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A site about lugs, tan sidewalls, maybe jazz, classical, punk and bluegrass, local riding, worldly riding and people, cool cats, lame ducks, 110 bcds, wool, and smelling like hell after a long ride.

lights and nah

so here is my super quick guide to bike lighting, not really for you to read now, but more so you can ref it later, when i link to it and yeah.

our rambles end in the dark or the dusk, as a rule. people dont believe me when i say a ride is going to last 7 hours, even if it is only a 45 mile ride. you see, we eat, pant, bitch, get flats, warm up and freeze, and all that takes time. plus we are all slower than a potatoe growing spuds in a paper bag, so, we ride along at 6.2 mph, on average.

so: lighting. i think i am going to require it. because if anyone got smooshed on one of my rides i’d feel bad. and i’d have to scrape your brain up and put it in my sigg. and siggs are pricey.

next ride we do, you gotta have a head light and a tail light. one that you can actually see with. that means not a light that you cant see with. whats that mean? you need more than 1 watt o’ power, led or halogen. Also, tail lights. get a big bright one. those little watch battery ones dont crank out the jams.

what works? on the cheap and crappy end, those cateye halogen joints that eat batteries (the HL-MC200 is 2.4 watts and costs less than 20 bucks. get two?) on the high end of the led world, b and m’s new ixon light looks ugly, but is reportedly quite bright.  i have ridden with the cat eye el 50o, its better than most, but you need two to really see.  also, eats batteries.

up front, if you make, say 75000 dollars a year and have no constituents, and say, need a new front wheel, get a generator hub and halogen headlight.  super bright, on when you need it off when you dont.  90 for the hub, 40 for spokes, 30-90 for a rim, 30 for the headlight.

right.  so around back…  cat eye’s TL-LD1000 is retardedly bright, ask rob.  not that he uses one.  but his wife does.  cheaper but still good is the hasselhoff approved tl ld600.  its half the cost but bizarrely ugly and bulky.  which would explain why mark uses one.  planet bike also makes the ugly but brightest of the bright ’super flash’ supposedly the only tail light visible in the day time, and at night visi up to a mile.  30 bones to not get run over not bad…

if you do the generator thing, i can help, i’ve set up half a dozen different styles.  leave a comment and i’ll help you out.

3 Comments so far

  1. JINX January 31st, 2008 5:59 pm

    I really do like the Cateye tail light…I forgot to grab that when we left that morning…next time I’ll have it. I’m also in the process (still) of getting the generator front wheel and light from Jim Johnson who bought the other Castro Valley from FIX.
    Then I can run that on any bike I wanna….most likely the fixie.
    Which will one day be the dream build that it’s in the mail right now.
    Q

  2. JohnG February 5th, 2008 10:14 pm

    Tail-I keep the TL1000 cable tied to the saddlebag, with a 600 on the seatstay of the QB. Both nice and bright. I have a planet bike superflash on the geared bike seatpost. OBNOXIOUS bright. Great for riding alone or sweep, but when I’ve ridden with others who use it, it is kind of a pain to ride behind. I have some trek cheapo light as a 2nd on that bike. Redundency is your friend. Redundency is your friend.
    Head- I’m loving the new dinotte 600 LED. Bright enough for offroad and on. I keep a cateye 500 also. Long life, not so good on downhills, you can outrun the light. Some folks use two of these and seem to like them fine.
    Of course, none of these lights are any good at all when you forget what weekend the big ride is and miss it… Duh.

  3. JohnG February 5th, 2008 10:15 pm

    Oh, and you have to rig something up to keep the superflash from falling off the bike. The mount SUCKS.

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