Blackburn Dayblazer 400 front and 65 rear review

The Blackburn Dayblazer 400 front and 65 rear lights sit in the brand's 'be seen' light category

Cycling Weekly Verdict

The Blackburn Dayblazer light set offers ease of use and fair performance (although the rear is better than the front) but they don't have the build quality of others on the market.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Rear light brightness

  • +

    Lightweight

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Rear light mount

  • -

    Would be improved with a more tactile button feel

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The Blackburn Dayblazer 400 front and 65 rear lights sit in the brand's 'be seen' light category

The Blackburn Dayblazer 400 front and 65 rear bike lights are a set from the brands 'be seen' category, putting out 400 lumens and 65 lumens respectively.

Encased within plastic bodies (as opposed to metal ones), the Blackburn Dayblazer's are able to withstand being dropped on tarmac and have the added benefit of being light, weighing just 59g for the front and 48g for the rear. However, they don't have the same machined build quality of rivals lights from Lezyne or Exposure.

>>> Best front and rear road bike lights

Both lights charge using a micro USB-C cable, and the set has the added benefit of coming with a two-headed cable so you can charge both lights from one port.

The front Dayblazer uses a standard rubber strap attachment, sitting comfortably on a round bar. It also has the added benefit of twisting on its mount so that it's easier to fit, turn out of the way or attach to different parts of a bike.

The rear Dayblazer has a built in clothes or rucksack clip that, while adding versatility, makes it difficult to sit flush with the rubber mount that's needed for putting it on a seat post.

The clip makes attaching the rubber seat post mount (not pictured) difficult

The rear light's output is very impressive and is easily the best of the two. Its two LEDs give the light a great spread, and on its highest flash mode it's brighter than its 65 lumen rating would suggest and has a decent three hour run time. In total, it has three modes, including a 'low strobe' mode that has a six hour runtime.

The front light's 'Blitz' mode uses the full 400 lumen capacity of the light although I didn't find its spread as good as other light's I've used, and it didn't illuminate street signs or other rider's reflective attachments as powerfully. In this mode, Blackburn says that the front light should last 1.6 hours and on my dark evening rides I found that to be accurate.

The rear light especially would be improved by a more tactile button that offers a greater amount of feedback when pressed because currently it's difficult to tell when riding if you've been able to activate it or not.

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