Lights

I attached silver baking foil (aluminum foil) to the strap of my bag, and a light just above it.
The foil catches light from car beams, and also provides a much larger "bank" of light, coming from my secondary red binking rear light.

So my 3-light set up is, 1 front, 1 rear (on seatpost), and 1 on my right shoulder (pointing backwards towards traffic).

I've seen the reflection of the large area of red flashing at my shoulder, when passing by shop windows. Pretty good.

3 Lights?

its all about the 4 light set-ups these days mate!

4 LED Cat-eye clip light on my front strap, plus 2 LED dongle thing that sways around flashing like a disco strobe, Cherry bomb half watt LED rear light (bright as feck!), and some shitty knog 4 LED thing on my seat post, soon to be changed for a mars Blackburn 4.0 in a few days.
Also gonna pick up a couple of Hope Vision ones (well maybe just one this month, and one next month, depending on how much dosh I have!) and lose the stupid dongle thing when pay-day comes around, my bag has bright green straps on the front and bright green sections on the side, with a big 3M scotchlite strip across the flap on the rear, i'm thinking of sticking some black scotchlite 3m tape on my frame to, seen some motorbike riders do it and it looks extremely effective at night.
With the shitty British winter setting in, you can never be too visible IMO, however I refuse to wear that fluro crap!

4 lights??? its all about the 5 lights.

Sigma EVO and Sigma EVO+ up front
a Sigma cube on each seatstay + one on the seatpost (as spare or if I'm carrying panniers)

Wait...I've got two knogs on the kiddie-trailer.
5 lights??? its all about the 7 lights :)

EDIT: I have noticed, that cars and trucks actually give me MUCH more room as they pass.

They probably think your bags on fire.

Can't wait until I am up to 5 decent powered lights hopelly by the end of this month/first week of next month, disco strobism ftw.

I just ride with the all over glow of the love of our Lord Tynan and traffic gives me plenty of room.

I just ride with the all over glow of the love of our Lord Tynan and traffic gives me plenty of room.

A generous application of 'Tynans anti-theft paste TM' would keep'm at arms length i reckon.

You should put some bloody effort in and speed up and pass me then.

I get bored of passing you.

What the light needs is the full on setting for when it's competing with ambient urban light (or stuff like daytime TTs on dual carriageways), and a setting for just the 2 LEDs without the 1/2 Watt job, for group night riding.

What the light needs is the full on setting for when it's competing with ambient urban light (or stuff like daytime TTs on dual carriageways), and a setting for just the 2 LEDs without the 1/2 Watt job, for group night riding.

I'll get busy with my soldering iron this weekend and see what I can come up with.

I attached silver baking foil (aluminum foil) to the strap of my bag, and a light just above it.
The foil catches light from car beams, and also provides a much larger "bank" of light, coming from my secondary red binking rear light.

So my 3-light set up is, 1 front, 1 rear (on seatpost), and 1 on my right shoulder (pointing backwards towards traffic).

I've seen the reflection of the large area of red flashing at my shoulder, when passing by shop windows. Pretty good.

I'm going with the tin foil hat...

although the downside is i can't predict whether people will cut me up anymore...

Cheers Hippy. Haven't used mine in the pouring rain yet.
And yes. Definitely a reet sexy design.
Anyone know if you can get a 303 & 909 mounted to your handlebars for proper acidhouse cycling? ;)

If I was a rich mofo.. I would do that.

So you've done it then..

I'm not rich. You think I'd be sitting here all fucking hours of the day if I was rich?

BTW Tommy, I have your CDs here. I can drop them off if you're around tonight. I might be working late (to get rich haha) so next week might be better.

Cool, not tonight, I'm only about there occasionally at the moment for some marking / seminar taking. The rest of the time I'm captin looser at home reading pdf files.

Can anybody give me any first hand information/opinions about the blackburn flea?

Did a quick google and found this:
[ame="http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=151877"]http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=151877[/ame]
Moral of the story? UTFG!

Can anybody give me any first hand information/opinions about the blackburn flea?

From another thread:

I think the Blackburn Flea set are great for everyday/pub/commute.

Velcro fastening (which doesn't slip), as well as the ability to attach rear to pocket/bag, etc. Nice and quick to remove and can be shoved into pocket when bike locked up.
Tiny but very, very bright. They don't take batteries, but instead are rechargeable off most batteries I believe (Only use rechargeable AA and AAA so far...).
They also don't look like complete shit, so they don't spoil the look of my fixie wixie.
I can't stand the crappy plastic CatEye mounts so I wanted something with no wanky special plastic/rubber fitting.

/Bike Radar

Also I believe they do a USB chargable set now.
http://www.parker-international.co.uk/Search/blackburn-flea/

Cheers pifko!

I have a set, good for all the reasons set out above, but after a few months of use, the front light will no longer charge. a bit of googling revealed that it's a common enough complaint about these lights to warrant some caution.

I'm sending mine back to CRC, expecting replacement/refund.

in short: good light for commuter use (ie not one to light the way on unlit roads), & good back up option, so long as you don't get a dud

(BTW mine are the older, battery-only charge, the newer ones as pictured above are also USB-chargable, I believe)

I've got the older battery charger ones too. You can get USB and solar powered ones now...

I've emailed Blackburn to see if I can buy a USB charger direct from them. No response as of yet...

Can anybody give me any first hand information/opinions about the blackburn flea?

Yep, it's more ugly than any other bike light ever manufactured and comes in a range of hideous colours. Also it looks like the decapitated remnants of a decepticon.

I've emailed Blackburn to see if I can buy a USB charger direct from them. No response as of yet...

good idea - hadn't thought of that. let me know what they say if they do get back to you...

Yeah. They look like happy meal toys.
But never mind if they get the job done.

The Mars 4.0 is pretty good though, i've got one of them on the back and its nice and bright with a wide area of visiblity :)

For open, unlit roads there are some amazing small torches available for cheap. Alongside a Cateye Singleshot I've used 2 of these tiny CREE things for riding down gorges in pooring rain. Usually using 2 of these on 'normal' is way more light than needed for regular conditions.
230 lumens for $17!

The same website sells the mounts needed to mount one on the handlebar. For fitting one to my helmet I use a mount designed for fitting torches to gun-sights, they sell that too.

You need one of these batteries to run one torch at the full 230 lumens for about 4 hours, or on 'normal' (about as bright as a Hope Vision 1) for about 8 hours. The charger's cheap too.

The torches themselves are tough but I've managed to get one of them to develop an occasional flicker after getting it soaked for 5 hours. I should have done something with the seals? KY jelly?

:o

I ordered two of these torches, plus the batteries and charger from DE. Delivery took 15 days, and the price including postage from Hong Kong was £30.27 ($50). I also bought two lockblock mounts from eBay for £5.50 each, so total price for the rig (2 x 230 lumens) came to £41.27.

I've just put the batteries in and tried one of the torches. I pointed it down at my desk (dull beige plastic, not shiny) close to the surface, and the reflected light alone was enough to make me see stars for 2 or 3 mins. Test ride with them tonight...

I've just bought a BLT 'Lid Led'

They seem to be a bit hard to find, got mine on the bay for 8.50

• The first helmet-mounted light with 360° visibility
  
• 2 x 16,000 MCD white LEDs in front
  
• 2 x 8,000 MCD red LED in back
  
  

Now I don't wear a lid, so I bought it for the specific use of mounting to the front strap of my bag (as Jimbilly has requisitioned by cateye backup light)
It arrived today, really nice size - fits perfectly on the strap of my grobag - I had to doctor the velcro fitting a bit - it flashes between the red and white and is really bright.

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