General Cycling Discussion - christmas lights on the bike

were taking a night ride next week to check out christmas lights in some nice neigborhood, and i wanted to put christmas lights on my bike. How do i power household lights while riding a bike?????

mike

we were going to do that for critical x-mass, a special critical mass on christmas eve. but no one can make it so it's a no go. look for the lights that are battery powered man.

You can always get a bunch of blinkies in red, white, amber, and green.

Stacy

There are battery powered strands of lights.

Safety..Might be a good idea to leave them on all year.

You can put a 12v sytem on your bike and use that to power a small inverter. That will give you the 110v for the xmas lights.

I power my neons with a 12V battery, you dont need 110v or whatever to power some bulbs, if they received that much they would blow. But i'm sure you can find some lights around that even connect into a car output and then you can easily cut, strip and re-wire them to fit onto your bike. You can buy 12v rechargalbe battery's, that can be strapped to the bike by velcro maybe. Just experiment a little.

You can put a 12v sytem on your bike and use that to power a small inverter. That will give you the 110v for the xmas lights.


thats kind of what i had in mind. got any idea how i'm gonna do that?


mike

The easiest way would be to buy a string of battery operated lights. I assume they are available anywhere as my wife decorates the house with them and they run on a couple AA batteries.

could you ask her where she gets them. That would be great.

thanks,
mike

could you ask her where she gets them. That would be great.

thanks,
mike

She got them 5 years or so ago and doesn't really remember, but she thinks it was one of the discount drug stores like CVS or Walgreens.

hmmm, i'll check tomorrow

thanks for the input guys. I'll let you know what I find.

mike

Try here: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/chrisligandl.html

or here: http://www.christmas-decorations-gifts-store.com/store/PPF/Category_ID/207/products.asp

or use my Google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=battery-operated+christmas+lights&sourceid=mozilla&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Hey Mike,

Don't forget the zip ties to put the strings on your bike with. Wally world probably has the light strings and the zip ties. I may do this my self. Sounds like fun. Got to have blinkers though. Have fun with it.

Jim

Mike,

Battery powered Christmas lights are available from Menard's (a Midwestern home improvement type store).

They had clear and colored in two types. One type had 20 lights, ran on two AAs and cost $1.49 plus tax.
The other had ?? lights, ran on two Cs and cost $1.79 a set plus tax.

The first type doesn't twinkle; they're just on or off (remove a battery, no switch). There's about 5 feet from the first light to the last.

I don't know if the second type twinkles or not, but it did have an external on/off switch.

Ron

found them, thanks guys. got em at wallgreens 3 sets for 10 bucks. colored or white, and blinking or solid. thanks for all of your input, now light em up.

i'll post pics later.

mike

I got a set two years ago at Menard's. They use 2 AA's, have LED bulbs and will run for many hours on a set of batteries.

Oh I gotta do this on my commuter. LOL this is going to be great. :D

Cool idea.

were taking a night ride next week to check out christmas lights in some nice neigborhood, and i wanted to put christmas lights on my bike. How do i power household lights while riding a bike?????

mike

1 12 volt Lawn Mower battery ($20) +

1 Power Inverter ($70) +

1 bicycle trailer ($100) +

Christmas Lights = Xmas Lights on Bikes (Priceless)

Hmmmm. I wonder if I could take my UPS, stick it in my backpack and hook up some lights, then bike around and sing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"... LOL
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=706907&CatId=233

LOL

I have something that's close to xmas lights on a bike.
these are a couple of shots of my rear wheel at warp speed..the L.E.D. light system is called Hokey Spokes, sold by a Cali company, Sportsbay.com
8 pre-set designs and, you can create your own text...16 characters.
It's actually 3 in my spoke...it runs on double-A's and comes in four colors: red, yellow,blue and rainbow.
They only had yellow when i ordered.

RE: Adding lights

You could power your lights using a solar panel that you pull around behind your bike on a trailer. I build cargo bicycle trailers that do just this!

The trailer has a solar panel on the back that charges up a battery. There is an inverter that you can just plug your lights into. You could also add a stereo and play music as you bike as well. (This is great for critical mass rides as well.) I started building them when I was running a totally mobile solar powered juicing business that I could pull anywhere on my bike.

If you are interested you can find more at http://cargotrailer.ca/oscommerce/index.php?cPath=32

andrew

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I think the point would be to go around at night admiring the lights... so the solar power thing would probably not be effective.

I think the point would be to go around at night admiring the lights... so the solar power thing would probably not be effective.

There is a battery that is a part of the solar system that stores the energy so that you can use it at anytime, day or night.

andrew
www.cargotrailer.ca

It's been done. Battery operated xmas lights.

i have to see pics of this. i've never seen anyone with xmas lights on a bike, except on houses.

Battery powered Christmas lights... Now if I could just get one of those LED message boards sewn into the butt of my cycling shorts... :D

i have to see pics of this. i've never seen anyone with xmas lights on a bike, except on houses.

I can't find the thread.

I have a couple of strings of the battery lights. At Christmas they are in the stores.