At this time of year in wales you are gonna need a set of lights for your bike. I went the cheap route and spent about 3 quid on a set of crappy ones from Tesco, they lit the place up well but the front one kept falling off, one night i skidded up outside my house and it went flying off, hit the road and never worked again.
JT had these right snazzy looking tiny little rubber things so when I was up in that London to see The Residents I took a trip to Brick Lane Bikes and the only thing I could afford (and actually needed) was a set of the rubber lights, the Knog Frogs! I paid the extortionate price of £17 but you you can pick them up for about £13 in most places outside of London.
They are really small as you can see in the photos and made of a very grippy, flexible silicone outer that contains a small but powerful LED. To attach them to your bike you just pull the stretchy loop around your bar or seatpost and clip it to itself, I thought that they'd probably pop off but they seem to be holding fast. Knog reckon that they will burn for 80 hours (steady), or 160 hours (flashing) which is pretty impressive, to replace the batteries you just pop the electronic section out of the casing, nice and simple, elegant, hassle free, awesome! Another claim by Knog is that they put out 10,000 millicandelas which equates to being visible at up to 600 metres away!!! I'm not sure about that, in theory maybe but under normal riding conditions I'd imagine it's quite a bit less, either way you need to know that they are a "safety light" so if you actually want them to light up where you are going then you better get some "proper lights" cause these things won't light up any more than about 2 feet ahead of you unless you are riding down a pitch black lane. I think they do a perfectly good job of making you visible to all but the most ignorant driver, and make you look pretty, pretty, pretty good too so who cares if you can't see where you are going?
They may do their job brilliantly but if you are scared of being looked down upon by 'real fixed gear riders' you must be aware of their hipster status, in fact Bike Snob NYC uses the charming name of '
Hipster Cyst's' when referring to them. Yes they are unbearably cool looking but would you use a Dell rather than a Mac just because you were afraid of looking fresh? I don't fink so.
All in all I would highly recommend the Knog Frog lights, they come in 12 colours, are water resistant, probably wouldn't break if you drop them (unless they land on the bulb) and are as light as a feather. Check out the
shopping page for bike shops in your area that might have them or failing that try eBay or something innit.
Check out the
official web page.
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