Gear Review: BR Lights C2.1-H

Yet another gear review...

Some of the best bike rides I've ever been on have occurred in total darkness. I can recall one ride in particular in which a woman who was leading the ride declared that we simply hadn't ridden far enough that evening and "would anybody mind if we rode down to the beach?". The vote was unanimous -- so off to the beach we went. The ride had already been a ton of fun up until this point but this addition put the ride over the top. We made our way to the coastline and then started cruising down the beach at around 22mph. The moon was obscured by many clouds that evening and was definitely not full. I could dimly see the waves off to my left, and the air smelled of the sea. Because we were riding far after tourist season had ended, we were only interrupted by two cars for our entire journey down the shoreline. Except for the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach, the wind in my ears, and the occasional voices of my fellow riders, it was serenely quiet. This was a glorious ride.

Anyways, this is a long introduction to review the bike light that I purchased a few years ago: the BR Lights C2.1-H. This light seems to be the marriage of two recent developments in the technology world: decent white LED bulbs and lithium-ion batteries.

Before I tell you what I think of this light, I need to tell you something: the gentleman who owns and operates BR Lights is a very good friend of my brother-in-law. I paid full price for my light, and I guess one of the little things that went through my head before I bought this light was that if I ever ran into any problems that I would probably have a good customer experience because of my brother-in-law. I'd heard some complaints against other more-famous manufacturers of bike lights, and I wanted to avoid this. This I just wanted a reliable light that was bright and kept me safe at night. More about this at the end of the review...

So, anyways, I bought a C2.1-H and immediately put it to use for some rides with friends. This light easily attaches to a handlebar and the attachment is secure. The body of this thing is pretty much indestructible (see the video on the website of a car running over one of these lights). On top of unit itself is a very simple user-interface -- an indicator light that shows how much charge is left and a button for controlling the light. The button on top of the light is easy to use, even when wearing (I am not kidding...) three pairs of gloves. I found it to be very easy when riding in cold weather to put the light into "low output mode" when I was riding in the back of the pack and "high output mode" when I got near the front of the pack.

This unit comes with two bulbs -- one produces light in a wide, diffuse pattern and the other produces a more narrow beam. For the type of road biking that I do, this combination is perfect. I can see how somebody who mountain bikes at night would maybe want to augment all of this with something that is helmet-mounted.

As for light output, this unit is really really bright.

Basically, I have ridden with this light on many occasions....in rain, in cold weather, etc. The light has never failed me in these conditions, and I have had a lot of fun in the process.

Highly recommended.

One last thing in my review: this light turned out to be extremely handy during the ice storm last year. It was nice to be able to leave my wife at home with a very powerful, very long-running flashlight. The one problem that I experienced with this light was that the unit itself got damaged from being charged from my generator's (probably very noisy) power output after five days of charging. So, I sent the unit in for repair, and the gentleman who own's BR Lights (my brother-in-law's friend) fixed the light for a small fee.

If you are in the market for a really bright bike light, one that is bombproof and well-designed, I think that you should check out the lights from BR Lights.

Stale Beer

True story: Last Friday at noon I went on my usual bike ride in the hills that surround the office park that I work at. As me and my co-worker were descending a small hill, the driver of a (blue?) car traveling in the opposite direction threw a half-empty can in our direction and managed to hit me with a glancing blow square in the chest. I had less than a half second to react to this. Thankfully, I was completely fine from the whole incident. The car disappeared, and there was nothing I could do about the whole incident -- I had no description of the car, no license plate, and I wasn't carrying a cell phone either. The only thing that I could hope for from the incident was that the people driving behind the (blue?) car would have seen the incident and called the police.

After the coward(s) in the car disappeared, my co-worker asked what had happened. Since the can that hit me was blue, I assumed that the can was a can of Pepsi. So I told my co-worker that some idiot threw a can of Pepsi at me.

There was nothing we could do at this point except to continue the ride. So, that's what we did.

When I got back to the office, I sat down at my desk to cool off. There in my cube, in the absence of a 20mph breeze from riding my bike, I took a few breaths and tried to figure out what the strange smell was. Then it hit me: stale beer. That coward in the car threw a half empty can beer at me!

Oh, wonderful. Not only was this driver cowardly enough to throw something at a bicyclist, but he/she also had an open container of beer in the car too, in handy enough reach to throw at me.

I wish this driver had had enough courage to stop...I'm sure I could have convinced him/her that what they did was wrong.

Tour de Cure -- success

The ride was a success. Seventy-five miles in semi-tough conditions -- lots of rain and it wasn't warm either. A friend of mine even joined me for the ride.

Of course, to get the whole writeup, you'd have to pledge money, which I believe you can still do, here.

From what I read in the newspapers, this event was supposed to raise over $200k. Nice!

Tour de Cure -- American Diabetes Association -- 4-may-2008

In honor of a few people I know who suffer from diabetes, I will be riding my bike 75 miles in this year's Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes Association. I believe that this is the fourteenth straight time that I have participated in this ride.

If you would like to support me in this endeavour, please visit my TdC page.

I have ridden the century TdC ride (actually ~107 miles) many many times in the past, but, to be honest, 107 miles this early in the season is pretty difficult for me to train for. It seems prudent to do the 75 mile ride so I am doing this.

This is a good cause, and I would appreciate any support.

Do the test

Do the test

Gear Review: Rudy Project Horus Cycling Eyeglasses

My old cycling glasses (a cheapo pair of perscription sunglasses) died after a decade of abuse. I have been doing more and more cycling lately, including some interesting night rides. Because I have had several incidents over the years in which things have pinged off of my eyeglasses as I have been riding, and because ${employer} was chipping in in terms of employee benefits, I decided to buy something that would last a long time.

The thing that complicated this purchase is that I wear perscription lenses. I do not wear contacts, and I am not interested in Lasik. In fact, I like wearing glasses.

Again, my constraints were: (1) must be bombproof, (2) must be perscription-friendly, and (3) would be really nice if I could use these in wildly varying light conditions (bright sun to glare/fog to complete darkness).

It turns out that a product that satisfies all of these constraints is difficult to find. I definitely couldn't find anything locally.

Eventually, I ended up at a website called www DOT bicyclerx DOT com . I talked to a sales guy there on the phone and eventually I ordered a set of Rudy Project Horus cycling eyeglasses. I ordered these with two sets of detachable lenses, one clear and one tinted. The tinted lenses are polycarbonate, which is an upgrade. How much? Are you sitting down? $342. This is waaaay more than I wanted to spend, but again, my ${employer} paid for most of this. I also rationalized this by thinking that these would last a long time.

So, what is my review? These glasses are nice, but certainly not $342 nice. These glasses have one almost fatal flaw -- the lenses sometimes pop out.

I sometimes ride in cold weather, and when I do I wear a hat. There is something about the added resistance of wearing a hat on your head that occasionally doesn't interact well with the motion of putting these glasses on your head. I have been in the following situation twice: in complete darkness, with my bicycle, looking for one of my clear lenses with only the light from my bicycle light to help me. This sucks. In both cases I was able to find my lens, but this was a bad situation to be in.

I emailed Bicyclerx and Rudy Project telling them of my experiences. The salesman from Bicyclerx offered to swap frames in hopes that this would help, but I declined -- I'm just certain that this wouldn't help. I even suggested in my email how they might make the lens mounting mechanism more reliable but this generated no response. Whoever answers email at info@rudyproject.com didn't think that my email deserved a reply.

I am happy that I have my new glasses. Eye protection is very important on the bike. I just don't think that
these glasses are worth $342, not with the flaw that I have mentioned.

I have probably made these glasses quite a bit more reliable with the following trivial modification: I placed a tiny strip of clear package sealing tape on the bottom edge of the glasses. I haven't had any problems with these glasses since I made this modification.

Oh well. That's my review.