In which we discuss the Bikelighting culture (Fahrradbeleuchtungskultur) of our countries.Here in Germany, because of the Danger, it is not allowed to have a blinking Taillight. This is also the Reason that all emergency Vehicles in the World have blinking Lights. By attracting other dangerous night Vehicles to crash into the Ambulance, instead of the civilian Vehicles, it spares Drivers in smaller Vehicles, where the Occupants are less able to administer emergency self-Aid. This is the Consequence of what we call a „high trust Society“; our culture of Politeness dictates the most Risk to the most capable Roaduser. The same Expectation is extended to Police and Construction Engineers who are paid more for occupational Hazards such as a blinking Light.Do you have a Law about blinking Bikelights in your Country?
>>2053772>Do you have a Law about blinking Bikelights in your Country?yes
>>2053772there's something on the books but it's not enforced unless the cops just want an excuse to shake you down. I was at a particular convenience store about 20 years ago and the cop thought I was a crackhead because of the bike. it was daytime but he used the light law to process my ID, question, and ticket me. so I bought a light and went to the court date. the judge read the ticket and he said "on a BIKE?" and immediately dismissed it. I tried to show him the receipt that made me compliant and he didn't even care, just waved it away.so, yes and no, but mostly no. and it never happened before or since even if I had no light.cops could care less than a fuck if your light blinks or not
>>2053776This - talked to a cop and she said she was happy for every cyclist who used one.On the other end, I got a few remarks by other cyclists and motorists for the very aggressive blinking of my varia 515.The varia 516 is the StVO-conform version but much more shit (only 5lm, non-blinking vs. up to 65lm on the 515)
>>2053772Florida/n/on here. I usually use strobe mode during the day and steady at night.
Yeah I definitely want my lights to be only visible 50% of the time definitely at night also
>>2053772Thats cool and all but i'll still use my blinking varia and my blinking lupine frontlight.The law is absolutely retarded and a 5lm limit is literally deadly.
>>2053772Yeah but they aren't enforced. Too many people here use shitty gigawatt LEDs both front and rear that destroy the corneas of anyone unfortunate enough to have their eyes pointed in their general direction. Makes night riding fucking impossible>hurrdurr but they got your attention fuck off and get smeared into a truck's grille
>>2053802Have you tried not going the wrong way down a one way street?
been using this as a taillightaround 12 eurosits amazing, cant figure out how to adjust brightness tho, but has multiple modes, detects decalleration, has a mode with auto wake up/turn off
>>2053772If you care that much about having a blinking taillight and following a law no one cares about you can get a clip on light for your clothes or backpack in any color you want. Those are allowed blink in any pattern you can imagine
>>2053772Same in Austria, thanks to that it's impossible to find a strobing taillight for bikes anywhere...
>>2053822MUPs are one-way streets? But nah it's a problem on two way streets too. Same problem as the brightness wars with car lights. Cager mentality isn't limited to cagers. People are shit
Anyone else got a dynamo set up?Great for bike packing as no batteries required and can recharge devices. Will never go back to batteries.
>>2053850Only ebikes use 15000 lumen giga-blinders on MUPs. But that doesn't stop karens like you from screaming at normal people for using lights that work on public roads.
stop using the lights and polluting my nightscape you pieces of shitfucking retards with their little chinese e-wastes
>>2053909So you're saying Taiwan is part of the PRC?
>>2053772you're right anon i used to think it makes sense to draw extra attention to emergency vehicles but clearly you're just too important a person to not focus everyone's attention with your distracting ass blinkenlights because fuck everyone else
>>2053827If you use a particularly confusing or disrupting light color, pattern or strength you could still potentially get got for StVO §1 (2). Maybe there's an absolute freak case exception with serious consequences where StGB §315b could even be considered to apply (person gets confused or blinded by lights, veers to the side and kills someone in the process). Not saying either is likely, probably no one's gonna bust you for a lil blinky light on your backpack, just putting it out there.>>2053895Have had a dynamo hub on my commuter for years, never going back, literally never having to think about my lights the entire year is well worth a couple watts.
>>2053940I think you need to stop reading our wishy-washy StGB.
My Edelux head lamp is my longest surviving bike component by a mile.When I first got it in 2012 I was so pissed at its mediocre light output that I sent it back to the manufacturer to have it inspected.It survived among other things, the australian desert, exposition to salt water, countless hours in pouring rain.
>>2053958I'll give you a waiver on my cranky old man rant in this case, because you're obviously a legitimate eccentric who is into weird ass gear for the sake of weird ass gear and I can respect that, normies who unironically defend these things because they think anything German is automatically better though, those people are not ok
>>2053902Feeling called out, eh, cage-brain?
>>2054017How many miles did you drive last month?
>>2053895I've been looking to install one. I have disc brakes, would this kind of setup still work?
>>2054028This is about your shitty behavior on the streets, stop trying to deflect. Maybe you could also stop pointing your 100k lumen strobe straight at people and you wouldn't get yelled at. Just a thought!
>>2053772I use a steady one and a slow flashing one.
>>2054039Don't go the wrong way down a one way street, and we'll both be happy. Or hey, blind yourself, if you enjoy being angry all the time as a direct result of your avoidable, self-inflicted problems.
>>2054029u need a dynamo hub, the thing that boomer linked is so obsolete its not even funny
>>2054075Are you illiterate, too? As I said, it's a problem on two way streets (ours are narrow) and MUPs. Sorry that your educational system failed you
>>2053772These little shits are the best "toss it in the bag and give to an idiot roadie friend who saved 20 grams" lights out thereNot just because they are cheap, small and ubiqtous, but also because they are the perfect brightness to be visible without blinding anyone, have good strobe modes (particularly the running light mode that doesn't blink you in and out of existence, you can feasibly run it instead of solid in the dark as long as you put the guy in the middle of the pack), and don't have the idiotic fucking "brake sensing"The battery is small, but because they aren't retina blasters they last surprisingly long, not long enough for a night ride but long enough to get you homeThey are also perfect for DIY projects, they are only a big battery and a USB-C port away from being actually top tier lights, and their reflector is very easy to integrate into a 3D print
>>2054087As for front lights, I would've sworn by these LD28s... If you could actually find them now, they seem to be discontinued. They are the only chink light that actually had a proper lensed light pattern that lit the road and nothing else. The current trend in bike lights is "MAX POWER MAX GLARE IN EVERY DIRECTION BLIND THE FUCKING PLANES TOO" and it fucking sucks for everyone involved- you get a less focused light that needs to consume twice the power to light the road as far as this one does (and thus lasts for half an hour on an included 18650 that's half sand), and everyone else get a retina blaster that will kill their night vision and make them crash into you. Plug this one into a medium-sized powerbank (they don't have built-in batts), and it'll last you from dusk till dawn and more. Apparently they also work off dynamos if you rewire them, haven't tried that though. If you find them on a secondary market- grab them, they are the best, the only downside is that their "strobe" mode is very slow breathing that makes you disappear for half a second, but they are efficient enough that you can just run them in low power mode during day (which is when you should strobe, never strobe at night).
>>2054084I have never seen that, so you are obviously wrong. Sorry about your delusions.
>>2053902>Only ebikes use 15000 lumen giga-blinders on MUPsNope, you can buy ones with built in battery that will pierce even your eyelids all the same.
>>2053786The flashing commands more attention than a consistant shining, especially at the lower loght intensities you'll find on bike lightsIn fact it was banned under the assertion it wpuld be "distracting" lmao
>>2053772
>>2054250There is attention, and there is ability to locate you. At dusk, when you should be using strobe if you aren't german, flashing light grabs car's attention, and then they can follow your silhouette to locate you on the road. But the dark, the light is both means of attention and location, so if you use strobe- sure, car knows you exist, but not necessarily where you are exactly. Germans just decided to save idiots from themselves and not let them use strobe at night by not allowing them to use strobe at all. Very german solution. There is the best of both worlds, a strobe mode that, instead of turning on and off, changes intensity between dim and bright, making you constantly illuminated and easy to follow while having the attention-grabbing effect of the strobe, but most lights don't do that because they are cheap and cheap shit can't into PWM more complex than halving the duty cycle all the time.
>>2054405>Germans just decided to save idiots from themselves and not let them use strobe at night by not allowing them to use strobe at all. Very german solution.they didn't. The reason why they aren't allowed is because regulations were made half a century ago and nobody cares enough about them to lobby them into legality. Even battery lights weren't allowed until a couple years ago and people made up the wildest bs on the internet. That's just how it works in this shithole so unless VW is starting to produce flashing taillights there is no hope
I don’t give a shit if there’s a law, there’s a lot of laws, people don’t necessarily obey them. Im gonna use a blinking rear light and blindingy bright front light because that’s what works to be seen and see better I find it a lot fucking safer feeling riding at night with this setup than riding in the day but generally, in terms of rules and laws, cars don’t fucking obey them so why would i. I ride like an absolute fucking retard and never had any close calls that were not due to some driver completely taking the pissI used to ride very safe, close calls.Now i ride like a cunt, same close calls for the same reasonsRulecucks stfu
>>2053895>>2054029>>2054080dynamo hub by either Son or Shimano is what you want, it's not even a contest by how much more convenient a hub is vs this tire friction shit that doesn't work with most high quality tires, they also exist in boost hub dimensions, have it laced up/lace it up yourself or buy a complete wheel; it's an absolute relief not having to rely on batteries
>>2053772Legally speaking, besides blinkers which can be either orange or red, at the rear (white or orange at the front (yes), flashing lights are reserved to emergency (blue) or special non-emergency vehicles (orange), so blinking "presence"/brake lights aren't legal, to avoid confusion, but, as the say goes, round here, "it's illegal, but only in the law" (i e.: it's the wild west...).
>>2053826How effective the deceleration detection is; false positives/negatives?
>>2053850Afaik, vehicle lights are limited in output, round here.
>>2053772We have laws but it just says you need a front white/amber light, red tail light, both can be solid or flashing and you need front and side amber or white reflectors plus a red rear reflector. Picrel is my current light situation.
>>2054423Most things are charged via usb these days, and usb sockets have become ubiquitious. Dynamo hubs seem to me like a solution to a problem that isn't really there (outside of some fringe cases).
i like retroreflective tape
>>2054713little fenix flashlight
>>2053895i used a dynamo once in my sister's lady bike, it was great because it used an incandescent light bulb so it lit up at any speed you were using it at. throttling and noise might be an issue with incandescent but it beats not seeing anything in the night and the simplicity of the whole thing made it reliable as fuck, even though it was some off brand plastic chinese thing (its working to this day no issues at all even though the rest of the bike is fucked beyond repair)
Are there dynamo hubs which won't require me to get a new wheel?
>>2053772I work nights, so I'm used to both driving at cycling at night. I dunno what actual studies that there are out there, but in my opinion, the bike lights that strobe like an epileptic's nightmare just seem like a worse option. The ones that kinda do a breathing pattern with maybe a single flash seems like the better one. At night, flashing lights either draw your eyes to it, and no matter what you drive, you tend to have a subconscious bias to steer towards your eyeline. Then the other option is to avoid looking at it entirely to avoid the fucking supernova to your retinas, so you aren't looking out for the cyclist at all.
>>2054713Probably one of the best options, combined with a modest front white and rear red light. Not that flashing bullshit I talked about >>2055196. If you don't have rim brakes, the reflective wheel tape does wonders for your side profile visibility and makes it starkly apparent that you are a bike, and what your size is. I never thought much about how to best add it to the front/back profile, though. There's probably commuter jackets that use it. I have a Klim jacket for my motorcycle that has it and it seems really effective.
>>2055196"Flashing lights" just means anything that isn't steady or off. The flash pattern is obviously important but are you really claiming that there outta be a law banning flashes just because some flash patterns are sub optimal?
>>2055201I'm in the US, where pretty much anything goes. There's probably some thoughtful way to make a law that allows flashers, while banning some of the more extreme ones out there. But even that's very low on the list for vehicle light laws for me, really. Bike flashers are waaaaay down the totem pole compared to the dipshits that replace their car headlights with LED bulbs into the super reflective incandescent housing (already illegal at a federal DOT level I believe, but barely enforced), and the dipshit cousin fuckers that lift their pickups, but don't adjust their headlight angle (again, illegal in a lot of states, but even less enforcement).
impersonating a police officer? sorry officer, never heard of that
personally i prefer a pulse or "breathing" light over a flash.
>>2055327In English, when people talk about flashing or blinking lights it's a catch-all to describe anything other than steady
>>2053895Got a cheap Shimano hub in dire need of maintenance. Still works fine, but the bearings are fucked. But they are annoying to open and I'm lazy.
>>2055188Yes, there are plenty. I recommend SON hubs, even if a bit expensive.But replacing the hub is annoying and time consuming, so most people just get a new wheel anyway.
>>2053772>Making yourself as visible as possible to oncoming motorists is illegalWe really did defeat the wrong enemy.
>>2053772Most lights seem to be garbage, not just in bikes, i general.But more so on bikes. The problem is Most average people don't see light very well.And you can't covince me otherwise.You see, for average people to see a light, it needs 2 things.1 - VERY bright, like brighter then the SUN2 - big, how big? Well traffic lights are very big?At least bigger then most of the shit lights on bikes.I would probably try a Front light (brighter) on the Back of bike.https://shoprealitybikes.com/products/giant-recon-hl-1800But I'm not a bike light expert, so i would take other opinions here first.
>>2055209Thats nice, and even if it causes trouble (maybe not recommended.It would work pretty well.Where do you find something like that?https://www.nightprovision.com/products/ps1200-police-bike-light-set-1200-lumens-xm-l-t6-led-with-red-blue-strobeThats what i found.
>>2056905If you buy an american taillight not a shitty german one, $45 from a legacy brand like cateye or nite rider will be blindingly bright at 10 meters and impossible to ignore at 100 meters. The reason you think taillights suck is that you bought a gimped Busch & Muller taillight from some hipster store that cost $100 and is barely visible when it's 5 inches from your face because of german laws
>>2056827nah. i see you fuckers out there at night using LED road flare strobes as bike lights.
