Nite Ize LED spoke light
 

Thought some folks might find this interesting...
And it's only $9 to boot.
http://www.rei.com/product/774213
http://media.rei.com/media/bb/5ca89e...6775925ab2.jpg

I have one that I have not installed yet. I think I will try it on tonight's ride since we should finish at dusk or after.

Please keep us up to date on your impression of these. I'm interested in active lighting in addition to reflective tape on my bike to keep my as visible as possible at night. The Monkeylectric http://www.monkeylectric.com/m132s.htm product looks cool but doesn't seem to be the best solution for day-to-day usage.

What do they use for batteries? I checked REI's site and all it said is that they are replaceable.

I purchased mine here. I talked to them on the telephone this afternoon. They answered right away and were extremely nice and helpful.

http://www.night-gear.com/p/Illumina...y-Nite-Ize.htm

I purchased two Spokelits and had to put both on my rear wheel. Spokelit fits fine on my 28-spoke, 3 cross laced rear wheel. I could not get it to fit my 24 spoke, 2 cross front wheel. In my opinion they will only fit on a wheel that has 28 spokes or more with 3 or 4 cross lacing. I do not have a 24-spoke, 3 cross laced wheel that I can test so I cannot voice an opinion on this. If I had to guess I don't think it will work with 24 spokes. If I had known it would not fit on the front wheel I may have only purchased one. But I am big on redundancy so it is good to have a backup in case one gets knocked off or the battery dies. Besides, it is inexpensive insurance.

Since radial lacing is popular on a lot of front wheels and to some degree on the nondrive side of the rear wheel and a lot of modern wheels have 16/20 and 20/24 front/rear spoke combinations, the Spokelits may have limited application because they require 3-point contact points to hold them in place. The three contact points are: 1) the groove in the Spokelit that fits over a spoke; and 2) & 3) each end of the Spokelit braced against an adjacent spoke.

Here are my initial impressions after installing the light and looking at it in my darkened garage this afternoon while holding the bike up and turning the pedals with my hands.

You have to hold the button down a full 10 seconds to cancel demo mode.

I probably will not use the flashing mode because I ride in a group and anticipate that flash mode would be annoying to my fellow riders. I will ask their impressions about both modes. The illustration makes the flash and solid look dramatically different and that would be impossible for me to evaluate while holding the bike up and looking at close range in my darkened garage. I wish I would have thought to do it earlier when my wife's car was gone and I could have put it in a stand and looked at it from a distance.

At normal speeds I could not tell a lot of difference between having 1 versus 2 Spokelits. However 2 are slightly brighter at crusing speed and much more visible than 1 at speeds of 10-12 miles per hour or less. I may run one at a time and keep the other for backup or just run both. I have no idea how significantly solid versus flashing will shorten battery life or the cost of the batteries.

Again, this was all in my garage this afternoon at very close range. I will post my impressions of how it actually works on the road and my fellow riders' impression after this evening's ride.

Each unit requires two 2016 3V batteries. I know nothing about this battery type.

a watch battery.

http://www.ritzcamera.com/graphics/p...41460857v2.jpg

Does the way they mount seem robust enough to handle being put on and taken off a lot? I'm thinking that once I got to my destination I would take them off to prevent theft.

The manufacturers web site has a little more detail, and even a few more colors than REI has. The multicolored one might be pretty cool. :)

http://www.niteize.com/productdetail...product_id=163

that's what i thought. :( i will have to check the prices on deal extreme for the cost of replacements.

Ooooh, I want one of those.

Yes. But in reality they are cheap and not that noticeable so I would not take them out. I guess if someone saw you riding them and then immediately you stopped and left the bike unattended it might be an issue.

I did not get to ride with the group I hoped to last night so I went to my normal club training ride. I came in last and the guys in the parking lot were amused to say the least. But they said that the lights were highly visible. They are wide enough that they are visible from the rear unless you are exactly straight behind the bike. One guy said it reminded him of the lighted tandem in the movie, Men In Black, going by with the lights on. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but I think these are a winner and well worth the money.

I will give more impressions in the next week or two. My social Tuesday night group moves their start time back so that we ride in the dark for half the ride to get used to night time riding again in preparation for winter night time rides. Judging from the reaction that I got from the training group and my reputation as "Dwight the Light" preceding me, it should be pretty interesting and amusing.

Good point. I went ahead and ordered some blue and some green ones. I think in conjunction with reflective tape this is a darn good solution.

That is what I have implemented. I put black tape strips on 50% of the spaces between spokes so that is every other spoke gap on the 24-spoke front and 28-spoke back wheel for a total of 26 total reflective patches per side. I also put black reflective tape on the side of my black seat bag. I got the black relective tape here: I believe that I used all the 48"x2" and 24"x4" tape so that is close to 200 sq. in.
http://www.bikerhiway.com/motorcycle...ewon-p-77.html

These and the red Nite Ize I got this year and Nathan reflective bands wrapped around my ankle and Glo Gloves that I got last year ought to me highly visible from the side. Plus it is fun to come up with more neat things for my riding buddies to make fun of me about.

I have some LED arm/ankle bands but never felt they were very visible and Knog Frogs although intensely bright are small and too directional.

$6.00 for a similar product at the local Tru-Value hardware store. I run it on the rear of my Bar/Commuter single speed.

This light is definitely a winner. The ride leader was back at my training ride last night. We are good friends and he is a long time night riding veteran. He said that the side visibility is outstanding and it can be seen from the rear also. He could not tell any difference between flash and steady modes. Remember I have two on the rear. He recommended using flash mode to save battery life so that is probably the way to go.

I highly recommend the Nite Ize. I have ridden 50 miles and they have remained solid in the wheel with no slippage and are great lights. One might be enough but they are cheap so get two for redundancy.

Nice to hear, and for the price you can basically treat them as disposable. :)

Thanks for the follow up. Mine are in the mail.

Hopefully better than the TireFlys I got. 3 out of 4 have failed on me.

I purchased 2 blue and one red....I cannot see anyone using the green units....to an impaired driver it might appear to be or represent a green light. I put blue in the front and rear tire...and have them on flash mode...passed police vehicles at night without issue...I've even had cars stop for me to cross an intersection when they had the light...I guess at night they must think I'm a bike cop! When I do use the red one, I will put it in the rear tire and take out the blue one.

I tried tireflys and they just plain suck!

Those spoke lights are interesting :) I meant to get some to try out, but someone at work removed them from the QBP cart, grrr...

It's not easy to find active lighting for side visibility. I recently picked up a pair of these eGear Guardians and zip-tied them to my fork up by the crown, in case anyone's interested in such things. They're not fantastically powerful, but at close range they might be helpful.

http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c..._2020_84669291

I've also considered getting a small 1AAA keychain light (Fenix L0D Q4 or something along those lines), hanging it from the interior of my neon-lime shell jacket, and switching it on when I'm heading into particularly tricky traffic areas. Imagine a cyclist with a 10Hz 75-lumen strobelight illuminating the interior of a neon-lime jacket, now THAT would be hard to ignore! :lol:

Tangentially, people with helmet lights often aim them at cars to try to be seen. I sometimes do that, but I often do the opposite: momentarily aim my helmet light down at myself. Instead of a small point-source of light, the motorist suddenly sees a human being on a bike, illuminated at very high intensity, OMG HE'S COMING RIGHT FOR ME :eek: Of course, you don't want to do this if the momentary lack of forward vision is going to endanger you... I generally do so when I have time to anticipate the need, not in emergencies.

Where did you get the blue version? I see only red and green at REI.

I just got some off eBay. There are a few vendors there who are selling them with free shipping. Ones on REI and Amazon always seemed to want more for shipping than the actual cost of the light itself.

I got mine here http://www.night-gear.com/p/Illumina...y-Nite-Ize.htm

They have all the colors, and cheaper than REI.

Thanks; I saw your post right after I placed it directly with Nite-Ize. FYI, here's the Nite-Ize link, but Night Gear, like you recommended seems to be the lowest price.

http://www.niteize.com/productdetail...product_id=163