Lighting--Update to http://bicyclelighting.com

Tim McNamara said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the tire
or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered light
manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate this- there's
really no option but to mount then on the handlebars or on one's
helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read any of the basic
textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow, etc.

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one reason I've
been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3 LED CatEye lamp in
some situations. I have both my lamps mounted on my fork blades,
approximately half way between the centre and the top of my wheel. I
originally put them there not for better visibility, but to keep them from
interfering with my handlebar bag.

I had to make a minor modification to the mounting brackets to get the
lamps to aim properly (the mount allows the lamp to be swiveled slightly,
but I had to cut off a little plastic stop that prevented it from being
swiveled too much).

One nice feature of the CatEye micro halogen lamp I have is that the lens
can be rotated 90 degrees to allow sideways mounting without messing up the
beam pattern.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
-- James Thurber

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the tire
or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered light
manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate this- there's
really no option but to mount then on the handlebars or on one's
helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read any of the basic
textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow, etc.

Benjamin Lewis said:

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one reason I've
been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3 LED CatEye lamp in
some situations. I have both my lamps mounted on my fork blades,
approximately half way between the centre and the top of my wheel. I
originally put them there not for better visibility, but to keep them from
interfering with my handlebar bag.

I've been considering mounting my headlamp (Cateye EL300) lower. Right now,
it's on the underside of my handlebars. I've been thinking about making a
custom bracket to attach it to the fender mount of the fork. I figured that
mounting it below the top of the front wheel would create unacceptable
shadows.

But a pair of lights, one on each fork blade, might do the trick nicely.
Each light would illuminate the other's shadow, and both would illuminate
the road directly ahead.
--
Darin McGrew, [email hidden], http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, [email hidden], http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Entering Yosemite National Park: laws of gravity strictly enforced"

Quoted message said:

I was surprised, upon recommending an 1800C road bike with relaxed
geometry
couldn't find it anymore. They've put the 1000C and 1200C in one Cat. and
then jump to a 2100C with different set up and different frame, iirc.

Anyone test-riding a 2100C (or one of the new Klein Reves with the same rear
elastomer suspension) is likely to be very impressed. I test-rode the Reve
prototype on my regular Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, and believe I have
seen the future. Finally, a way to get rid of bumps (not just vibration)
without making a frame feel squishy or vague or rattly. I felt strongly
enough about it to have written a very favorable report to the company,
urging them to incorporate the technology at the high end if possible. In my
humble opinion, an OCLV frame with the elastomer tail section would be the
killer Paris Roubaix bike.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
IMBA, BikesBelong, NBDA member

Quoted message said:

Mike,

Any Trek dealer should be able to order one, correct?

Absolutely, Give them that part number and it's a no-brainer. I called my
inside rep this morning, just to make sure there were no plans to
discontinue it (there aren't).

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
IMBA, BikesBelong, NBDA member

"M. Chandler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Steven M. Scharf said:

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

TREK part# 69575, Disco Inferno flashing tail-light, presently available
in large qtys at both east & west-coast warehouses (midwest warehouse
presently out of stock). This light has not to my knowledge been
discontinued and, in fact, has been recently revised. Price is about
$25. Impressive light; I've installed one on my rain bike.

Thanks, I fixed this.

I think I'll order one from your shop since you can get them.

Mike,

Any Trek dealer should be able to order one, correct?

--
Mark Chandler
Superior, CO
http://www.MileHighSkates.com

Quoted message said:

Thanks, I fixed this.

I think I'll order one from your shop since you can get them.

We try to always keep them in stock, so it shouldn't be a problem (but if
you're going to our Los Altos location, give them a call first; inventory
usually comes to the Redwood City store and then gets transferred to them).

Also, for others reading this thread, please note we don't sell mail-order,
but it should be very easy for any local TREK, LeMond, Klein or Fisher
dealer to order one for you, especially if you give them the part number
(69575).

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
IMBA, BikesBelong, NBDA member

Benjamin Lewis said:

Tim McNamara said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the
tire or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered
light manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate
this- there's really no option but to mount then on the handlebars
or on one's helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read
any of the basic textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow,
etc.

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one
reason I've been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3
LED CatEye lamp in some situations. I have both my lamps mounted on
my fork blades, approximately half way between the centre and the
top of my wheel. I originally put them there not for better
visibility, but to keep them from interfering with my handlebar bag.

I haven't put my single lamp that low because there'd be a shadow cast
by the tire. With two lamps, like your setup, that problem is
eliminated.

We should note, though, that when people are riding in urban rather
than rural areas, dark adaptation of the retina is also interfered
with my oncoming car headlights, street lights, etc. A 3W headlight
can get "washed out" by the ambient light, therefore being less useful
to the rider except to perhaps improve his visibility to others.

Darin McGrew said:

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the
tire or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered
light manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate
this- there's really no option but to mount then on the handlebars
or on one's helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read
any of the basic textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow,
etc.

Benjamin Lewis said:

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one
reason I've been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3
LED CatEye lamp in some situations. I have both my lamps mounted
on my fork blades, approximately half way between the centre and
the top of my wheel. I originally put them there not for better
visibility, but to keep them from interfering with my handlebar
bag.

I've been considering mounting my headlamp (Cateye EL300)
lower. Right now, it's on the underside of my handlebars. I've been
thinking about making a custom bracket to attach it to the fender
mount of the fork. I figured that mounting it below the top of the
front wheel would create unacceptable shadows.

In my case, the shape of the lamp and the mounting bracket put the
lamp far enough forward and just high enough that the shadow from the
tire is small. You can get an idea by scrolling down to the Lumotec
Oval:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/schmidt-lumotec.asp

A nice page on lighting from a US dealer who takes the subject
seriously:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/headlights.asp

Tim McNamara said:

Benjamin Lewis said:

Tim McNamara said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the
tire or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered
light manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate
this- there's really no option but to mount then on the handlebars
or on one's helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read
any of the basic textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow,
etc.

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one
reason I've been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3
LED CatEye lamp in some situations. I have both my lamps mounted on
my fork blades, approximately half way between the centre and the
top of my wheel. I originally put them there not for better
visibility, but to keep them from interfering with my handlebar bag.

I haven't put my single lamp that low because there'd be a shadow cast
by the tire. With two lamps, like your setup, that problem is
eliminated.

I've found that this problem is only minor even with one lamp lit; there is
a shadow, but it's not where I'm riding.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
-- James Thurber

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:05:20 -0700, "Jay Beattie"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

So I am not serious? I have a 20 watt system, and that is not
enough for the fast descents on rough, wet roads between work and
home. I could use more wattage and seriously doubt that a 3w
dynamo powered lamp would do the trick.

I ride every day, all year round, and use dynamo lights. The SON with
two lights is great. There is plenty of power for fast descents, and
I have no problem seeing or being seen.

Given that I have a B&M 4D TopLight, a Cateye TL-AU100 and a RealLite
on the back, you can probably guess that I care about both seeing and
being seen.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Quoted message said:

I've put some pictures on my web page here.

Cool setup! The battery, though, looks like it might fall off after a bit
of the more rocky riding.

I'm planning on using my light helmet-mounted... Will need to devise a good
zip-tie method.

There are some Luxeon 3W-in-a-trio boards out there, yielding an effective
9W system on one die or whatever, so as to get around the 500h-1000h
lifetime of the 5W Luxeons. This would be an excellent project, I think.
And doubling up those would make a really bright, ready-for-anything set.
Plus, the light output per mA would be better.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

Benjamin Lewis said:

Tim McNamara said:

The lower the better, best at about the level of the top of the tire
or slightly lower. Of course, none of the battery powered light
manufacturers have designed their products to accomodate this- there's
really no option but to mount then on the handlebars or on one's
helmet. Unfortunately they do not seem to have read any of the basic
textbooks on visual perception, gradient flow, etc.

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one reason I've
been able to ride completely dark roads with only the 3 LED CatEye lamp in
some situations. I have both my lamps mounted on my fork blades,
approximately half way between the centre and the top of my wheel. I
originally put them there not for better visibility, but to keep them from
interfering with my handlebar bag.

I agree that's the optimum height. I didn't like having the front
quadrant of my wheel cast a shadow to the side, so I made a rack to hold
the headlamps a little further forward, sort of at the front end of the
front fender. Works great.

Quoted message said:

One nice feature of the CatEye micro halogen lamp I have is that the lens
can be rotated 90 degrees to allow sideways mounting without messing up the
beam pattern.

Whoa! Neat trick! I didn't know that.

BTW, I gave my Cateye Micro to a family member who needed it more than I
do. But I'd like to buy another. Are they still for sale anywhere?

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Tim McNamara said:

We should note, though, that when people are riding in urban rather
than rural areas, dark adaptation of the retina is also interfered
with my oncoming car headlights, street lights, etc.

A hat with a brim is a big help in this situation.

It's also a big help just at dusk, when the ground (& road) is dark but
the sky is light. Shade your eyes from the bright sky, and you'll see
surprisingly better.

A 3W headlight

Quoted message said:

can get "washed out" by the ambient light, therefore being less useful
to the rider except to perhaps improve his visibility to others.

I haven't had a problem with this. My 3W headlight is visible on the
road even under bright street lights, and if it weren't, that would just
mean I can see the road by the streetlight!

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Steven M. Scharf said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

I guess the simple way would be with a relay.
The elegant way would be a switching transistor.
I doubt it would be much more complicated than
a 1 or 2-shot multivibrator.

If you want to base it on when the output voltage of the dynamo increases to
a certain level, it's pretty easy. You can detect very small increases in
the output voltage with a simple voltage comparator. I've added a circuit to
my web site.

A cruder method is to just hook the dynamo to a bridge rectifier, and a 5V
relay to the bridge rectifier, via a voltage divider (resistors or
potentiometer), and set the voltage divider such that the relay energizes at
the proper velocity (the relay coil characteristics come into play here, but
it wouldn't take long to experimentally determine the proper divider
network).

The downside is that the circuit will consume about 1/3 watt, with most of
that going to the relay coil (around 40mA at 5V, for a total of 200mW).

This is silly. It's like designing an automatic transmission for a bicycle.

Do it with a manual switch. As with bike gears, there are times you'll
want to make the decision yourself. As one example, there are lots of
times I'll be tooling along at 18 mph and having no need of the second
2.4 watt headlight. Why automatically switch in the additional drag,
not to mention the inefficiency of the circuit?

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Benjamin Lewis said:

Tim McNamara said:

Benjamin Lewis said:

Interesting that you should bring this up; perhaps this is one
reason I've been able to ride completely dark roads with only the
3 LED CatEye lamp in some situations. I have both my lamps
mounted on my fork blades, approximately half way between the
centre and the top of my wheel. I originally put them there not
for better visibility, but to keep them from interfering with my
handlebar bag.

I haven't put my single lamp that low because there'd be a shadow
cast by the tire. With two lamps, like your setup, that problem is
eliminated.

I've found that this problem is only minor even with one lamp lit;
there is a shadow, but it's not where I'm riding.

True, but whichever side the shadow is on, one will ride into it when
turning.

dgk said:

Suggestions always appreciated.

My usual suggestion is this: Test your setup by driving by it from
different directions as a friend rides your bike. See for yourself.

If that's somehow impossible, at least ask others whether you're
adequately visible.

Also, remember that reflectors and reflective tape are super-light,
super cheap, and very useful. Reflectors on moving parts of the bike
(say, the spoke-bed surface of your rims, or your crank arms) are
particularly noticeable. And low-mounted reflectors are particularly
bright, provided they're aimed properly. But of course, reflectors are
merely an add-on. You NEED a headlight.

Many people greatly overestimate what it takes to be safe at night.
Check your system out before going lumen-crazy.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

"Steven M. Scharf" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:5%8gd.9739

Quoted message said:

Now that I thought more about it, I think that this circuit is
needlessly complex, and it can be done with fewer parts. I'll update it
later.

Okay, I updated and simplified the circuit. It can be built for less than
$10, including an enclosure. I included a bill of materials, and sources for
the parts.

I agree that an automatically switching system is much better than having to
manually switch in the second light, especially if you're doing a lot of
stop and go riding. On roads where you don't stop much, a manual switch
would be okay.

In article <[email hidden]>, Zoot Katz
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 04:43:55 GMT,
<[email hidden]>,

Steven M. Scharf said:

I hope you're not equating a "true cyclist" with a "serious cyclist." Ken
Kifer does have a page on his site
(http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/lifestyle/trucycle.htm) that explains
what a "true cyclist" is, and I very much fit that description

As per your reference:
"True cyclists, also known as serious cyclists, genuine cyclists, and
real cyclists, demonstrate unusual behavior, clothing, and lifestyle."

A desk lamp zip tied to your handlebar isn't a serious bike light.

It is however 'unusual behaviour' so maybe qualifies on these grounds
<grin>
--
Phil Passmore PPL(A)

"Steven M. Scharf" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Specialized and Trek Discontinue their Wide Angle LED Flashers
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- ---
The discontinuation of the only two wide angle LED flashers (from Trek
and Specialized) is a disappointment, though they were never widely
available so few people were even aware they existed. These two models
solved one of the major design problems with LED flashers, the lack of
wide-angle visibility (on most LED flashers the LEDS point only to the
rear). I've left them up on the web page just in case someone is able
to find one somewhere.

I recently purchased LED flashers from SMART which have side-facing LEDs
like

<- ^ ^ ^ ->

which work very well. They come in both green and red; I used to have
them clipped to the straddle-arm of my V-brakes.

-A

Frank Krygowski said:

dgk said:

Suggestions always appreciated.

My usual suggestion is this: Test your setup by driving by it from
different directions as a friend rides your bike. See for yourself.

If that's somehow impossible, at least ask others whether you're
adequately visible.

Also, remember that reflectors and reflective tape are super-light,
super cheap, and very useful. Reflectors on moving parts of the bike
(say, the spoke-bed surface of your rims, or your crank arms) are
particularly noticeable. And low-mounted reflectors are particularly
bright, provided they're aimed properly. But of course, reflectors are
merely an add-on. You NEED a headlight.

Many people greatly overestimate what it takes to be safe at night.
Check your system out before going lumen-crazy.

I did by a snappy bike jacket that has lots of reflective stuff on it.
I will get some reflectors for the spokes and other spots. Thanks. And
I will get another red blinker for somewhere on the frame.

Minor disaster this morning. I did mount the second light (Trek
Vision30). Plus bought nice new rechargable batteries for it (who ever
really uses C cells?) and a charger. Charged both the AA and C cells
and headed out this morning. Neither light lasted more than 15
minutes. I am not pleased. I think perhaps the charger is a bit screwy
so I'm assuming the batteries weren't in quite right and am charging
them again. I've used the AAs before and they laster much longer than
that. We'll see.

Even in the "dark" I am really able to see ok just about everywhere
since this is urban. The lights, even when bright, are pretty useless
for actually seeing by. I think, in real darkness, they might prove
adequate if not going faster than 9 mph.

Maybe a generator isn't a bad idea since it really just adds a little
more resistance and I AM doing this primarily for exercise and fat
burning. But, if it is worth anything it is going to get stolen, and
them I'm stuck somewhere with no lights.

dgk said:

Maybe a generator isn't a bad idea since it really just adds a little
more resistance and I AM doing this primarily for exercise and fat
burning. But, if it is worth anything it is going to get stolen, and
them I'm stuck somewhere with no lights.

I've left my bike, dynamo and all, overnight in all kinds of places
without problems - several times in London railway stations (some of which
are accessible all night), in run down parts of town, etc.

Generally speaking bike thieves are after bikes, not small bolted-on bits
which are worth maybe a tenner second-hand. A hub dynamo is worth more,
but of course if the bad guys can steal that they can steal the wheel, and
you would be stuck whatever kind of lights you had.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> Distortion Field!