Lighting A New Way Forward?

 How would you like a lamp that gives off as much light as five 100-watt bulbs but weighs less than two?

Yes, for your bike.

Well, BYB Tech is promising with their Focus One light.  What's more, the Italian start-up says you'll be able to regulate the amount of light and how often it flashes from a small button on the device, or from a remote handlebar control.

Those aren't the only promises or claims BYB Tech is making.  While they don't claim to be the lightest bike light of all, they say that the Focus One is the "world's smallest 5000 lumens light" and that it will allow cyclists to be "seen like a car."

Of course, like almost any new technology, it isn't cheap to buy--or produce.  To address the latter, BYB Tech has opened a Kickstarter campaign that will help them, well, kickstart production. If you want to buy one now, making a donation to the campaign will reduce your price for a unit.

From Watts To Lumens...To Lux

Until recently, we chose light bulbs according to watts because the wattage of an incandescent bulbs correlated to its size.  The number of watts, however, was an expression of the amount of energy it used.

During the 1980s, halogen bulbs replaced incandescent bulbs in bike lights. Still, bike lights were rated by wattage.  That designation continued even after Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) replaced incandescent and halogen bulbs about twenty years ago.

Since LEDs use so much less energy, watts aren't a useful way to measure a bike light.  Bike lights thus came to be rated in lumens, which a measure of their light output.  (One lumen equals one candle.)  However, Kryptonite, which has just introduced a new line of bike lights, argues that lumens don't tell the story:  While a lumen count tells us how much illumination a bike light emits, it doesn't measure the effectiveness of the beam.  We want a light that allows us to see or be seen, but doesn't blind someone driving in the opposite direction.

That is why Kryptonite is rating its lights by a new unit:  the lux, which measures the illumination of a surface at a specific distance. According to the company, this measurement takes into account the quality, rather than mere quantity, of light because it takes into account how the light is focused.

Note:  I have not seen Kryptonite's new lights, so please don't take this as an endorsement of them.  However, I use, and have used, their locks.  If their lights are as well-designed, I think they'll be very, very good.

Ring Around With Bikesphere

When you're in the big city, it's all about being seen.

I'm not talking about the paparazzi spotting you in a trendy Meatpacking District bar or along a Paris boulevard--although I could be.  Rather, I am referring to cycling along a city's streets and byways, especially at night.

These days, most of us are using "blinkies" attached to our helmets, bags or bikes.  On most urban thoroughfares, brighter is better, as you want to stand out among the streetlights, neon signs and other sources of ambient urban light.  Many of us have also taken to wearing reflective vests over our clothing.  There are also all sorts of other accessories made of reflective materials we can use.

Now Michelin--yes, that Michelin--has come up with a new and possibly better way of making us more visible to drivers and others.  

Its new "Bikesphere" is a "smart" device that attaches to the handlebars.  It has light and proximity sensors that analyze what's going on around the cyclist.  If a car approaches, it laser-projects a red ring of light around the cyclist.  As the car draws closer, the projection intensifies and is more visible to both the cyclist and motorist.

This beacon is meant to show a "safe" distance between the motorist and cyclist.  According to Michelin, more than t 20 percent of drivers don't honor this distance--usually because they don't realize how close they actually are to a cyclist--and cause more than 5000 avoidable crashes every year.

In daylight, and in good-visibility conditions, Bikesphere saves its batteries and activates only its shining "position lights".

Bikesphere is the first product to come out of Michelin's Trendy Drivers movement, which crowdsources ideas and provides funding for them.  Currently, Bikesphere is not available for sale, and Michelin has not yet given as to when it might be.

Bike Electronics, Then And Now

One of my favorite cycling blogs, along with Lovely Bicycle! and Girls and Bikes is Urban Adventure League.  


Today's UAL post is typical in that reflects the creativity and humor of the blog's author, Shawn.  The post contrasts bicycle touring electronics of the 1970's with their counterparts today.

Actually, "counterparts" isn't quite an accurate term.  For one thing, cyclists today use many more electronic devices, on as well as off their bikes, than we did "back in the day."  I never had a transistor radio attached to my bike, but I carried one on rides that lasted more than a day.  They were the best one could do for weather reports and such.  


As for lights, the post accurately depicts their state in those days: bigger and boxier.  What it doesn't, and couldn't, show is that they were also far less effective than today's lights.  Halogen bulbs were available only in the larger sizes used in headlights for motor vehicles; they were not yet re-sized and otherwise modified for bicycle lights.  And, if I'm not mistaken, LED's hadn't been invented. 


One of the better lights I used was made by British Ever Ready Electric Company (BEREC).  

It took, if I recall correctly, two D batteries, which meant that it weighed a seeming ton.  But it did provide a brighter and broader beam than most other lights available at that time.  Plus, it came with hardware that allowed you to mount it in a variety of positions (including the built-in fork mounts found on most bikes sold in Great Britain at that time) and to remove it when you parked.  The latter, of course, was a useful feature for commuters who had to leave their bikes in urban combat zones as well as for cycle-campers.


BEREC also made what was, for that time, a nice, if heavy and clunky, tail light:

At the time this light was made, the only available flashing tail light was the Belt Beacon.  It was a great light, even by today's standards, but it was difficult to mount  and rather flimsy. (I broke two before giving up on them.)  On the other hand, the BEREC tail light, like the headlight, was solidly constructed and gave a good beam.

The other alternatives, in those days before halogen and LEDs, were Wonder battery lights as well as various generator-powered lamps.  Wonder lights were bright, given the standards of the time, though not as bright as the BEREC lights.  They also were much lighter and more streamlined.  However, they took a battery that only Wonder made.  If you were in France, that wouldn't be a problem, as it and the lights were made there and most shops in the country stocked them.  However, their availability was more sporadic in the States, which meant the batteries were considerably more expensive than the D-size batteries that powered the BEREC lights.

The first pieces of bicycle electronics I recall seeing that didn't have to do with lighting were computers that measured distance, speed and, in some cases, cadence.  They also measured the time elapsed on your ride.  The first such computer, to my knowledge was marketed by CatEye in 1981.  

Looking at it makes me think of the portable phones the Miami Vice cars. They are to today's "smart phones" as incandescent bulbs are to LEDs.  But they, like this original Cateye and the Commodore personal computers, were the the highest technology of their time.


What I'd really like to see are LED head lamps with the style of 1890's carbide bike lights.

I think there'd be room in it someplace for a cycle-computer with all of the modern functions!