Mounting a Dinotte taillight to a rear rack
 

I bought a Dinotte taillight to minimize the chance of getting rammed from behind by a burger- and Coke-juggling kid-scolding mom on a cell phone who's paying attention to everything except driving. I wanted to mount it to my rear rack because I use a saddlebag and don't have the seat post available, but I could not find anything on these fora to indicate that anyone's blazed this trail before. So I came up with a way that, in all humility, I'm pleased as punch with and looks okay. Pictures are below, but here's what I did:

I started with a standard reflector clamp, but turned it around so the straight part that's designed to hold the reflector is bolted to a hole in the back of the rack, and the part designed to clamp around the seat post is pointing up and out. I have an Axiom rear rack on my commuter and a Tubus Cargo on my tourer, and both have the requisite holes. From my local Home Depot I bought a wood dowel that's 1 inch in diameter, and cut off a piece that's about 3 inches long. Length isn't crucial, as long as it's long enough (thank god for that---but I digress). After sanding the cut end, I painted the whole piece black, waited for it to dry, and then wrapped some friction tape around the center to expand the dowel's diameter to fit tightly within the inside of the "seat post" clamp. By clamping the dowel into the center ring of the reflector clamp and then positioning these as shown, the Dinotte fits around the dowel the same way it fits around a seat post clamp and is positioned properly. To top it off---and I didn't expect to be this lucky---the battery pack fits perfectly within the front well of the Axiom rack, where I can secure it with a simple Velcro strap that keeps it from popping out if I hit a bump. The length of the cord is just slightly longer than it needs to be for this configuration, but it's not so long that I need to take up the slack since there's not enough to get tangled up in anything that moves.

All in all, this little set-up turned out better than I'd expected, and didn't take that long to configure once I'd figured out how to do it. It holds the light securely and I can use it with any size saddle bag, with panniers, and even with a small to moderately-sized rack trunk.

Have you intentionally angled it down that much?

For now, yes, the downward angle is intentional because I don't want to blind drivers. I haven't taken it out at night yet, and when I do I may adjust it. The angle can be adjusted with a phillips screwdriver.

I'd have just used some zipties, duct tape, and bailing wire... then again I'm kind of a hack :D

g'job BTW

Seems like a lot of extra work to go through. I just wrap the O-ring around double. Works just fine on both my bikes.

http://www.brucew.com/images/prr/din...ck-mounted.jpg

http://www.brucew.com/images/prr/din...k-mounting.jpg

http://www.brucew.com/images/prr/din...y-mounting.jpg

^^ Having just received one of these (maiden voyage tonight), I appreciate the very elegant answer to one of my questions.

Brilliant in its simplicity.

Well, sure, if you want to do it the easy way!. I hadn't thought of double-looping the O-ring, or I'd have done what you did---at least until I found out it didn't work well, which you say isn't the case. I think I like your method better.

"Seems like a lot of extra work to go through. I just wrap the O-ring around double. Works just fine on both my bikes."

Thanks for the timely advice ... I have a somewhat kludgey setup on my current rack and am about to switch to an OMM rack. This tactic looks like it will work nicely.

You know, Dinotte could sell a lot more lights if they would come up with some simple mounts to use with their products. Somebody there doesn't seem to realize that a lot of cyclists don't have open seat posts on their bikes, particularly if they use them for commuting. I don't have an open seat post or a rear rack, so I'm out of luck. I even sent them an email asking for suggestings, and got no response. I guess they really don't want to sell that many lights.

Spooky - I have the same rack, trunk bag and lights as tsl!

I took a small piece of electrical conduit and taped it to the back of the rack to provide more of a tube like thing where the racks lighting mount was, this places the tail light under my trunk bag, pointing back. I do not angle it down to the ground - it is there to make me very visible to motorists coming up from behind and I angle it so that it makes me as visible as possible. If I didn't want to be obnoxiously visible, I wouldn't have the dinotte tail light.

Ah, but do you wear the same jeans? (Levi 501 32/34)

http://www.brucew.com/images/prr/din...y-mounting.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/...29affb.jpg?v=0

My little rig. Probably overkill, but then I'm known for belts & suspender approaches to things. I usually tuck the battery bag into the pannier or whatever bag is on the rack.

Many thanks to all for this thread.

I'm gradually getting my old French frame ready for the road again, and have been thinking about a DiNotte on it (though I'll be using a Berthoud saddlebag with no rack). This gives me a few ideas for that.

The real kicker for me, though, is that Arkel Tailrider racktop pack. EXACTLY what I've been looking for! (thanks tsl). :D