September Gear Review: Cygolite Metro 420

Each month, our friends at Hawley share a review on the latest gear that is passing through their warehouse on its way to your local bike shop. As always, thanks to Ken Klatte, Production Artist with Hawley, for this sneak-preview and words of wisdom. For more from Hawley on the latest and greatest in bike gear, check out their blog or YouTube channel.
 
One of the most reviewed cycling products are lights. Because lights come in all shapes, sizes and luminosity, the amount of review space devoted to them seems to be ever expanding. In keeping with this unsettling trend, this month’s product review focuses on a newly released light from Cygolite, the Metro 420!

The Metro 420’s name encapsulates the light’s capabilities in a nutshell. It’s meant for commuting and it produces a healthy 420 lumens.  Like most newly produced lights, the Metro 420 is USB compatible so you can charge it at your office desk as you check your Facebook instead of churning out those excel spreadsheets.  The charge time is 5 hours so don’t forget to plug it in during the morning. There are 5 different light settings (hourly run time shown in parentheses): High (1:40), Medium (2:30), Low (10:00), Steady Pulse (3:00) and Daylight Flash (25:00).  The low setting isn’t worth using and the medium setting seemed only worthwhile on city streets with low lighting. Anything genuinely dark needed the high setting for truly safe riding.

As with a lot of the Cygolite commuter lights, the Metro 420’s beam pattern produces a solid central beam of light and a large halo of diffused light that picks out peripheral terrain. The handlebar clamp is easy to use and once attached is easily one of the most stable platforms on the market. At a scant 110 grams, the Metro 420 won’t give you any handling issues. We had our doubts if this light was truly waterproof as Cygolite claims. The shell, while made of an indestructible alloy- plastic blend that was impervious to any physical abuse thrown at it, seemed like it would have issues with water seepage. After two unfortunate rides caught in freak thunderstorms, the Metro’s “innards” were bone dry and the light worked flawlessly. The Metro 420 is a sturdily constructed light made for the commuter who needs reliability and luminosity at a price that is affordable. MSRP is $74.99