I am tempted but it's back-burner for now mainly because I don't want to deal with rigging a circuit for my LED lights, but also don't want to buy new lights specifically for the dynamo.

Yeah, I guess we have common interests.

That pair of wheels looks good, at a good price. Please tell us how that works out, if you get it.

Will do. Still waiting on their intended frame to arrive.

I would suggest a second (and/or third) light...front and rear. Stuff happens. Cords get damaged, mounts fail, batteries drain, lights get broken in crashes, etc. Having multiple lights reduces the chances of a single failure leaving you riding in the dark. And battery headlights are so cheap now that you won't break the bank with multiple lamps and batteries.

I also find a helmet mounted light to be indispensable. You can direct the light where you need it, like corners. The motion of the helmet light is also eye catching to drivers without the annoying flashing. Be careful with a helmet light, however. You don't want to look people in the eyes since the light goes where your head is pointed. You can use it to get the attention of drivers how may pull out from stopsigns on you but use it that way sparingly.

I would also investigate alternative routes. 45 to 50 mph traffic isn't fun during the day and is much less fun during the night. I bet you can find something that parallels the route on a quieter street.

Yeah, I would recommend a second rear blinky. Problem is, if one goes out you don't realize it because it's behind you. If you have 2, the odds of both going out are much less likely. There's a whole bunch of things that can go wrong - bad battery, battery jiggles loose, defective light, light comes off the bike somehow, 2 lights protect against all of these.

Another suggestion is a lowered powered front light that blinks. Especially around dusk, blinking front light make you stand out as a bike more and you don't get as lost in a sea of lights.

Here's a interesting rear light from Specialized that has a sensor in it that's brighter during the day, and automatically gets less bright at night. Seems like it would be the most useful for someone riding around dusk:
Specialized Bicycle Components

A million years ago I used a NightSun rig. Bottle battery, a 10 and a 15 watt halogen front light, and a (for the time) high intensity rear light bar all controlled from single switch. I had a neighbor once comment to me that he saw me from well over a mile... I was climbing a hill (slowly as always) and he saw from the other side... Too bad that company is irrationally attached to halogen, with current LEDs it would be a marvel!

I tried a planet bike blinkie that was helmet mounted as an experiment. It used old cheap LEDs, but a novel auto leveling system. It is great bang for the buck!


Sold me, higher is better... multiple lights apart from each other better still.
So picked up vis 360+... It is incredible. Got to see it from others perspective when I loaned it to my daughter. Extremely effective.
Brighter is better, but I'm also sold on wide angle.

So rear lights are so far, are a tl-ld1100 bolted to the rack, a PBSF turbo on chain stay. The tail light from the 360+... But after a bonus from my boss who is very concerned (she knows 3 people who were hit on bikes) I was trying to decide between a dinote quad and a light and motion 180 vis... Went with the 180 vis... so PBSF will be demoted to rt chain stay...

Using 5000lm mj-880 cheap clones for bar mounted, with erratic luck. They're nowhere near what they say they put out, but when they work they're glorious!

But without it I came across a 2 stealth campers... They said I looked like a UFO! So since my inspiration is Close Encounters of the Third Kinds, I'm on my way!

Now for the sound system!

Excellent wheel shipped from Germany.

That's the cheap Shimano dynamo I recommend to people.

To those advocating 2 or 3 lights front and rear, how do you deal with charging them all? I currently use a total of three lights and it's a pain to charge them all, particularly since one uses microusb (Solas Niterider), one uses miniusb (Cygolite Metro), and one is proprietary (Blackburn Flea rear).

Not that I charge many things every night, but I suggest you make a system for nightly charging. Get enough adapters as you need for simultaneous charging, or get a multi-port adapter, such as this one. I charge my phone and tablet every night. I have a list of USB things I charge to remind me, and it includes my headlight, bike-GPS, headphones, etc. I have a power strip set up as my "charging station" for convenience and habit formation.

For me 2 are battery powered, I just change them with cheap bulk batteries. Could be worse on the environment, but then they use a TON of plastic in hospital rooms.

At work, helmet lights charge from usb on computer, 880 clones charge from wall with own charger... I have also used a 808 clone fitted with red wide angle lens fitted. It is FANTASTIC, but this particular on drains batteries. Bright as all get out, like flash is high with constant low. Pack lasts only 40 minutes on flash... low (which is STILL amazing) runs about an hour. So something is wrong with this particular clone. One morning before sun up in the fog, I was casting quite the cloud of red behind me...

Oh on helmet mounts, they work wonders on dogs. Flash stops them even during the day, just beam them in the eyes.

I work the graveyard shift and my commute is always dark, you get used to it after awhile.
I feel that night commuting is safer if you have the right gear.
I wear a hi-viz vest and my Schwalbe Marathon + tires have a nice reflective strip as do my handle bar bag, frame bag and trunk bag.

On the rear of my bike I run a Serfas blinky, a Cygolite Hotshot and have a spare Blackburn.
On the front I run a Serfas blinky and 2 Cygolite Metro 300 lights.
They are all USB rechargable.
This set up works great and I am always running 2 front lights and 2 rear lights with a spare front and rear ready to go, so I can really run 3 front and 3 rear if I need to.
I find that cars give me a lot of room and I have been told that I look like a rolling X-mas tree...lol


It is all Psychological once you get used to the dark, rain, snow etc.

I enjoy dynamo lights, but when I was using battery lights I would store my bike by an outlet and have all the charging cable hooked up there. Plug them in without removing the lights from my bike at all. When I went to ride, reach down and unplug them, and that was it.

I didn't find the charging cable types to be a problem, but it was annoying to take the lights on and off the bike all the time. So that's how I solved it.

No one mentioned handle bar end lights so here I go. Handle bar end lights. I use them and Vis 360 helmet system. I have a cat eye front head light for the bike going forward. Reflective ankle straps and clothing that has reflective seams. Back pack has LEDs that are battery powered attached with zip ties. Valve stem lights
for the side view stuff. Good god I need to loose more weight so I can get another light!
V

I think this is my problem. The front and rear lights are simple to take on/off, but the flea requires pulling the velcro strap off the helmet, using the special charger, and then putting it back on. I may switch over to a different light just to avoid dealing with it.

Each headlight that I own came with its own charger. I leave the lamps on the bike in the garage, unplug the batteries, take them into the basement and plug each into its own charger. I have multiple battery packs as well and just cycle through the charged batteries. It's not all that difficult nor onerous.

ok, I will look into getting redundant lights... any changes how you ride during dark?
and I know I messed up the description of the road so I will try to fix:

its a 2 lane road (1 lane each way) that has a bike lane on each side about 4-5 ft in width. There is an intersection that I do have to cross and the bike lane, of course, continues on through the intersection. the intersection widens into a left turn lane (with left turn arrow), straight lane, and bicycle lane.

the road does have a 45 mph speed limit but the motorists do go faster... and there are no parallel roads to use (unfortunately).
oh and the ride is only about 5.5 miles.

I don't really ride that differently at night then during the day. You do have to realized that you are less visible and be a more vigilant. If anything, I tend to ride further out into the lane at night so that I have more room to maneuver. You won't see road hazards as quickly at night and they can surprise you.

I have an Anker 5 port 40 watt charger - it can charge 5 things at once even if they're drawing a lot of power. It's an awesome charger and is only $25. It auto-detects what kind of thing is plugged in, iPhone, Android, tablet, iPad, whatever, and switches the port to match the attached device.

My lights only need charging every 3 or 4 days of riding. I just plug one set in as soon as I get home, switch to another before bed if needed. I don't have that many lights but I have one or two cameras to charge as well, and I have my phone on the charger every night and a pair of bluetooth headsets that I swap out every 2 days or so.

Sometimes I charge stuff at work, I just plug it into the PC where there are 4 USB plugs and I have a handful of cables (they're about $3 each, buy a bunch).

You likely have MANY USB ports available to plug things into, and cables are cheap.

I'm a fan of spoke lights and/or reflectors for visibility. A friend recommended this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Now nearly every bike in the family has them (not the best picture, but you get the idea). They're durable too.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-d...152833_850.jpg

With some of the good LED lights, like the Edelux, this isn't a problem. You can see, and be seen, for a hundred yards or so. At 30 mph, I'm in the traffic lane on my downhills, and there's not much debris. I know the roads from riding them every day; it's not likely a longitudinal crack wide enough to snag my tire will have opened up overnight.

Might be worth. Most annoying light for me was a AA battery light that didn't charge the batteries in the light...and required rubber bands to keep the batteries in the holder...something I was willing to deal with in college, but not after getting a "real job". :-)

Yeah, good shaped beam lights like the Edelux make things way easier to see. It's not simply the lumen output, it's putting an even amount of light on the road with no hotspot.

I ride at night in NYC often. Installed revolights on both wheels a couple months back and have never felt more visible from all angles. People tend to stare as well.

Cons include short-ish 4 hour battery-life, whopping $200 price tag, and a slightly complex/tedious installation.

Revolights Bike Lights

I saw someone in Manhattan with these a couple of months ago. Maybe it was you. I was extremely impressed. Innovative to a degree far, far beyond everything else.

+1 on the helmet mount light as a 2nd headlight. I pan mine across driver's mirrors/faces at intersections and I scan roadside for deer. The stacked lights help motorists understand what's approaching (motorcycle vs bicycle) and how far away you are.
Also +1 on the reflective ankle straps. The up-down motion makes it very clear you're a bicycle and is viewable from all directions.

You may want to consider extra flat protection, either tire liners or flat-avoidance tires. A helmet light will make it easier to see what you're doing if you have to deal with a flat tire in the dark, but it's still a situation you want to avoid.

You have he right gear for nigh commuting. The only other item you may want is high visibility stickers. I placed hi visibility reflective stickers on my helmet and my backpack has 3M reflective tape. As you ride more at night you will gain experience.

interesting you would say that... I forgot this in my original post, but my wife got me these reflective stickers. I didn't think much of them really but decided it couldn't hurt so I put them on my helmet, I do have to check them out at night to see how reflective they are... I also have this product called "safe-turn"... its basically a turn signal that you wear on your hands. when you signal a turn it lights up.

I asked lots of questions when I first started commuting.

Then I realized it just wasn't that complicated. Be visible, be able to see, and start pedaling. BOOM. Done.

Charging your light at work is a good idea though. My cygolite metro 360 is rated for 5 hours of use, I think. It's good for two days, but dim the 3rd. But passable. 10 mile commute for me.

I do want a dynamo lighting system however. So I'm also interested in that $100 dynamo wheel.

funny you say that I could have sworn I saw you biking around the LES a couple months ago but wasn't 100%. anyway, surprised I haven't seen more revo's at night around the city.

Hey, it might have been! I get around a bit, and I am fairly, uh, distinctive looking.

I saw the revolights on a bike coming out of Riverside Park at 97th St one evening. Might that have been you? I was going into the park at the time.

Where does the light emanate from? The hub or the rim?