I got this light at the Adventure Guide members’ sale last week. It was regularly priced at $150 and marked down by 40%. I checked the price on MEC’s website. It was also listed at $150. The 40% discount means I paid about $89 for it. However, I had a gift card that my son gave me for Christmas and also had some Adventure Guide bucks saved up. The out of pocket cost to me was about $25. I’m not a fan of spending a lot of money on gear!
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The light straps to the handlebars and the battery easily straps to the bike frame. I had no trouble with mounting either component. The battery did not get in the way of my normal pedalling motion.
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I leave for work at about 7 am and get home around 5 pm. Because of lengthening days, I won’t use the light that much until next winter. However, this past week, I was looking for an excuse to ride at night, so I could really test out the Stella. My chance came Thursday night. I went out in the evening around 7:30, but I didn’t come home until after 11 pm. It was very dark! I love this light! The Stella is a huge step up from the light I have been using for the last couple of years. I am used to riding at night with a little 10 lumen light that I got from MEC a few years back. My MEC light plugs into a USB port to charge. It was around $10 to $12. I loved it, when I bought it, because I was tired of buying expensive watch batteries for my previous light. At the time, the MEC light was a step up. I used both of my previous lights to be seen, not to see. The Stella allows me to both be seen and to see.
At 300 lumens, the Stella is 30 times brighter than the lights I am used to using. I purposely rode down dark streets to see how well I could see. I was pretty impressed! Once I got the Stella pointed at a good angle towards the road, it provided a wide oval of illumination, that allowed me to see and avoid potholes, puddles and fallen branches. Here’s a pic of the Stella’s brightness, shining on my garage door.
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I read a few other reviews of the Stella. The only real knock that anyone had against it was battery life. One guy claims that the battery dies after about three hours of use. For my purposes, that doesn’t really matter. I’m not planning on riding over three hours a night. I’ll be able to recharge the battery quite easily. Of course, if I was planning on doing an all-night mountain bike ride, or a 24 hour canoe race, the light might not suit me. In that case, I would have been tempted to buy the 1700 lumen Seca, by Light & Motion, for a mere $470! For my purposes, the Stella will suit me just fine!
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