Fitting lights to rear racks



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Clifford Griffi

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With the equinox now passed my thoughts are turning to lights for my commuting bike.

Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting bikes
have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.

Cliff
 
Clifford Griffiths wrote:

> With the equinox now passed my thoughts are turning to lights for my commuting bike.
>
> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.

I bought a standard small steel L-bracket from B&Q; the holes are just the right distance apart for
mudgard-fitting lights (e.g. the Cateye BSAU100). I blued it by heating it and dropping it in oil
(which rustproofs things for a couple of years) then bolted it to the underside of the rack
(Blackburn MTN). With a slight bend in it to make the lamp vertical, it looks made to measure.

Some racks have a plate at the back with a hole for a reflector or a lamp, in which case it's much
easier. For a seatpost-fitting lamp like the wide Cateye LD600, I really don't know how people do it
without making a fancy custom bracket. Obvisouly the seatpost is a bad place for any lamp on a bike
with a rack, unless you ride a particularly small frame and have enough post showing to clear any
"rack pack".

Roger
 
In message <[email protected]>, Clifford Griffiths
<[email protected]> writes
>With the equinox now passed my thoughts are turning to lights for my commuting bike.
>
>Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting bikes
>have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.
>
Buy a sensible rack that comes with a mounting plate across the back drilled for the mounting holes
common on European lamps ?

for fitting to the rear of a rack lamps such as the Hella RL980B, the B*M Toplight, or the AXA
optica really are the best as they fit neatly across the rack, usually include a good
reflector as well.

My Tubus Cargo rack has such a plate and mounting is simple, excellent rack to.

<http://www.gearshift.co.uk/acatalog/Rear_Racks.html>

Other alternatives:

The classic bent 'Meccano strip' as used to be supplied for fitting the old Every Ready lamps

You can by neater manufactured versions of the above, such as one by B&M, thyis is a good
replacement for the fitted rear plate. and ECGE made a neat little aluminium bracket that clamped to
the rear of a rack to take a lamp that bolts one like traditional rear bulbed dynamo lamps, it's
still available, now made by ARC I think.

You can see these on the SJSC site at:

<http://www.sjscycles.com/store/vIndex.htm>

SJSC also do a mounting bracket for LEDS like the Vistalite 5 LED, it's made for their own racks but
with a 'Meccano strip' could be used for other lights.

My AXA Optica came with a bracket to be fitted with 2 'P' clips to the rear of the rack to replace
the mounting plate
--
Chris French, Leeds
 
Clifford Griffiths wrote:
> With the equinox now passed my thoughts are turning to lights for my commuting bike.
>
> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.
>
> Cliff

My Blackburn rack had a small loop wrapped around the back horizontal member, the loop extended down
and the reflecter was bolted onto it. My LED light has a threaded hole and a spiggot above so I made
a new loop to which I attached the reflector then below it the light.
 
Clifford Griffiths wrote:

> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.

A rack with a built-in mounting is best, otherwise you can buy a variety of clips, most of which
fall into two categories: cast or machined aluminium, which seem to last well, and pressed
steel, which seem to fatigue and break after a period which could be anythign from a few months
to a few years.

If you use a pressed steel baracket I recommend making a safety loop for your lamp, by crimping two
crimp terminals (of the ring variety), one to each end of a short length of brake inner. Loop it
through the rack and put the lamp fixing screw through the two terminals. That way if the bracket
fails you won't have to suffer the annoyance of standing there watchign a car drive over your lamp
rather than stop for a second and let you retrieve it. DAMHIKIJKOK.

Sometimes the lamp mounts close enough to the rack to use a standard P-clip instead of the safety
wire idea.

Best of all is definitely to get a rack with welded-on lamp brackets (some have glued-on brackets -
these come off, too).

--
Guy

Marvin is dead, long live Zaphod!
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> Clifford Griffiths wrote:
>
>
>>Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
>>bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.

Nearly all racks I see in mailland Europe have light-fitting plates. Why don't they all come like
that in Britain? Mind you, any commuting bike over the water will normally come with rack &
lights fitted.

Pete
 
Just zis Guy, you know? must be edykated coz e writed:

> Clifford Griffiths wrote:
>
>> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
>> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.
>
> A rack with a built-in mounting is best, otherwise you can buy a variety of clips, most of which
> fall into two categories: cast or machined aluminium, which seem to last well, and pressed
> steel, which seem to fatigue and break after a period which could be anythign from a few months
> to a few years.
>
I drill the rack and use part of the lamp mounting bracket, an Allen bolt and a Nylock nut.

--
Ian

http://www.catrike.co.uk
 
In message <BB9B9E3C.12046%[email protected]>, Ian <[email protected]> writes
>Just zis Guy, you know? must be edykated coz e writed:
>
>> Clifford Griffiths wrote:
>>
>>> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
>>> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.
>>
>> A rack with a built-in mounting is best, otherwise you can buy a variety of clips

>I drill the rack and use part of the lamp mounting bracket, an Allen bolt and a Nylock nut.
>
Having managed to bend a Blackburn rear rack, break a Blackburn front lowrider rack, and break a
Nimrod rear rack in various places I'd steer clear of drilling any holes in my racks.
--
Chris French, Leeds
 
"Zog The Undeniable" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... For a
seatpost-fitting lamp like
> the wide Cateye LD600, I really don't know how people do it without making a fancy custom bracket.
> Obvisouly the seatpost is a bad place for any lamp on a bike with a rack, unless you ride a
> particularly small frame and have enough post showing to clear any "rack pack".
>

I've had a LD600 attached to a rack since this time last year. I just used the bracket it was
supplied with shimmed out with the rubber strips also supplied. The strips allow the bracket to get
a firm grip on the irregular
(ie . not round) surface of the horizontal part at the top rear of the rack. The good people at
Cateye designed the light so it can fit either horizontally or vertically into the bracket. So
I can still mount the light as desired despite the bracket mount facing out to the side rather
than up as it would if it were on the seatpost. It saw plenty of use last winter over some
very uneven road surfaces and remained totally secure. And yes I know what is now bound to
happen on Monday night. tony R
 
chris French must be edykated coz e writed:

> In message <BB9B9E3C.12046%[email protected]>, Ian <[email protected]> writes
>> Just zis Guy, you know? must be edykated coz e writed:
>>
>>> Clifford Griffiths wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack. Many commuting
>>>> bikes have racks and it would seem the most obvious place to fit them.
>>>
>>> A rack with a built-in mounting is best, otherwise you can buy a variety of clips
>
>> I drill the rack and use part of the lamp mounting bracket, an Allen bolt and a Nylock nut.
>>
> Having managed to bend a Blackburn rear rack, break a Blackburn front lowrider rack, and break a
> Nimrod rear rack in various places I'd steer clear of drilling any holes in my racks.
I've never had a problem, but then I'm an engineer and frame builder so my tool kit is rather
extensive.

--
Ian

http://www.catrike.co.uk
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

> A rack with a built-in mounting is best, otherwise you can buy a
variety of
> clips, most of which fall into two categories: cast or machined
aluminium,
> which seem to last well, and pressed steel, which seem to fatigue and
break
> after a period which could be anythign from a few months to a few years.
>

Surely not! As Any Fule Kno, it's Aluminium that invariably fatigues and breaks, whereas Steel is
Real. Or does that only apply to bike frames, and not the rest of the world:-?

We have had a rack-mounted light, the mounting was solid but the light suffered through being
occasionally kicked by the stoker. Now we have a seatpost-mounted ligt (the very bright Lumicycle
LED light, highly recommended for lumicycle users). Sometimes a particularly full pannier obscures
it a bit, but rear lights are not a legal requirement here (Japan) and any driver who cannot see a
tandem with reflective bits is going to wrap themselves around a pedestrian, lamp-post or tree
pretty quickly.

James
 
>Has anyone come across an effective way of fixing an led light to a rear rack.

Mine stays put. On the rear reflector bracket that hangs off the back of the rack, I clipped an LED
via its clothes mounting clip. Then with plastic string I wound the string round said bracket & LED
clip, tying tight with several knots and hey presto - it's rock solid! Not exactly aesthetically the
greatest fix, but it is effective and cheap :)

Cheers, helen s

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