Chasing the Right Tail Light

My rule for lighting on a bike: it either earns its place in the design, like a big rally light, or it disappears, like a motogadget pin or a mo.blaze ten. Tiny to the point of invisible, until you flip the switch.

Tail lights break that rule a bit. They’re on constantly, not flashing for a second like an indicator, so they never fully disappear. I also don’t want to split the back of the bike into three focal points with a 3-in-1 unit. One light, as small as possible, but still very much there when it matters.

The three candidates

Denali B6, my current light and years of trouble-free use. Six 1W LEDs: 6W (0.5A) braking, roughly half that idling as a tail light. 870 raw lumens.

Denali T3, a switchback pod I’m eyeing for how it might sit in the fender I’m building. Per pod: 0.7W (0.06A) running, 3W (0.25A) braking, 870 raw lumens.

Highsider Stripe, genuinely tiny, about the size of a stick of gum. The closest thing here to the motogadget-pin philosophy. Around 1W (~0.08A) running, 2W (~0.17A) braking. No published lumen figure.

Where I’ve landed

Torn between the T3 and the Highsider. On paper the Highsider should win on staying out of sight, and it’ll integrate into the fender far more easily. But mounted side by side on the bike, the tiny Highsider doesn’t actually read as less visible than the T3. Past a certain point, smaller stops buying you anything.

So it mostly comes down to the fender: how cleanly I can get the T3 to sit in what I’m building versus how easy the Highsider makes that same problem. The B6 stays the benchmark either way.