Cyclingnews Verdict
Although the Magicshine Monteer 12000 has a night-shattering output, it doesn’t quite measure up when you compare it to a light like the Exposure MaXx-D with only half the lumens – it’s not twice as bright, and the light not as crisp. That said, with this much power on tap, you can ride as fast at night as you do during the day. And at under $500, you’re doing it for less too.
Reasons to buy
- +
Monster light output
- +
Light modes fully customizable using Magicshine app
- +
Solid handle mount
Reasons to avoid
- -
Not as bright as claimed
- -
Fiddly remote mounting
- -
Flimsy tool-free angle adjustment
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- Price: £459.99 / $499.99 / €495.99
- Weight: Lamp 300g, battery 897g
- Modes: High, medium, low, eco
- Lumen: 12,000, 6,000, 3,000, 1,000
- Battery: 10,000 mAh Li-ion
- Run time: 2.1, 7, 11.5, 37hrs
- Charger: USB-C cable
Magicshine has built a reputation for offering great-value lights for bikes, but it's been ramping up the power and tech in its more recent models.
The Monteer 12000 is the most powerful light the brand has ever made and is also the brightest bike light on the market. But how does it fare out in the real world, and does anyone really need a 12000-lumen bike light with twice the output as the brightest of its rivals? We tested the Monteer 12000 out on the trails to find out.
Design and specifications
Magicshine stacks five LEDs in the Monteer 12000’s aluminium lamp unit, combining a large central spot with four smaller angled units. The lamp has a simple on/off switch and you can toggle between the flood and spot beams or power up both.
To save you from reaching over to adjust, the light comes with a bar-mounted remote, which is already bound into the light. There’s a little bit of sequencing to access the different options, requiring you to double-press the remote to go from the flashing modes to the dedicated mountain bike modes, but once sorted, you can then toggle up and down quickly. To allow some further customisation, Magicshine also has a dedicated light app for both iOS and Android. You do have to reconnect the light each time via Bluetooth and the app is a little clunky to use, but you can do a full custom tune.
The lamp unit is mounted in a machined aluminium twin clamp, which straddles the front of the stem. It fits 35mm bars out of the box, but shims are provided for smaller bar diameters.
The cells that make up the 14.4V 10,000mAh battery are all housed inside a durable plastic case. This has a slight profile, so it sits relatively neatly against a frame tube and is secured via two Velcro-backed straps.
If you press the button on the side of the battery, it illuminates a small fuel gauge. This has four bars, which roughly equates to 22 percent for each bar, with the last 10 percent shown as a flashing red bar. This isn’t as accurate as a percentage figure, but it’s a bit easier to see when in the saddle.
On the end of the battery pack is an input for the power cable and another for the USB-C charging cable. The system comes with a 600mm cable and a 900mm extension in the box, alongside a plastic helmet mount and two mounting straps. So if you have the neck strength, you can run this beast on your helmet.
Performance
With its twin clamp, the Monteer 12000 is way more solid compared to the Monteer 6000, which uses a single-sided mount. This eliminates a lot of vibration and it’s also a hinged design, so you can attach it without moving the controls or grip. The fixing bolts are also on the top for ease of access.
By loosening the small lever on one side, you can pivot the lamp in the clamp on the trail – but unfortunately, we snapped this on our sample. There is a small hex bolt on the opposite side that does a similar job, but how long this will last is unknown.
The beam pattern produced by the Monteer 12000 isn’t quite as smooth as some, and there is a definite hard edge between the flooded areas and the spot beam. It’s not quite as white or as crisp as Exposure's lights, but picking out the detail is never an issue. The amount of light on full beam is insane, and you can see as far and as wide as you want.
In tight trees and dense undergrowth, there’s quite a bit of bounce back, so I often rode in the medium 6,000 lumen setting in the trees and on climbs. That way you can also extend the 2.2hr run time on full beam to over seven hours. The battery is big enough to do the whole of the night portion of a 24hr race on a single charge, but one of the downsides is it will take most of the rest of the day to recharge.
With so much power going into the lamp, it also gets pretty hot. To keep it as cool as possible there's an air intake at the front of the light and an exhaust port at the rear, as well as a couple of cooling fins. But if you’re worried, you can also monitor the temperature via the app.
The clamp design allows you to mount the lamp below the level of the stem keeping the weight low, but that tool-free adjustment needs to be a bolt, one that you can replace easily if damaged. I’d also like to see wider Velcro straps for the battery and a more integrated system for the remote mounting.
Verdict
With this amount of output for this amount of money, the Monteer 12000 is very impressive. If you’re hitting 30 to 40mph down a gravel road descent at night, its got your back on full power
However, from a purely practical point of view, toggling down to 6,000 or even 3,000 lumens means you can get seriously good run times, and that's how I use it most of the time. Plus, the lower settings mean you don’t have to battle glare bouncing back from objects ahead of you, and they are still bright enough for rapid off-road night rides.
