Bar-end lights
 

I'm thinking of putting some bar-end lights on my bicycle. Anyone running them on their rig? How do you like them/which brand do you like?

Had Soma's on my cross bike until it was stolen. They're were ok,but remember that your body will block the right one unless a car is directly behind you. Def auxiliary and not main lights. I chose the Soma's because they used regular AAA batteries which are cheaper than button cells and last longer.

Had a set of Knogg's that had both white front and red rear on a flatbar bike. They were ok(see above,the front's were actually useful),but died in a rain storm.

Do they make them for flat bars?

Yes, I already have a PDW Radbot 1000 and several other blinkies on my bicycle, wheel lights, and a MagicShine. I just like bright blinky things. I was thinking about the Somas for the battery reason.

All of the pics I've seen had them on both flat bars and road bars. I have north road bars, so the ends point behind me.

I use TACX on drop bars. Very pleased. The forward white lights are bright enough to be "be seen" lights, being dual makes them more noticeable. The rear red lights are just extra help, they don't replace a good taillight. The lights are also somewhat visible from the side too.

I was using the Soma's on my MTB converted for commuting. I've got a handlebar on it that has more of a rise and sweep than a MTB riser bar, but not as much as something like the Soma Sparrow. This angled the bar end lights back towards say 8 and 4 o'clock (12 being straight ahead of course). I liked them, they were fairly bright, and I use rechargeable batteries on all my lights, so I liked that they use AAA's.

Downsides:
A) I didn't like the rubber gasket things that came with it to keep it in place. I had to cut them down in order for them to fit, which was fine, but then one of them tore almost right away, so I ended up cutting up some old inner tube to fashion something similar.
B) It was kind of a pain to remove them to swap batteries. It'd be nice if they could design it so the outside unscrewed to get the battery out instead of pulling the whole assembly every time.
C) IIRC the battery life was listed as 100 hours. I wasn't getting anything like that out of them, but I'm using rechargeables, so maybe that's on me.
D) If you split lanes or filter forward, you'll notice that your handlebars are now a good inch and half or so longer on each side, with correspondingly decreased clearance in between cars mirrors when they are lined up just wrong.
E) They lasted almost exactly a year. One of them stopped working, and then two weeks later the other stopped working. My bike had fallen over once recently and I would've chalked up the first light failing to that, except it was the opposite side of the one that impacted the ground that failed first.

I'm pretty dismayed that they just stopped stopped working after a year of usage, but I'm actually planning on buying another pair in the hopes that this was a fluke or something. My schedule is such that my commutes will now all be during daylight for about the next five months, so this purchase is on the back burner until late summer. While I believe bar end lights serve a useful purpose for night time riding, I don't think they are bright enough to be useful during the day.

Those are what turned me on to bar end lights. I had never seen them before and on my ride home one night I spotted them on a bike ahead of me. I hammered to catch up to him and get a good look at them and then tracked down what they were with some googling once I got home. If I rode a road bike at all, I'd definitely have a set of those.

Checked Soma's site;nope. I have seen some for flat bars somewhere,I just can't remember where.

I guess it depends on what you want out of them. I have plenty of lights aimed towards the rear already, I wanted some visibility for cars approaching from the side, for this, the Soma's work great and fit in MTB bars.

I just Googled these. It appears they have yellow turn-single blinkers as well. Does your lights have them? If so, do you ever use them and what type of reaction do you get?

Not a bar-end light, but FWIW, I am satisfied with these:
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Sunlt-Fr...dp/B004E3R2W8/
http://www.jbimporters.com/web/check...t_number=95589 (can be ordered thru your LBS if you prefer)

I just attached a couple around the head tube, one above the other, one facing to the left and another facing to the right.

As long as the end faces back , there you go.. shops in town may have something that fits..

OP now in Eugene, has lots of LBS.

only issue is the handlebar tube ID , and the OD of the little battery holding part
of those bar end lights.. that fit is either.. go or no-go.

pics of setups will b helpful.

I should have time tomorrow to dig mine (Soma's) out of the box they are in (see above), stick mine back in and snap a few pics of them on a fairly upright bar, angled back. There are good pics of the TACX Lumos online.