Nice new Serfas rear blinky
 

Never been a fan of Serfas, but I just grabbed one of these rear lights and I think it's a pretty good product -- maybe up there with the Superflash. I think it's new on the market (if not, I just spotted it for the first time). Mounts easily by just wrapping the rubber straps around a seat stay, very bright with good attention-grabbing flash modes. No affiliation with the company -- in fact, I can't say that I've ever owned or seen another Serfas product that I thought was decent. Just thought I would throw it out there for consideration.

http://www.serfas.com/product_details.asp?ID=667

Wrapping around the seatstay will point the LED's at the sky. Why didn't they make the straps a little longer so you could put it around the seatpost?

Looks like it might actually fit on the end of a rear rack. Wish the company gave the diameters of tubes it can fit around rather than saying "any tube." Does "any tube" include the relatively small rack diameters?

Don't like the coin type CR 2032's tho. I'd want rechargeable.

Those straps are about 1", pretty stretchy, and there are 4 places along their length to fasten them in order to fit tubes of varying diameters. It could definitely wrap around the tubing for a rack, and could also stretch around a seatpost. However, I think the seatstay angle is fine -- none of my bikes have seatstays with such shallow angles that the lights would point skyward to any great degree.

Somebody on this weekend's day-time ride had two of these mounted on the seatstays. The seatstay orientation is poor. These lights are more directional (max at 90') than you might expect. It might be kind-of OK at night but the seatstay angle really makes this light much less apparent in day light. Maybe, using a shim to set the angle might work.

Hmmm. Sound point about the directional presentation of the lights. I wouldn't want to screw around with a shim -- that would defeat the ease and convenience of just being able to bind it onto the seatstay that I thought was an appealing feature. I'll look at it again with new eyes in consideration of this info.

I was fairly impressed with the light in the shop and was very interested in seeing it in-use two days later. I was deliberate in paying attention to how it worked just strapped to the seatstays. The light was much brighter when I was almost on the guy's wheel and it wasn't so bright when I wasn't.

+1

Replacing watch batteries every month or so would be inconvenient at best.

Actually,this might not be bad to add to the rear of a helmet for extra light under bad conditions(rain,fog). Wonder what the batt life is for those coin cells powering a .5w.

That's not a legitimate concern for me. I only run my lights at night, and at 15-20 hours of nighttime riding per month, that's more like 6 months between changes. I can handle changing my batteries twice a year. Now if someone were really riding 100 hours of darkness per month (like over 3 hours per night?), I can see where it might become an issue -- but 100 hours between changes seems about the same as any other blinky anyway.

The visibility/directionality issue seems like a more legitimate one.

Anyway, I'm not trying to sell them to anyone. Just thought I would bring them to people's attention.

I remember seeing it a while ago and not thinking it was worth posting about because of its limited effective mounting options.

I appreciate the effort of trying something new, but I wouldn't recommend this one. It won't even wrap around a hub like a Knog Frog.

For a rear rack, instead of this one, I'd recommend their Stop Sign; for a seatpost or seatstay, the TL-One.

I see what you're saying. I'm afraid such a long time between battery changes would only make it worse for me.:o When it came time, I'd most certainly be in the middle of nowhere, trying to find a store that sold them. Now, someone who plans ahead could easily have backup batteries in their tool pouch. They don't take up much room or weight.

I thought about these for my Bianchi which is my regular ride and short distance (3 mile) commuter. I already run a superflash on the seatpost and one that I attach to my backpack. I thought the seatstay light would be cool for my application because it would not be a permanent mount.

The spare coin batteries could be hard to find or easy to loose if your like me.