When the lights go down in the city

So you want to ride your bike at night?  You better have a crap ton of lights to see where your going and more important be seen. I'm still planning to get more for my bike.  But for now I have the Planet Bike Blaze 2Watt LED Headlight lights I mentioned in a previous post for the front they are really bright, but my biggest worry has been not being seen when approached from behind.  So I got a Portland Design Works Radbot 1000 1W LED Tail Light it has a reflector and a hellishly bright red light that can be set steady, flash slow or epilepsy inducing flash.  I also hung a pair of Serfas Guppy Combo Bicycle Light Kit on my highly reflective PurpleSky flag on the back.  They also have flashing and steady modes.  They are easy to hang anywhere and if placed against something, (backpack, seat back, etc.) they will light up a good sized area to add to overall visibility.  I still want to get a second rear light the Planet Bike Blinky Super Flash 1/2-Watt Blaze LED Plus 2 eXtreme LED Rear Bicycle Light probably, its really popular too and should make for an impossible to ignore combo with the Radbot.  I attached the rear light with zip ties on the rear rack using the mounting bracket that comes with the Radbot, the are well attached and don't move.  I still plan on more reflectors and maybe some down-lights under the seat or frame.  I may be paranoid, but I will be noticed.



In the summer in Texas the best time to ride is early in the morning or late at night.  And going without lights at night well, you won't be doing that too long.  Do yourself a favor and get as many lights as you can stand.


Click on one of the links to check out more reviews and get the best safety equipment you can find, even a minor car/bike accident is bad for the cyclist.

Visible changes

You might have noticed I now sport a noticeable flag on the back of my trike.  I bought it from Purple Sky Flags. It is, as you can see a very bright yellow and has a neon green streamer.  The silver circles you see are very reflective material. In the second picture you can see the amount of reflectiveness, that was a picture in the shade at about 8:30am and the flash illuminated it nicely.  They have many colors, three sizes, and circles or stripes that you can customize with. I chose yellow and green to make me as obvious as possible. 

I now feel like I might be a little safer venturing on to streets when I need to.  With this and lights that I have added, even poorly lit streets are going to get used on summer nights when the daytime heat makes riding impossible.  The construction of the flags is the highest quality, I can't say enough good things about that.  Its fabric, not plastic and doesn't make much noise at my below 15 mph speeds that I have noticed.  There are a couple of other flag choices out there, but this one looked like the best to me.   I intend to have the most obnoxiously lit trike I can have for night riding, I'm still working on that and will let you know more soon.  I'm still testing the rear light and some others that I will be mentioning as soon as I can. Teracycle still hasn’t' shipped the mount I ordered for the headlights.  I want to have decent pictures to go along with all the things I mention I've tried out to give as clear an explanation as possible.  In the meantime here is the video from Purple Sky's site: