribe to Cycling Plus magazine today!