Poor Man's 300 Lumens Lights

I was shopping at Sam's Club and I happen to come across their Element K2 Super Bright LED Flashlight. I had bought the earlier model that put out 80 lumens, but this new generation puts out 150 lumens! For around $30 for two lights, it was a decent buy. Each light was powered by three AAA batteries.

Then I thought to myself, what if I used these as my main lights on my bike? I already had a TerraCycle mount that held two Blackburn Voyager 3 lights. The Voyager 3 lights put out 17 lumens each. It was no contest to replace these with the Element lights that combined, puts out 300 lumens.

The next step was how to mount the flashlights to the TerraCycle mount. TWOFISH Cycloblocks Bicycle Flashlight Holder Cross Channel solved that problem. I bought two from Battery Junction for about $8 each. It's basically a rubber block that is secured by velcro straps.

I installed the two Cycloblocks and the flashlights on the TerraCycle mount. My mount had an extender in order to accommodate two lights. I then took an extra velcro strap and wrapped the two Cycloblocks together so that the one piece on the extender side would not slip off.

The lights were a bit heavy due to the aluminum case and on the bike it looks a little bulky. I took it out that same day to see how it illuminated the bike trail at night.

I also found a great place to attach my two Blackburn Voyager lights! On my Strada I have a Euromesh seat. Under the seat there is a bar that connects the seat frame to the seat mount. With some tweaking I was able to mount the two Voyager lights right underneath the seat.

These lights I aimed at an angle to illuminate the sides of the bike. This setup I hoped to extend the width of coverage.

Now for the field tests. I took my new lighting system to my local bike trail to see how it preformed.

I aimed my bike at a grassy hill to view the coverage. The two flashlights gave a really bright white spot beam and you could see the two other beams of light coming from my lights under the seat. The picture above doesn't really do the lights justice. With the extra lights under the seat, they gave out an extra arch of illumination that started from the hub of the front wheel with a width of about 20 feet.

The picture of the lights on the trail shows that the setup easily illuminates the bike trail. I should have placed the bike in the middle of the trail, but I didn't have anything to lean it against and I had to have a steady hand to take the photo with the flash off the camera. The front lights were aimed at about 30 to 50 feet down the trail.

This is a front view of the bike taken with the flash on the camera. You could see the difference in how much lumens are given off by the Element flashlights compared to the Blackburn Voyagers.

The photo above shows another view of the Blackburn Voyagers 3 aimed at an angle. Blackburn has updated the Voyager line with three LED lights instead of just one.

I also had a light mounted on my helmet, which helped me view my cycling computer and any surrounding areas around my bike. On the way back to my truck I was able to help out some cyclist on the trail. They misjudged the time of sunset and were caught without lights. Riding in front I escorted them get back to their cars.

I may have looked liked a Christmas tree on wheels, but I can surely say my path was well lit. The new lighting setup was a success. Other than the flashlights were a tad on the heavy side for bike head lights and bulky. It worked as an inexpensive way to get 300 lumens down the path.

• $30 for Element flashlights (300 lumens)
• $20 for Cycloblocks (plus shipping)
• Optional: TerraCycle Mount $44 (including extender)

Keep in mind that these lights are not regulated. Once you turn them on the dimmer they become until the batteries die. This is a non-issue for me since I change my batteries every few weeks and use the lights no more than 8 hours a week. Using rechargeable batteries could help in cutting the cost.

Jeff H. Memorial Bike Ride

Last year my friend Jeff talked everyone into getting together and riding in the weekends on our local bike trail. This is how our weekend family and friends bike rides got started. He finally got married last year and went off on his honeymoon. We named a Sunday ride after him, the Jeff H Memorial Bike Ride, since he couldn't make it this time.

It was about this time of the season that we rode in honor of him. The days were getting shorter and cooler. It was also on a late afternoon that we rode on the trail. This time we rode south of Loveland instead of north. The trail was very busy and the day was just gorgeous. Sunny and mild temperatures in the 70's. I wish we rode a little bit more further, it was just that nice to be outside riding a bike.

This time it was Jon, his daughter Violet, my wife Christine, my son Shawn and I that celebrated our Jeff H Memorial Bike Ride. The kids spent an hour playing in the park playground in Loveland. We decided to have dinner after the ride since it was well past lunchtime when we began our ride.

I rode my Optima Baron this time and was delightfully reminded that she is a very fast bike. I've been riding my Bacchetta Strada for most of the summer.

We choose to eat at Big Boys Restaurant for dinner and caught up on what's been going on with our lives. The kids are getting bigger now and soon will have to have their own bikes to ride on the trail.

Princeton Tec Fuel headlamp

Ever since my buddy Jon and I miscalculated how much daylight we had left on our bike ride and got caught riding at night without any lights on the bike trail, we've looked into various lighting equipment for night riding. Riding on the bike trail is way different than riding on a city street. At least on the streets you have the luxury of street lamps, cars or lights coming from windows to light your way, but on a bike trail it's like riding in the back country.

Jon first started off with two Cateye HL-EL220 LED's and once he saw how much my Blackburn X6 lights illuminated the trail he went looking for another lighting system. He finally bought a Light and Motion headlight that gave out 300 lumens, which cost him around $300.

I started off with two Blackburn Voyager 3.0 lights (17 lumens each) and then upgraded to Blackburn System X6. The X6 worked great with one spot light and one flood light. The only downside is that the battery is on it's last leg. It could only sustain 100% intensity until 45 minutes and then it would go down to 60% power. So I may be looking for another bike light soon.

The one thing that I was missing was that I couldn't see my cycling computer and since the lamps were positioned in front of the bike the areas behind was in need to be illuminated. I needed a helmet lamp to fill in that gap.

Enter the Princeton Tec Fuel headlamp. For around $25 you can get a small and compact little headlamp. It puts out 35 lumens and runs on 3 AAA batteries. The lamp is designed so that you do not get blinded by the light being projected from the LEDs. It didn't come with an attachment for a bike helmet, but I was able to cannibalize an old headlamp strap and attach it to my helmet with ease. If you don't have an old strap around, some velcro strips will work just fine. Being able to rotate the lamp up and down is a plus in aiming the light to a certain point ahead.

It has 4 settings, high, medium, low and blink. On high the lamp should last for about 74 hours, low 164 hours and blink 134 hours. The range of the beam is high (32-40 meters), medium (24-32 meters), low (16-24 meters) and blink (32-40 meters).

The only issue I might see is the plastic latch that holds the batteries. I just don't know how durable it is with constant use. There is a tab on the headband that is used for opening the latch. Don't try to open it with your fingers, unless you really have fingernails of steel.

In conclusion I love this little lamp. In an emergency it could be used alone as the main light on the bike trail.

North Meets South

Last Saturday I did my long bike ride (53 miles) after a week or so of non-riding. On this bike ride I rode with a recumbent cyclist that I met online at one of the cycling recumbent forums.


His name is Ray and we scheduled to do a ride together at our local bike trail. He lived north of the trail and I usually start my ride at the very southern end of the Little Miami Bike Trail. I met Ray on my return ride from Morrow Ohio. From South Lebanon we both rode south.


The ride started early in the morning and it was still dark. I forgot that the days were getting shorter and sunrise came around 6:40 AM instead of 6:00 AM. I took off from Newtown, with lights on, to Morrow Ohio. I was the only cyclist on the trail until I arrived in Loveland Ohio. I did met a group of runners coming towards me in the dark, carrying a flashlight. Their bobbing light gave me the clue that it was a runner and not a cyclist coming towards me.

By the time I met Ray my legs were almost spent. We rode between 18 to 22 mph. I didn't drink allot of fluids this time around and I guess that was my mistake. At times I couldn't keep up with Ray when he went past 20 mph.

Here is Ray getting set to turn around and head back up north to his car. Just 3 more miles south and Ray would have reached the southern most part of the trail.

Ray rode his Bacchetta Aero, a titanium frame recumbent. It had carbon fiber wheels that made a "whoosing" sound as he rode past. He recently bought the bike several weeks ago and is looking to upgrade it some more.


On the last half of the ride my legs were done. I didn't have an ounce of energy left to draft off a roadie that pasted me. The grade of the trail was at a decline and I could only get it up to 18 mph, that's how tired I was.

Video recording the ride, I passed by a cyclist with only one leg. I've seen him before on the trail, but this time I was luckily enough to capture him on video.


Ray Bent Ride from glenn m on Vimeo.

You may have to wait a minute for the video to fully buffer or download. It's about a minute long.

New Orleans Bicycles

It's been a while since I've posted something. School season has started and time riding on the bike has been rare. The only quality times that I can log some mileage are either in the late evenings or the early mornings. This is where a couple good quality lights come into play, but that's for another future post.

I've been out of town for several days down in New Orleans. A friend of mine is getting married in September and his bachelor's party was in the French Quarter. Other than drinking, shopping, sightseeing and drinking I was able to take photos of the local bikes.








The one impression that came to me was that most or all of the bikes were your so called Walmart type bikes. Not very expensive, but that's a benefit when you're in the French Quarter or any large city. I would assume if you were to leave a semi-expensive bike it would grow wings and fly.






The school of thought was that, so long as the bike can get you from point A to point B, it was darn good enough. There were bikes from the 50's rust bucket to bikes off the display shelves from Walmart. These are what you would call city bikes, no nonsense, Cinderella sister ugly, but will get you to where you want to go. They are the mutts of the cycling world, a true utilitarian, but with characteristics to start a conversation.

Test riding the new upgrades on the Strada

Last Friday and Sunday I had a chance to test ride the Strada with the new upgrades. 650c wheels, racing tires, new seat, new seat bag, and cassette gearing gave the bike about 2 mph extra speed but also, took away the plush ride characteristic with the old parts. I'm fine with loosing the smooth ride, so long as I can squeeze out some extra speed. It's a recumbent so the bumpy ride will not be as bad as a regular diamond frame bike.

Friday's ride I met Mike, a 7 Hills Cycling Club member. He was out riding his Litespeed road bike. He caught up with me doing around 22 mph. We road together towards Loveland until my water bottle fell off my bike and I had to stop and look for it. With the jarring ride it finally wiggled off and no I didn't find it.

Sunday's ride I met Mike again when I turned around half way on the trail. He was doing his long recovery ride. He had already had gone around 80 miles when I met up with him again. Mike had another 25 miles to go to finish off his 105 mile ride.

I had hoped to follow a fast roadie on the way back on my half way point. It was fortunate for me to meet Mike again and be able to chat on the way back as well. When you're riding with someone your speed seems to pick up and not such a chore to maintain. We were doing around 20 mph on the way back.

I learned more about Mike on the ride back. He belonged to a racing team in his club and is quite a competitor. His work environment and home life allows him to spend allot of time on the bike. I'm so jealous. I forgot to ask him what his ranking was with the USA Cycling Organization. He had to be at least a Cat 3 or 2.

Latest Upgrade to the Strada

I finally acquired several key upgrade parts to my Bacchetta Strada. The wheels I switched out to a 650c size, the seat I replaced with the Bacchetta Euromesh, added a Bacchetta Brain Box seat bag and replaced the 11-23 cassette cog to a 11-34 cassette.

The 650c wheels allowed me to ride with thinner road tires. The Velocity Spartacus wheels I won off of eBay. They came with cogs, tubes and tires. The tires alone equaled the amount I paid for the wheels. So for the price of two racing tires I got two racing wheels that would normally cost around $300.

The seat and seat bag I purchased off the bike's manufacturer's website. The seat is not as light as a high end carbon seat, but it's lighter and narrower than the normal standard Recurve seat. The new seat finally allowed me to place two feet on the ground while seated. The wide seat pad of the original Recurve seat didn't allow me to do that. Also, it was lower and allowed me to move the seat backwards. The original seat's lower padding was at least two inches high which increased the seat height.

The seat bag mounts to the top back of the seat. The bag stores up to 600 cubic inches, which is allot of space. It stores all the necessary items, such as tubes, tire repair kit, tools, pump, power bars, cycling glasses, bottled water, wallet, cell phone, etc.

But the most important upgrade was the changing of the original cogs to a 11-34 teeth. This is the same cog number that is on my Baron lowracer, which works well for me. I immediately noticed a two mph speed increase.