Be Excellent To Each Other

Ok, some of you may or may not know that I cycle to work. I have a shitty set of lights from Halfrauds at the moment, which quite handily makes traffic able to see me, but unfortunately the headlight is nowhere near powerful enough for me to ride safely on the parts of my route that aren't lit by streetlamps (there is a fair bit of this).

Does anyone have any recommendations for particular makes or models of front lamps that are good? I've looked at a few sites, but I'm a bit bewildered as I'm not sure what kind of candlepower I'll need to be able to see the road ahead of me when it's pitch black.

Any suggestions? Bear in mind I want to spend as little money as possible (because I'm a tight honourary northerner).

Expect to spent 25 quid upwards. Do not cheap out, I did and just ended up buying a decent set.

I have a second cheap light attached near my water bottle which illuminates the kerb for me.

Also get a flasher for your helmet (6 or 7 quid). Expensive but really helps you stand out in darker areas. Nothing worse than some cunt on a bike who you don't see until the last minute. I saw someone with one of the flashers and thought "thats a good idea" so purchased one.

Take a look at these:
http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/bike-lights/battery-lights/front-battery-lights

Any specific recommendations? There's so many and some of them are really expensive.

I saw I guy this morning with led flasher on his back and on his chest, front and back lights and one on his helmet. He looked like a fucking Xmas tree. I could see him though. So, JOB DONE.

That's what you want. I've been cycling at night lately (as my Sunday afternoon rides go past 4pm) and I'm out on the New Forest when it starts to get dark. Proper dark with no lights at all.

The first thing is to ensure you are seen, the second is that you can see. The biggest problem is illuminating enough of the road to avoid pot holes at speed. My lights really aren't up to that and I guess you'd be needing to spend about 35-40 quid to get a light that can throw that amount of light out.

I got a front and back pack of lights for about 25 quid which are both reasonable and are well built. But as I say, I have a cheap light gaffered onto the crossbar to light up the kerb/roadside for me as I am riding in areas with no road markings and it's dead easy to wander off the side of the road with disastrous consequences.

+ I have a day glo jacket thing.

Is this a bargain? It's £50 off.

If you don't want to crash riding off-road in the dark then it's a reasonable deal.

I suggest you have a look around http://www.wiggle.co.uk who carry a decent range, are sensibly priced and if you e-mail or give them a call generally very helpful.

Cool, I'll check them out. In the meantime, I've found this one, which seems quite reasonable.

Go into your local cycle shop and ask them and try the lights out aswell. I cycle in London where you barely need any lights most of the time so can't really offer too much advice.

Cycle in London? You obviously have no fear.

Oh the tales I could tell about cycling in London!

(mostly about people turning left and not seeing me at all)

Malc

Oh, and for anyone who's interested, this is the bike I'm getting next year:

Respect is due for cycling through the winter.

About lights, I have a Cateye twin-headlamp unit which came with a bike-bottle battery. Twin halogens, seperately switcheable. I think it cost in the region of £140, and it certainly lit the way.

If I was going to replace it I'd probably want to try a li-ion + LED solution. Some of these LED lamps are amazingly bright and it keeps the size and cost of the needed battery down. They might be a bit pricey yet though. Let us know what you end up with

Look at that saddle, be like sitting on a razor blade. I remember when bikes were bikes, proper saddle and a cover fer chain.

Wot no disc brakes?

Gears too, I thought all the trendy types rode fixers these days.

Nope. I'd have to spend £700 for the same bike with disc brakes:

They do, hence myp has gears.

I need gears due to the BastardHillofDoom^TM, but in all other ways it's pretty much a road bike (thin tyres, no suspension, etc).

Why the pointless hole in the top bar? There's a stress fracture waiting to happen.

I had to go googling to remind myself of that ad

What pointless hole? You mean the white paint?

Just remember to put a lock on your hotel room door when you're having sex with it.

It looked like a fork in the bar. Heh.

As you were.

I wonder what's going to keep the tyres attached the wheels, what with that big gap there..?

What model is that? My last one (before it was stolen) was a Scott P6 and it was a really good bike. Much prefer it to my current one, Trek 7.2FX, which I just don't like as much, but I can't figure out why.

Also, Evans charged about £50 more for the P6 than my local bike shop, so shop around!

A white hole?

The one I want is the Scott SUB 30, but trying to justify getting the SUB 20 to myself (it's not working).

I haven't pieced together my cycling video diary from 2 weeks ago yet.

3 weeks ago it was so windy up on the New Forest that at times I could only manage a max speed of 10km instead of the more usual 35 down the same road. And then there was the rain which stung like buggery when it hit my face. I decided that I wasn't enjoying myself so turned back.

But I do try to go out every weekend. I usually wear a lightweight anorak with a hood to keep the wind/water off. First few miles tend to be the hardest (if its really cold I put the hood up) but after that it's business as usual.

I've just been down the cycle shop and ordered Mrs Chinny a new bike for Christmas. Basic model abit like mine, the only fancy thing being front suspension.

They had bikes in the shop for a couple of grand. What kind of nutcases buy them? I can't really see what the difference is between my 200 quid bike and one costing 2 grand. My bike is light and I can climb most hills on it (although there is one so steep on my weekend route that I get wheelspin near the top if I'm not careful!).

Well, you just need to find it cheap enough, one thing to look at is getting a 2007/08 model once they release the 09 model, it will be virtually the same and cheaper as places try to shift stock.

I'm joining my workplace's Cycle2Work scheme next year, so for £20 out of my salary each month for a year, I could get the SUB 20 based on a price of £409.99.

Score!

Run that by me again? You get a £410 bike for £240?

Effectively, yes, because the deductions are taken out of gross salary.

Here's the savings calculator.

I tried to do this with my work, but the person organising went on maternity leave and was made redundant before she came back.

Still not heard anything 18 months later



Malc

As Kalmar says, lights for being seen and lights to help you see are hugely different, the latter being quite expensive as they need quite powerful batteries with them to stop them running flat in a uselessly short time. I'd be surprised if you manage to pick anything truly useful up for less than £100 tbh. Have a look around Chainreactioncycles.com as they have customer reviews of everything.

And, now, for some bike porn.

A very nice bike, but the complete opposite of what I need.

WRT lights, a HID one would be fantastic, but they're totally out of my price range.

Could you get the lights, which are a legal requirement, etc, as part of the cycle to work thingy?

There a number of simple things you can alter to make a bike much nicer to ride, assuming you haven't done them yourself and assuming the fuckwits in most cycle stores won't do it for you.

Obviously, it isn't going to alter the actual frame geometry which does alter a little from manufacturer to manufacturer, but not that much on the low end frames.

When you sit on the bike and put your hands on the handgrips, the brake and gear levers should follow a line made by the angle your forearm makes to the handlebars - it's amazing how many people put the levers at weird angles and consequently put undue stress on their wrists.

Next step is saddle height - the ideal saddle height is when your sat in the saddle, with one of the pedals as close to the floor in it's arc as it can be, place the middle of your foot on the pedal and your leg should be very slightly off full lock, so slightly relaxed at the knee.

Next step is cockpit length - or how far you are from the handlebars in the saddle. Try moving the saddle back and forth if possible, on it's rails/bars. Failing that, invest in a new stem which connects the handlebars to the steering crown. The range of options with length and angle are pretty enormous and can make a huge difference to how the bike rides.

Yes I could, but I'd have to wait until February. I can't see where I'm going now, unfortunately.

Once you get arse grapes just looking at a saddle like that can make you wince.

That's a bit shit.

Yeah, which is why I've gone for this one as an interim solution. I'll pick up a HID one in Feb.

I think that's pretty much what I have.

But as I say, worth going to Deal Extreme and buying one of their cheapy poor quality lights and strap it to the crossbar. It makes a huge difference being able to see the nearside kerb clearly, trust me.

That looks pretty good mipster. Especially the reduced power "get you home" mode if the battery gets low. Invest in a good set of nimh AAs to go with it.

I'd say it was a triple A.

Or just go to SVP and buy the dirt cheap 10 packs of Duracell Procell and keep a few spare on you at all times. Rechargeable pack less volts and that means less brightness. Deal Extreme sell some cool little boxes for keeping batteries in.

No it doesn't, that light contains a boost converter so you'll get exactly the same current at the LED and thus the same brightness, and possibly for a longer time if you use a high capacity NiMH.*



And throwing away half a dozen primary AAs every month is just plain silly.


* Do not challenge the kalmar on issues of lightbulbs

Yyes, you can get all the cycling gear that goes with it. (pannier, lock, speedo, bottle holder, even cycling gear too)

Malc

Is that all you throw away a month?

I'm lucky in that I don't need to ride on the road at all (apart from getting from my house to the main road) - most of my route is shared pavement/cycle paths.