Some other innovative bicycle lights have come across my computer screen. I haven’t tried any of them, but they are worth considering if you’re in the market for such a thing.

Magicshine bike taillight seems to be in a similar vein to the Dinotte light. It has a 3-watt LED, O-ring attachment and external battery pack much like the Dinottes. I haven’t seen one in person, but it seems like a less-expensive imported light that may be nearly as bright. The downside that I see is that it runs on 4 18650 batteries, which are a little obscure to find. I do believe they are available in rechargeables, though, so you could make it a one-time purchase.

This light isn’t strictly a tail light. But it adds spectacular visibility to a bike in a very unique way. They’re not cheap, but not outrageously expensive for what they offer. Give ‘em a couple years and Wal-Mart will carry them and get the price down to $10! They are a commercial product that is an outgrowth from a Make Magazine series of projects called Spoke POV (for persistence of vision) that draw an image in the air using the wheel’s rotation to move them.

Make Magazine Online describes one such project as such:

This project consists of three circuit boards with a row of 32 LEDs on each (actually 64 LEDs because they’re double sided). The circuit boards are mounted radially in the spokes of a bicycle wheel and batteries near the hub supply power to them. The LEDs are controlled by a microcontroller that measures the rotational speed of the wheel by way of a hall effect (magnetic) sensor. As the wheel rotates, the microcontroller turns the individual LEDs on and off in such a way that a static image appears to float inside the wheel.

Another similar product is available at Hokey Spokes. Kits are available for the DIY types at Adafruit Industries as well.

A new and promising tail light coming out soon is called Lucid Brake. This looks like a standard bike tail light at first, but with one important difference: it functions as a brake light. Some kind of sensor inside the unit (probably an accelerometer chip) detects when the rider applies the brakes and goes from the standard flashing mode to full-brightness solid red. And it does it without any external connection to the brakes. There are a couple other bike tail lights that function as a brake light, but they need a kludgy switch added to a brake to switch the brake light.

This light isn’t available yet, but looks like an instant hit when it does. The brightness looks good, still commanding some attention even in daylight and the brake light really stands out, as it should. They’re recruiting dealers now and promise to start selling it through home shopping channels first. Eventually, it should get to retail stores.

One thing these lights all show, one way or another, is that new technology is reaching into even everyday items. Whether it’s a super-bright LED instead of the old, anemic ones, to circuits powered by sophisticated microprossors (the Spoke POV lights are Arduino-based) and sensors, they show how cutting edge technology improves mundane products when applied in innovative ways. Even improved battery technology, like the Sanyo Eneloop makes these lights practical.

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A very short video of the two taillights on my trike. The one on the left is the Dinotte 140R and on the right is the Cateye LD-1100. Despite having six rear-facing LEDs, the Cateye is outshone by the Dinotte. The vertical streaks are artifacts from the lights overpowering the video camera. (It’s a good still camera, but a very mediocre video camera.)

But the artifacts are interesting in themselves. Notice the Dinotte’s streak turns into a dotted line while it is in it’s dimmer phase. This tells me that they are pulsing the LED on and off to reduce the brightness by lowering the amount of time it is on, or duty-cycle. This is a very good technique with LEDs that ensures consistent operation overall.

I’ve added a set of panniers (luggage bags) to my trike. I hope to go off and do some camping/touring with it. Along with the bags, I picked up some camping gear.

The panniers are made by a company called Arkel. They’re in Quebec, but have a U.S. office in Vermont. I ordered them online and they arrived in just a few days. The model I chose are specifically tailored for recumbents and are lower and wider than traditional panniers. They are also angled to fit behind the slope of the recumbent seat. With only a couple minor adjustments, they fit perfectly and very securely on my rear rack on the trike.

I hated to have to buy them, but I got a tent and sleeping bag. I already have a tent and we have a closet full of sleeping bags. I have one I really like that I bought a number of years ago, but is still in great shape, but it’s just too big and heavy to put on the bike. Same thing goes for the tent, a 3 or 4 person tent that I’ve used both alone and along with the pop-up camper we have.

Touring on a bike, recumbent or regular, is like ultralight backpacking. There is a limit to how much you can carry. The backpacker just has a smaller number, but the same principles and a lot of the same equipment apply. I’ve been doing a lot of research and reading online about it in preparation.

So, I bought a 2-person tent that packs up into the tall, cylindrical bag on the back of the panniers. It detaches and is held on by velcro and straps. I took the tent right out of the bag that came with it and put it into the Arkel bag. Just to be sure, today I took the tent out, set it up, and then packed it back up to see how hard it would be to get it to fit back in the bag. It fit, no problem. Snug, but no more than the new tent was. I’d hate to go out the first time I used it and find out I couldn’t fit it back into the bag, or worse yet, find out I couldn’t figure out how to set it up. (It was really easy, similar to my other tent, but even easier and half the size.)

I bought a two-person size tent on the advice of articles I read. A two-person tent is pretty uncomfortable for two people, unless you’re really chummy. But it’s a perfect size for one person if they need to drag their gear inside out of the rain. I’ve been there with the bigger tent and even then the extra room was nice. I once spent a couple days camping in Ohio where I was in it while it rained. So, a camping gear tip – buy a tent one size bigger than the number of people you think you need.

The sleeping bag was similar, but instead of getting a bigger size, I went smaller. I opted for a lightweight, 30 degree, mummy style bag. I usually like a rectangular bag, but the mummy type is smaller. A 30 degree bag is warm enough for the spring/fall, but way lighter than a zero-degree winter bag. Most of my camping will probably be in the summer anyway and often, I end up laying on top on the bag anyway. Might as well save weight and size. The bag weighs only about 2 lbs. and rolls up really small. Once in it’s stuff sack, there are straps around it that you draw down on and it compresses it even more, squeezing air out until it’s about the size of a small watermelon, or smaller than a basketball. It fits inside the pannier main compartment easily with lots of room for more things around it.

While I was at it, I ordered some cooking equipment. I ordered a small ultralight multi-fuel stove – really a burner that you sit a pot on top of. It’s enough to heat canned food, or boil water. You can’t cook a steak on it, unless you cut it up into a stew or something. It’s intended to run on white gas mainly, but can work on unleaded gasoline, or even kerosene by changing it’s nozzle. It’s made by MSR and it’s kind of the standard stove of it’s type. I got two fuel bottles to go with it. One is probably enough, but I thought a spare might be good to have. They sell mainly two types of small stoves. One works on liquid fuel and is the type I got. The other works on canisters of gas (well it’s liquid inside, but boils off into vapor to burn) like propane or butane. The butane stoves are pretty common and popular, but I didn’t want to have to find a camping store every time I needed a refill. The canisters are garbage once they are empty and I didn’t like the idea of a non-reusable container as well.

Well, I had just as hard time finding the white gas camping fuel, commonly known as Coleman Fuel for the most common company that sells it. I was a little dismayed, after choosing this type of stove, that the camping stores didn’t have the fuel. I used to see it everywhere. Maybe it’s a fire hazard problem. Maybe they have it but keep in in a special place and you have to ask for it. I don’t know, but I was relieved to find it at Wal-Mart. There is a Wal-Mart almost anywhere you go. You might need to buy a gallon, but you’ll be able to get it. Of course, in a pinch, you can use unleaded gas, and maybe that’s what people do these days, but they caution you that that is not as clean as the white gas and will require maintenance of the stove sooner.

Of course, I had to try it out, so I filled my fuel bottles and set it up out on my deck. I read the instructions as I went and had no trouble getting it to work. I put a pan of water on it an brought it to a boil in just a few minutes. I think it actually worked better than my kitchen stove! Lighting it involves letting some liquid fuel run into a little cup with a wick in it at the bottom of the burner. You light the fuel in the wick and it flares up in a fireball! But it’s necessary, because the whole thing works by heating the liquid fuel before it comes out the nozzle so that it vaporizes and once heated, you are burning a gas. It quickly settles down and turns into a ring of flames coming out of a burner, much like a home gas stove. I wasn’t too surprised by this, as I have built and experimented with a small alcohol penny-stove recently and it works in a similar fashion. If you’ve ever seen a big, two-burner, Coleman camp stove that you prime the fuel tank by pumping it, you’ve seen the same principle.

Along with the stove, you need cookware. I know, it never ends… I bought a set of pans, dishes and cups also from MSR. I got a set for two people. Same principal as the tent, get one extra. Actually, a set for two people is no larger than the set for one. I can always leave parts of it home. But it all nests together and everything fits inside the larger pot and the handle folds and holds the lid on. I stuffed it all inside the stuff sack that the tent came in along with a few other things I picked up for my kitchen – a silverware set that locks together, a small salt/pepper/other shaker. I put onion powder in the “other” side. Even a couple small “GI” can openers. I have to remember to add a couple BIC lighters. It would be embarrassing not to have a way to light the stove!

The only thing I haven’t bought and plan to reuse is a mattress/cushion. I’ve found I’m not a pine needles/twigs person and can’t sleep on the hard ground without something. I have a nice self-inflating mattress with an inflating pillow on it that I plan on using. It’s a bit big. Actually, it’s bigger than the tent is, but I’m gonna roll it up and strap it on the back of the bike. I don’t care how big it is, or if it gets wet if it rains (it’s plastic, rain can’t hurt it.) I’m not going to compromise on my comfort! I have a couple eggshell-foam pads too, but they just don’t roll up and compress much, so they’re out. They’d also be big sponges in rain. I have a closed-cell foam backpacking pad that rolls pretty small that would be a better fit, but it’s just not enough.

So, I loaded all this into the panniers. I also have a rain jacket and pants inside as well as some empty dry sacks, some spare straps and things and a flashlight. I lifted it all and, Wow! – it was heavy. I still don’t have any clothes or food in there. But just to see how it would be, I put them on the bike and took it for a short spin. At first, it was a little harder to pedal, sort of like going up a hill, but actually, I was going up a hill, I live on one. Once I got a ways down my street, it seemed pretty normal. I didn’t have any trouble pedaling from a stop, or getting up to speed. Stopping did seem to take a little more pressure, but that’s to be expected. I’ll have to be a little careful going down hills, although I didn’t have any trouble going down the small hill I took going around a couple blocks near my home. Coming back up the hill on my street seemed no worse than it usually does, just shift to a lower gear and keep pedaling.

I did increase the pressure in the back tire to 100 lbs. I had been using 80 lbs. in all the tires. That has seemed to be a good pressure without a load, but I thought more would be a safe bet in the back. I’m considering a larger (wider) tire for the back as well.

So, that’s the status on that. I will have to plan a weekend or short overnight trip as a shakedown trip soon. It should be fun. It’ll definitely be a learning experience.

I had seen some lights that were really bright, so much so that they are actually of use in the daytime. I went in search of one online. It’s really hard to get real information about how bright these really are. You can see photos or watch YouTube videos, but because cameras adjust to the light available, they all look blindingly bright individually. Only side-by-side comparisons are useful. They’re hard to find, though.

Typical generic LED tailight You’re probably familiar with lights that look like this. I’ve had dozens of them in the past and recently threw away a bunch that had quit working and couldn’t be revived by new batteries. Some are good quality, others are cheap knock-offs, but they’re all about as bright as the other. I bought four of them a while ago for $1.25 each at a flea market.

Bellsports Spider Flasher I found these lights for sale in Wal-Mart and bought a pair of them for the trike. I put one on each side of the back of the seat and was pretty happy with them, even though it took several strips of old inner tube and electrical tape to make the mounting bracket fit the smaller tubing on the seat. It’s sized to fit on a conventional seatpost.

They have one bright LED and a plastic thing that channels some of the light out the sides for a wider angle. Sort of a light-pipe. The LED is bright, but not daylight bright.

Cateye TL LD-1100 I had read a lot of comments on this light in some cycling forums about how good it was, so I ordered one the next time I put an order in to a bike supply.

The TL LD-1100 is really two LED flashers in one case. There are two rows of LEDs and two switches to control them. There are five or six modes the flasher can operate in and because they are independent, you can have each row use a different pattern. This is good because there is some controversy about whether a flashing light throws off depth perception in the dark. You can have a solid light and a flasher all at once.

They also gave side visibility some thought too. There are side-facing LEDs at each end of each row. The unit is solidly-built and feels nearly indestructable.

All that being said, I was really disappointed in the Cateye. It wasn’t bright at all. If you get right in line with the lenses molded in front of the LEDs, they might be acceptable, but from other angles, it’s merely mediocre. For one thing, the plastic seems to be dark and the LEDs just aren’t that bright. They could improve it by putting a good 1/2 watt LED in the middle of each row, but didn’t.

Update: It seems that I was wrong. It turns out the batteries, two brand-new Duracell AA Alkalines, were the problem. One of the two, brand-new, cells was bad, so it was operating off only one cell! I put some other batteries in the light and it was blindingly bright after that. They were the batteries that came with the light. I also tried two other new alkalines and got the same, bright, results.

I had planned on putting it on the reflector bracket on the bike’s rack, but the screw provided was too long for the thin bracket and the screw broke the plastic boss off the back before it got tight enough to hold it. I put the belt clip on it and tried it on the strap on the back of my trunk bag, but the weight of the light made it point downward and it was useless. I put it on the back of the seat, but the bar goes at an angle and it looks weird. The LD-1100 is really meant to sit horizontally because of the small side-facing LEDs. I’ll have to make a bracket for the rack.

The LEDs are not quite as bright as the 1/2 watt Planet Bike one, but all-together, they are at least equal. I can see now why this light was highly recommended in the online forums I read.

Planet Bike Super Flash Ultra Bright I picked this light up at a local bike shop as a headlight/taillight combo, but it’s sold widely as just a taillight as well. It’s marked as having a 1/2 watt LED and I think that’s a good balance between brightness and battery life. I don’t know what that translates into in Lumens, but it’s hard to look at.

This light is bright enough to be an asset even in daylight. The top LED is behind a clear lens that spreads it’s beam out in a cone to the rear. There are two dimmer, but still bright LEDs below that. In blinking mode, they alternate with the bright one, so that the light is always illuminated. A steady mode uses just the top, bright LED.

You have to see this to believe it. When on steady, it makes the whole red plastic case just glow. It really stands out, even in daylight, to drivers approaching you from behind. Mission accomplished!

The headlight isn’t bad either. I mounted it on a Minoura Swing Arm just above the pedals (out in front on a recumbent) and while I haven’t ridden at night with it yet, it’s handy to have on even at twilight or on a shady road on an overcast day. It also has the choice of steady or flashing mode and I think the flashing mode is very useful to be seen. I’ll save the steady mode for when it’s actually dark.

Princeton Tec Swerve LED Taillight I haven’t actually tried this light, but it looks to be just as bright or brighter than the Planet Bike one. It claims to have two 1/2 watt LEDs in it, one focused and one diffuse. Seems like a good combination. It has a mounting system that consists of a stretchy rubber band, sort of like an O-ring, and a piece that looks like it can angle in any direction. That would be a real asset on the back of the trike seat where the bars go at some complex angles.

Dinotte tailight For the ultimate bright taillight, you have to consider the Dinotte 400R. A friend told me about them on a club ride and from everything I’ve read, they are the way to go. Dinotte makes a whole line of super-bright bicycle lights. They all operate from a battery pack mounted on the bike somewhere with a wire to the light. Their philosophy seems to be to blind the driver of an overtaking car so that they avoid you…

At nearly $200, I think I’ll pass and not piss off any drivers.

The Bicycle Man shop

I took a trip yesterday to Alfred Station NY to visit a bike shop. I know I could have found a bike shop closer to home, but not one like this. This was The Bicycle Man, a shop whose simple name gives no clue to the rare and special product they have.

Just as an idea how special this is, I visited the largest bike shop in my area last week, a mini-chain with four stores, and out of the hundreds of bikes they had on display, they had only one model of a recumbent!

The Bicycle Man, you see, specializes in recumbent bikes, those laid-back, weird-looking bikes you might have seen on TV, a movie or rarely in real life. I had been wanting one for a long time and finally decided to try some out. This shop is a rarity in that they almost don’t want to sell you a bike, unless you try several out and are sure it’s right for you. It’s really cool that they spend so much time making sure the customer is happy before they take a dime. I spent most of the day there, and there were several customers besides me who also spent considerable time trying things out. Some went away without making a purchase. Maybe they will be back, but not until they are sure!

Inside the shop

Of course, there were locals there for the usual bike repairs, tuneups, and parts purchases, but they were in and out quickly. The recumbent shoppers were from all over. I was relatively close at about 75 miles. I met people from New York City, Vermont and Rochester. Okay, Rochester is closer than Lockport, but as one of the people at the shop said “the closer people are, the more they complain about how far they have to drive here.”

A museum in the rafters

They sell “regular” bikes, but the majority of their showroom is filled with recumbents. New and used, two and three-wheel. Every variation and almost every current company making recumbents was represented. And you’re encouraged to try as many as you want.

I rode four trikes, or three-wheelers and one two-wheeler for comparison. I had ridden a friends’ two wheeled recumbent once many years ago and knew I could do that. But I was really interested in the trikes. They’re fast downhill and as slow as you want going up. No chance of weaving or tipping because you’re going slow. And they are real show stoppers when people see them. That will take getting used to.

Peter, the owner, makes an adjustment

I had done a lot of research online. I kept coming back to the Bicycle Man web page, though, as it often had more information that I wanted than even the manufacturer’s sites. Things like honest opinions of each model’s strengths and weaknesses.

I knew about what I wanted to spend and thought I knew what I wanted. I just needed to confirm that with a real test ride. I was able to do that to my satisfaction and more there. I narrowed it down to two bikes I liked and felt comfortable on and took them each out for several rides. I finally selected the one I had eyed online in the first place, but was glad to have the comparison to be sure.

The TerraTrike Tour

I liked a ICE Expedition1 a lot. It was very adjustable and was a folder – a bike that could be quickly collapsed to transport or store. Unfortunately, that added a bit to the price. The one I ended up with, a WizWheels TerraTrike Tour, rode just about the same but didn’t fold up. Since I have a large vehicle, and will eventually work out a external carrying scheme, that wasn’t a problem. It fit in the back of my Ascender with the back seats down snugly.

The second one told me my account had been deactivated and that if I changed my mind and wanted to reconsider, all I needed to do was log back in. Too bad I changed that password…

The third one, was titled Facebook Service sent you a message on Facebook… and came from “Facebook Team.” Wow! Were they going to beg me to come back. Were they asking what they could do to make me stay? No.

This is what it said:

To read this message, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=156102208989&mid=6f888e491cd35db616b1089c9fe2d4da&n_m=facebook notify

Okay, so it wasn’t a personal message. Maybe it was something they wanted everyone who was quitting to see. Maybe about the changes they are making to correct the issues people have been complaining about. I had my hopes up.

Nope. It was a Viagra Ad. Canadian Pharmacy spam. Just one last shot to tell me I had made the right decision…

Incidentally, all the while I was a member in good standing with FB, I don’t ever remember getting a message like this that portrayed itself to be an important message from the “Facebook Team.” Guess I know what the “Team” thinks of me now…