3 cheers for Lezyne

kevin bannister

Hi All,
Would just like to post a congratulations to Lezyne/Upgrade bike design and distribution for their customer service.

Last week after a year and 9 months of excellent service from my Lezyne Mega Drive front light, I tried to plug it in to charge the light, the USB port within the body of the light parted company from the PCB board rendering it useless.
A quick search on the web found Upgrade as the distributor for Lezyne. An email sent at 7.00pm in the evening to see if it could be repaired was replied to at 9.20am the following morning. Light posted to arrive Monday morning and today at 9.30am I received a brand new uprated light. Presumably the old one not repairable.

In my eyes a fantastic piece of customer service to go with a great piece of kit. The old version was 1000 lumens and the new one is 1400 lumens. I have always found Lezyne gear great but with this level of customer service will continue to buy their kit.
Just thought it would be nice to praise someone for a change instead of reading never ending slaggings.

Ps. Brooks cycles are still selling the 1000 lumem version "loaded" for £139.99 reduced from £199, where I purchased the light from originally.
Kevin

rowlers

I can add to this, bought a deca drive from their outlet store, one battery wouldn't fully = replaced, second battery wouldn't hold charge, returned for new 2015 version.
Awesome....

pippi_langsamer-2

I will also add my commendations for Lezyne & their distributor.

I lost a rear mounting bracket last year and they send me a new one gratis.

bendertherobot

I'll add as well. I failed to secure my mega drive. It jumped off on a dark path. The only damage was the tiny metal clip that fastens the door. They sent me two spares.

wishitwasallflat

Excellent service, and glad to hear you are happy - but there is another perspective on this ...

II bought a 1000 lumen torch for a fiver Dealextreme, after four years of sterling services if it broke I bet they would replace it for another fiver! Hundred pounds plus for what is just a 1000 or 1400 lumen torch!, if i bought one and it bust I would want them to come round to my house and apologise in person!

kevin bannister

Hi,
I am very happy with both light and customer service.

As with all things it comes down to personal choice. Chinese light outputs are renowned for being overstated to say the least (up to triple I believe) and the reviews I read before I bought the mega drive actually measured at over the claimed 1000 lumens and imagine the same will be the case for the newly uprated light.

I have owned Chinese lights and currently also own the Magicshine "mickey mouse" light which is also rated at 1400 lumens and is nowhere near as bright as the Lezyne, plus Megadrive has the advantage of not having a birds nest of cables and external battery pack.

I accept that the Dealextreme torches are all in one units but to my mind the quality is just not as good and also my personal preference is not to have a couple of actual torches stuck on my handlebars rather than a dedicated unit, but hey each to their own and the original post was more to do with customer service rather than the actual product itself.

I also prefer to shop in Sainsburys rather than Aldi and I'm sure there are instances where you would buy top of the range products and I would go with cheap and cheerful, but as it is were both content with our choices so happy days!!!
Kevin

MisterMuncher

They've replaced a few batteries for me gratis as well. Good products and good service.

My Micro+Macro drive set both need new buttons, though, so maybe I should try them again. Power Drive XL works as well as the day it was bought. My Femto Drive rear light, added as a secondary/backup, has now been in steady use for late night commutes three or four nights a week for 18 months. It's still on the first battery. I don't think I've owned a single bad piece of kit made by Lezyne.

Anonymous

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Excellent service, and glad to hear you are happy - but there is another perspective on this ...

II bought a 1000 lumen torch for a fiver Dealextreme, after four years of sterling services if it broke I bet they would replace it for another fiver! Hundred pounds plus for what is just a 1000 or 1400 lumen torch!, if i bought one and it bust I would want them to come round to my house and apologise in person!

How do they make a 1000 lumen torch to sell for a fiver?

Guessing they may have copied/stolen someone else's invention and then got some poor bastard (child?) to work 18 hours a day/7 days a week, in a death trap factory and payed them peanuts.

wishitwasallflat

Carbonator wrote:

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Excellent service, and glad to hear you are happy - but there is another perspective on this ...

II bought a 1000 lumen torch for a fiver Dealextreme, after four years of sterling services if it broke I bet they would replace it for another fiver! Hundred pounds plus for what is just a 1000 or 1400 lumen torch!, if i bought one and it bust I would want them to come round to my house and apologise in person!

How do they make a 1000 lumen torch to sell for a fiver?

Guessing they may have copied/stolen someone else's invention and then got some poor bastard (child?) to work 18 hours a day/7 days a week, in a death trap factory and payed them peanuts.

And you think Lezyne lights are made by well paid adults who are treated well and respected by their employers?

Sure the Chinese lights are cheap and (dare I say?) cheerful but the light output is determined by the led and the driver not the case, mount or branding. Anyway I only posted this cause I'm really glad that years ago I found someone's similar post about this and found the link to MTB Buying Guide before I spent a few hundred on lights.

kevin bannister wrote:

Hi,
As with all things it comes down to personal choice.

but hey each to their own and the original post was more to do with customer service rather than the actual product itself.

I also prefer to shop in Sainsburys rather than Aldi and I'm sure there are instances where you would buy top of the range products and I would go with cheap and cheerful, but as it is were both content with our choices so happy days!!!
Kevin

I agree each to their own and this was good CS my post was just to flag that you can get good reliable lights for way way less. These Chinese lights are indeed, as you say, often way overstated on output but all you need to do is check on the MTB Forum buying guide to get links to buy ones that aren't.


PS I also only buy groceries in Sainsburys and M&S I bought gloves for the kids in an Aldi cycle promotion and only ever shopped in LIdl for one of their fab bike stands that cost £30 instead of ....

but that's another potential argument I won't start

PPS I've got a Lezyne Micro Drive and a Cateye Rapid X on the rear but a cheap Chinese Knog copy on my helmet as I couldn't find a reccomendation for a cheaper option for a stay the feck back rear array!

Anonymous

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Carbonator wrote:

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Excellent service, and glad to hear you are happy - but there is another perspective on this ...

II bought a 1000 lumen torch for a fiver Dealextreme, after four years of sterling services if it broke I bet they would replace it for another fiver! Hundred pounds plus for what is just a 1000 or 1400 lumen torch!, if i bought one and it bust I would want them to come round to my house and apologise in person!

How do they make a 1000 lumen torch to sell for a fiver?

Guessing they may have copied/stolen someone else's invention and then got some poor bastard (child?) to work 18 hours a day/7 days a week, in a death trap factory and payed them peanuts.

And you think Lezyne lights are made by well paid adults who are treated well and respected by their employers?

Unless you know any different, then yes, I would think that the Lezyne lights are made by people that are happier, better paid, and treated by their employer than the £5 (after profit) ones.

You seem to be saying that just because the people who make the more expensive lights are low paid etc. that its ok to not give a fcuk about the people who make the really cheap ones.

wishitwasallflat

Carbonator wrote:

You seem to be saying that just because the people who make the more expensive lights are low paid etc. that its ok to not give a fcuk about the people who make the really cheap ones.

ABSOLUTELY NOT :!: IME short of buying Fair Trade products or from genuine very small scale artisan producers all mainstream market products are made under the capitalist ethos which is predicated on the exploitation of workers for owners/ shareholders profits. I doubt Lezyne are very different but I am happy to admit I don't know for sure.

I think the Chinese cheap lights are cheap cause of a combo of mass production of interchangeable parts ( torch bodies, end caps, drop ins, drivers etc), and being made in a low cost low wage economy. It's why even high end carbon frames are rarely made outside of the Far East. If Lezyne are paying high wages to well treated workers and not paying dividends to shareholders that do feck all but invest money or a few wealthy owners that's great. I would be delighted to find out that Lezyne (or any other bike or component manufacturer) turns out to be a workers co-op which invests its profits in supporting communities in the under developed world - and that's why they charge over a hundred pounds for a 1 k (odd) lumen light - but - AFAIK they aren't and so I don't see a substantive difference between what they do and what all capitalists do (even the latest Chinese ones!).

PS As a low wage exploited worker myself (by UK standards of course I'm not saying I'm poor by sub saharan standards) there is a huge difference in £100 here or there for me. So paying that kind of money extra for comparable function is - sadly - not an option for me but good on those who have the good fortune to have money to spend on nice stuff and not have to go for cheapest options; and if, on principle they also buy only from ethical companies all the better.

northpole

Full marks to Lezyne and their distributors for providing such good customer support.

I'm rather fond of my Hope lights - I've heard they too have great customer service however, after several year's use, they've never gone wrong (I may regret making such a statement!!).

Peter

pippi_langsamer-2

(Scratches head trying to figure out how this turned into a supermarket/ ethics debate...)

How Far is too Far

I have just sent them an email as I have an 11 month old Deca drive which has a fault when charging, hope I get the same service as the OP.

Thanks for the heads up.

MisterMuncher

Further: They've offered to replace the buttons for free, and give a look over to my micro-drive, which has the charging LED stuck on. It doesn't affect function in any way.

That's the guts of 2 years down the line, with no proof of purchase.

diy

I've always been very happy with my Lezyne products, however, I'm highly suspicious of a manufacturer that claims an output but refuses to specify the LED powering the light or even the capacity of the battery (2*18650). It can be computed reasonably well. It seems to be 3 CREE XM-L T6 (possibly the older XP-G). If anyone has one let me know if the LEDs are round or square.

my calcs are:
1:15 run time at 1400lm
3 LEDS 467lm per LED
cell 5.2Ah = 4.2A per hour = 1.38A per LED

Its a pretty smart design for a road bike light, though personally I'd be looking at more than 2 18650 cells to drive 3 LEDs. to improve the run time. It will perform broadly as well as 2 £5 torches. Noting that you have to get your own 18650s a charger and a mount for your budget. Tbh for the Extra £100-120 its not a bad light.

with a bit of sticky tape a wire and 3rd party charger I reckon you could get the output and runtime up by about 10-12% It would be even cheaper/easier with the super drive.