Lights

I don't understand why everyone doesn't just switch to bands?

No mounts needed.

Bands suck, but the fitting on my new Knog Blinder Road 3 is particularly good (so far).

Bands don't really work for rear lights unless you're mounting on your seatpost. And they still require a mount, unless it's a knog-style or something really small. When I take my lights off when I get somewhere, I don't really want to have to carry extra bulk in the form of a mount + band.

I've always found the Exposure system, on their cheaper lights, pretty good. The mount uses an elasticated strap, then you clip the light in. Means you can switch between bikes really quickly, but also remove just the light when you reach your destination.

I'm veering away from buying a Moon Shield because it's got one of those shit mounts. Weak hold, hard to move between bikes, easy to snap off. Would rather the (poorly received) Knog style band than that...

Band definitely works on smaller front lights quite well. It also works on rear lights if you mount it on a seatpost that is the correct angle it was designed for. The Shield looks like it has a band + a small adapter which lets you angle it, allowing for more placement options. Obviously if it's poorly made, that's another point. More permanent / sturdy brackets are need for bigger lights. I think the Cateye latching system is very robust, but the flextight fixing is just not rigid enough for my light (Volt 300) and I don't think a band would be either.

All in all, there's no "one size fits all" mounting method. I've just made a small improvement (IMO) to one particular method.

considering to buy new moon lights LX 100 and LX 70 for commuting (£29 each at Merlin).
aluminum body, CREE XP-E , rear haz 3 sizes of rubber straps and rubber pads, front two. replaceable Li-poly battery, USB rechargeable, Automatic fully charged cut-off system
good alternative to exposure tracer lights?

http://www.moon-sport.com/product-detail.php?id=117
http://www.moon-sport.com/product-detail.php?id=118

The exposure bands ( not just a ring, admittedly, but still a band, I never take them out of their mounts just take the band off each time) work on the straps of my bag, thin tubes of my rear rack, stays, seatpost and up to the handle off my baby seat.

Having mounts for each bike even at £2.50 a mount would cost £35, and then I'd still have to remove them from the polo bike as they'd get damaged, and the track bike if I ever rode it on the track. And the handlebar bag on the mtb would require a different mount and the baby carrying bike would require different mounts for when the baby seat is on.

Sorry @chiroshi, this isn't supposed to be in response to your mount which I'm sure is great, but to the comment about bands being crap generally.

Seems easier to just get a dedicated night bike...

I'm not saying bands are crap, (or do you mean Emyr's post?) they are great for smaller lights. I don't feel like my light, or anything heavier, would stay still with a band securing it.

I only have one bike which I regularly use, so having a permanent mount attached to the bike doesn't bother me. But as I said, there's never going to be a perfect solution that suits everyone.

Also, my adapter broke yesterday, turns out that plastic is too brittle / not strong enough to cope with the vibrations of handlebars! Unfortunately, I don't have the money / balls to get something tooled up and made properly. I'm sure there must be a solution somewhere! (Other than bands...)

So how about this, just for you @Khornight2 ?

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Might be the angle but looks like the back band grip is too thin, also I'd have the band catch go higher and cut away more so it sits more snuggley. Maybe like a cut out where you expect the band to go down the sides. You'll also benefit from something tacky/with high friction on the contact side of the mount.

But your comment about weight might be right. The exposure set I have are very small and light, maybe it's only so good because the lights are so light.

@andy_k has the right idea... Although I'd have to have dedicated night polo, night mtb, night track, night baby bike /tourer/cx bike...

It would be good if the bad grooves matched the shape of the band so it was less stressed.

What are you modelling with? Solidworks?

Nope, just designspark, a (not too bad) free software from RS. I've made a few mods, will try bigger cutaways for the bands.

I'm an engineer and design a lot of molded plastic parts so if you want someone to review it I'd be happy to help.

I use solidwork or Creo 2

Cool, good to know. I'm also an engineer (not mechanical), wanting to get a bit of practice at 3D design.

Unfortunately we only have 3 Solidworks licenses here, all being used full time. Wish I could have a play with that!

I don't know if it still the case but up to about 3 years ago it was possible to have one solidworks licence on two machines i.e. one at your work location and the other at your home location/ on your laptop.

I see that you can no longer do this.

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Like many I use SolidWorks on a desktop (most of the time) and a laptop (occasionally). For as long as I can recall, SolidWorks has let users install the application on the desktop and laptop and activate it on desktop and laptop. At any one time a user could have 2 activations running. This was convenient and (from my perspective) a USP for SolidWorks. I use other software where it is either locked down to a single machine, or dongled or you have to activate/reactivate a single license between machines.

Today I was setting up a new laptop. I uninstalled SolidWorks from the old one, ran the installer on the new one. Started up SolidWorks and tried to activate it. It failed - giving the error message I had exceeded the number of activations. Somewhat puzzled I called my reseller, who I know, can log into the SolidWorks activation server and turn off activations (as I had to do a few years back when a heard drive failed).

The reseller told me SolidWorks has changed the activation policy now. You have to transfer the activation from a desktop to a laptop and vice versa. This, for me is a totally backwards step. The issue is that when you are running in and out the office you can easily forget to do this, so when you get to the meeting off site, you find you have a dead app. Before it was simple, and reliable.

Does anyone know of any alternatives for an attachment of Blackburn Super Flea. At the moment and as it is originally comes in a box it attaches with a velcro strap, which is super flimsy.

Tempted to 3D print, but the light costs around £15, so not worth it.

Found this image, not sure if new front light comes with a new, proper attachment.
That would be ideal if I could get one somewhere.

This.

I really like the Exposure mount for their big lights too.

Any reviews/experience with cateye volt 300/700? Needed for 5am runs around Regents. Cheers

I've got the 300. Use it on my commute, battery last well, micro usb under a little rubber grommet on the bottom, even survived falling off my bike at about 20mph (my modified attachment failed). Only thing to complain about is the cateye "flextight" bracket.

Thanks. Was it bright enough to see by?

Plenty bright enough for commuting and i used it for london-brighton overnight aswell. Battery lasted the whole way on 'pulsed' mode. Would need a bit more (maybe the 700) for proper pace night riding on your own.

Pound shop stylee as seen in Mayfair.

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@inchpincher Sam's 99p store or you got ripped off.

Anyone have any ideas for cree front pannier/fork crown mounting? I'm getting setup for winter darkness and so exploring better options for mounting than a fight for handlebar space.