As you all know, if you attend 5 trailbuilding days you qualify for a Hope discount. Hope Tech’s way of putting something back.
Some of us recently ordered Hope’s new R4 lightset for this winter.
I gave mine a go last night.
I have been using a DX torch on my head and a Vision 2 on my bars. Last night I just used the R4 on my head.
First things first, its a comprehensive box of goodies.
Very solid new bar mount. The light now plugs & twists onto it instead of being screwed in place. This means you can leave the bar mount in place and whip off the lamp unit.
Same for the adjustable helmet mount. Plug and twist the lamp onto the helmet mount and Velcro it into place. Fit the lead extension (straight, not curly) and drop the battery in your bag.
As usual for Hope there is even a web mount to use it as head torch for other things. So set up is easy. The battery needs a full charge and Hope insist on you plugging the charger and battery into each other before you turn on the juice. I have no idea why but I always do it 🙂 
So to my first impressions.
I’ll start with the bad.
The light has more settings than it needs.
You have 2 choices of pressing. Quick press = Race mode or Slow press = Trail mode. To start with this led to me finding the flashing mode too often in the house but I was unable to find it on the road!
No doubt this will turn out to be simplicity itself with use.
Once on the trails the light impressed. Nice and floody with no black spots or rings. I couldn’t really see any big jump from the highest setting to the next one down so that should help the battery situation.
Considering I normally use a bar light as well as a head torch I had no problems seeing the trail ahead. The spread is very good so it’s not like riding through a tunnel.
Like all lights it’s a little lost on open ground but get it into the tree’s and it’s brilliant.
And obviously it’s backed up by Hope’s legendary customer service.
Can’t wait to pair it up with my freshly modified TroutVision 2…but more on that later.
Edit: had a closer look at the switch set up and its very simple. As usual I was just being a numpty!