Techie Tuesday: Taillight LIES

As an update to my G.I.T. Lit lighting system, I'm issuing this warning to cyclists, that claimed operation times for taillights, are wildly exaggerated. Simple math you can do in your head reveals them to be overstated by 10-20X - about equivalent to claiming you can drive cross-country on a quarter tank of gas. You can prove them false by simply putting freshly charged batteries in your light, turning it on, and waiting.

The longest duration of operation was found on my Blackburn Mars 3.0 at 12 hours, followed by the Planet Bike SuperFlash Stealth (not the Turbo) at about 8 hours, and finally the Turbo at 5 hours. This represents the amount of time before the light's performance is so degraded it's no longer effective. All times are for constant on mode. Expected Flash mode times should be roughly double, but the Turbo's effective run-time is about 8 hrs. 48 hrs. (see UPDATE note at bottom)

This research was prompted by an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago, when I arrived home and found that 2 of my 3 taillights were down, which made sense, as a van seriously crowded me approaching a 4-way stop intersection. My pilot training prompts me to take such breaches in protection seriously. Over the last 2 weeks, I've been doing a lot of testing of my taillights.

Simple algebra reveals claims of 100 hours of use to defies physics. Totally, completely, utterly impossible. As ridiculous as claiming you can drive cross-country on a quarter tank of gas.

To be clear, Planet Bike's Super Flash Turbo is a great light, and more importantly, PB is NOT unusual in making these claims. Blackburn, and most other mfgs make similar claims, which are equally ridiculous, erroneous LIES. 

Far from the 100 hours claimed by Planet Bike, the Turbo is effective for 5 hours on constant. In addition, while employing a 1W LED, that primary LED  cannot possibly be using 1 watt in the taillight's circuit.  The claimed performance would require TWO of GeoMan's best LION headlight battery packs - over $150 worth at mail-order prices.

Two AAAs supply 1.8 - 2.5 watt-hours of power max. Using 1W, max burn times would be 1.8 to 2.5 hrs. The light may be employing a 1W LED, but it's utilizing less than half that in the circuit. In my tests, it was completely dead in 7 hrs. As a guide, go with 5 hrs on constant, and less than 10  60 *  flashing, as flash mode uses 2 additional LEDs in combination with the main LED at about 50%  10% * duty cycle.

Common practice in designing conventional, high-power strobes, is to use the bulb beyond 100% of sustained power for short bursts, which I believe PB has done with a twist - utilizing only 30% of the 1W LED in constant mode , and 100% plus  in flash mode, but for only 8-10% of the time. Non-LED strobes typically run 20-120%, in part to minimize thermal shock, and in part to allow tracking by eliminating light voids. LEDs don't have thermal shock problems, but they do have heat dissipation problems. Using the LED at high output, but for short durations, or a fraction of rated capacity in constant mode, eliminates the need to use an aluminum body to dissipate heat - a strategy that will eventually fail as customers demand brighter and brighter lights.

At full brightness, based on a Fenix flashlight killing an AAA cell in 3hrs, this light's primary LED produces 20-25 lumens in constant-on mode, and to be clear it is lumens output, NOT watts input, that is the relevant metric.Because LED emitters are quickly becoming more powerful, as well as more efficient, it's important to realize that your 1W light will be brighter in a couple of years than it is now, and your current light brighter than those of a few years ago, even scaled for watts of power consumed.

These measurements should be DOT-regulated, as cyclists are using them on public, DOT-regulated roads to deconflict themselves from motor vehicle traffic. This is a serious oversight on the part of DOT - due I'm sure to the speed with which cheap, effective lighting has become affordable to millions of cyclists. Until then, carry spare batteries, or end up FUBAR.

My testing was done with  Sanyo eneloop 750mAh, Sanyo 900mAh, and Duracell 1000mAh batteries, with the expected increases in burn time. The latter are no longer available, but Sanyo now makes a 1000mAh AAA cell. I would recommend the eneloop as they don't self-discharge over time, but if you're using these lights regularly, and recharging every few days, go with the 1000mAh for 25% more time.

In addition to truth in advertising, I hope the next PB light will have 7 additional features.

1.) An amber LED on each side with a small wide-angle lens to keep motorists at bay when closing and passing
2.) 7.4v LION power via 10440 LION cells, which store 2.5X the energy
3.) 7.4 volts, so compatible with my MagicShine light, and Shimano's Di2 system
4.) An option to power the light from internal batteries, or from an external 7.4v system, or both with a fail-over to internal power if the external power fails.
5.) A full-power, wide-angle lens, constant-on LED for Tracking in flash mode.
6.) A medium Pace-Line power mode for riding in pacelines
7.) Flat ribbon cables that stick to, and hug the frame

A lighting system should be judged by how motorists react to it, not technical specs. It takes (at least) 5 lights to ride safely in urban environments. 3 taillights and 2 headlights. One white headlight, and one taillight with 180 degrees of coverage should be up on your helmet to keep high-profile vehicles from looking right over the top of you and running you over.

* UPDATE: 3/20/2012

I've been writing Planet Bike and we've had a nice dialog. They have admitted that the Turbo's constant-on mode burn time is 6-8 hrs, but insisted the flash time was 100 hours. Based on testing with a DuraCell Alkaline AAA cell, I would put flasher time at 48 hrs. I let it run for 60hrs, and it still flashed, but so weakly it would been seen at maybe 100-250ft, depending on ambient light. Inside the 48-60hr interval, the flasher is more effective in dark conditions than a reflector, but probably not more effective in a light-saturated urban environment. A couple of take-away points here.

1. The Turbo's flash pattern is excellent, drawing your attention better than any other pattern I've seen
2. It does this employing a pattern that is remarkably energy efficient
3. It's also the most effective light I've used in constant-on mode

Since you need a flasher to Grab motorists attention, and a bright, 180 degree coverage constant-on light for tracking, this makes an excellent choice for lights #3 and #4, and their interchangeability is a big advantage.

Crashing in the Rain

Right at the end of my ride on Sunday, after riding for a full hour in the rain, my luck ran thin, and I crashed in the rain about a mile from home. I was approaching a 4-Way intersection, observing traffic for sequencing, when at the last second my Fenix helmet light picked up a color difference in the road surface 4-5 ft ahead. It was a 4x6 ft utility cover of some kind, and the steel edges formed a groove that sucked my front wheel right in as I drifted from the shoulder into the middle of the lane for better visibility.

They go through the brake better when round  :-(

As best I can figure out, I broke the wheel out of the rut, but it started skidding sideways over the slick steel. I managed to recover my balance and thought I was going to be able to ride through it for a moment, UNTIL, the wheel hit the corner turned sideways, and folded up like a cheap suit.

Rim jammed hard into front brake, and heavily gouged inside of fork

When the wheel hit the corner of the utility cover it potato-chipped, and pretty much exploded as it slammed into the fork and brake. I went down hard, but the milliseconds I was skidding sideways gave me enough time to "plan" my fall, so I stuck my fisted arm out ahead of me and landed on my right side SuperMan style. No wheel could have withstood those stresses, but I'm very grateful for those milliseconds mine hung tough. That probably saved me from a face-plant, and/or a broken collarbone.

The Garmin HR strap's plastic connector is very unkind on your ribs when you fall on it, and while I had a thigh bruise the side of a DOT-bot, and a big bruise on my left knee where it fell against the frame, it's been the ribs that have been painful enough to keep me from sleeping well. Mostly though, I am very happy I didn't break my collarbone and was able to get a ride home from a nice couple in a SUV who happened by a few minutes later.
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Clean break at the Mavic SUP weld

The wheel is a total loss, except for the hub, so I have ordered a new DT RR465 double-eyelet rim, and DT revolution spokes for a 3X laced build - I've had enough problems with Mavic rims I'm going to try DT this time.

20-spoke semi-aero wonder. It understeers a bit in turns.

Since it will take me awhile to build the new wheel, and I have no spare front wheel currently, I also ordered a Mavic Cosmic Elite 30mm semi-aero front wheel. At 20 spokes it isn't going to make a great training wheel, but for fast club rides and TTs on the South Folsom Canal, it should be great.

I guess I could be bummed out about this, but mostly I am anxious to see if I can crank  out 200+mile weeks as a matter of course. I want to try to get toughened into the fatigue and see if I can get to a whole new level of fitness, and maybe, ditch my BP meds!

Riding Outside the Box

After an especially disastrous Friday night, Saturday morning, back-to-back ride a couple of years ago, I concluded that at my age, recovery times didn't permit riding without rest days. Last weekend I was talking to my doctor about my BP meds, and he liked my strategy of max exercise and minimum medication, and thought I might be able to ween myself off my meds if I lose some weight and keep exercising.

I said "I'd ride every day if I could get off these damned pills", because they damage the kidneys over time, but wondered on the drive home if that was an empty boast. I avoid back-to-back days as a rule, so unless something changed, I was lying to myself saying that. I decided it was time to challenge myself, to see if I could manage the fatigue and get it done.

6 of 7 days for 214 miles and 13,000 ft climbing

 The hardest day, by far, was the day I rode my single speed bike for "only" 20 miles. I was tired,  yes, but worse, my quads were so sore and tight I thought for sure they'd lock up on me coming home up a 10%+ grade.

As it turned out, the 52/19  gearing was excellent for spinning and my legs felt better and better as I went along. This recovery ride was a real confidence builder, offering hope that a generous warm-up period, or light day, could heal better than sitting at home.

I'm really excited now, like there's a new frontier out there to be explored, and I can't wait to explore it!

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Lots of Riding, and Thoughts on Gear

I've been doing a lot of riding, and have racked up 725 miles for Dec and Jan, in part because I'm trying to get 100 miles in reliably, every week. The weather has been dry,  but I've also been relentlessly working wheel, tire, handlebar, saddle, and lighting issues, and because I can ride dark safely after dark with the 5 Point lighting system. 

I'm working on a post about riding in the dark and cold of winter, but had to relegate it to a draft after finding my thoughts a bit muddled last week, so that will be coming sometime in the next few weeks, but not just yet.

Also available in BLUE and PURPLE

I picked up a tiny AAA Fenix E05 R2 flashlight to light the Garmin and thermometer at night, and I'm amazed by this little light. The size of my little finger, it drains an AAA cell in 3:30, but cranks out 27 ANSI-certified lumens with a lens that makes a perfect pool of light from 1-80 ft. I can read my wristwatch at arms length 50 ft away. Stunning.

The best place to mount it for lighting the cockpit turned out to be the front of my helmet - so it's Velcro-ed there, and is doing a credible job as my forward, white helmet light. It's a "be seen", not a "see" light in that mode (except for the many steel posts where roads cross the ARPT where it makes their reflective tape really come to life) but weighs .39oz, lights my hands for signaling, and generally brightens up night riding a lot by keeping my hands and cockpit lit.

No matter where I look, it's just magically lit. Drinking fountains, bathroom doors, front gate lock, front door lock, gearing, AND, hands-free lighting for fixing a flat tire in the dark.

After 1:30 the light was turning a little yellow Friday night, so I decided to try swapping a AAA eneloop NiMh (it's optimized for NiMh, but will work fine with Alkaline too) cell from my old PB SuperBlinky taillight before it got too drained. It worked fine, and I discovered that the Ultegra 6700 shifters work great for prying open the taillight's body to get to the batteries. (no coin required)

While I intended to use the E05 solely as a utility keychain light, because of it's incredible performance, it's rubbing up against a lot of other uses, while having a little less battery life than I'd like. First and foremost, is being a real "see" helmet headlight.  The perfect light for all of the above roles is probably the Fenix LD10. It isn't enough headlight alone (except as a fail-over light), but great for filling in the dark spots going through turns.

Note the discrepancy between claimed max output between Fenix's website and Amazon's ad. The technology is advancing very quickly, but not enough to change my evaluation, or RX uses for this light.

My PB 1W Blazer headlight, with an excellent lens, is 70 lumens, but the Fenix L10 is smaller, 1/4th the weight, more aerodynamic, and should easily outperform it on for a couple of hours on high.

Settings are low (9 lumens), which runs for up to 34 hours on a single AA battery; medium (50 lumens, 6 hours); high (105 lumens, 2.2 hours); and turbo (132 lumens, 1.5 hours). Plenty of lighting options, and I like the SOS setting. On low or med it would make a great cockpit light for even the longest winter rides, and an excellent go-to light on double centuries.

For an excellent Double Century light, check out the Fenix (pronounced Phoenix) TK15, which runs on 1 rechargeable 18650 LION cell, OR, 2 CR123 cells available at Bertha-N-Bubba's Bait shoppe anywhere in the northern hemisphere.


Power options include CR123 AND 4,000 mAh LION cells. State of the art

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I wore my new Voler Artico FS bib tights Friday night, and they are excellent above the waist, and OK below the knee. The chamois is excellent too, but the fabric on the upper legs, especially over the top of the quads and thighs, is pathetic.Not even a little bit wind resistant. The new Voler tights have remedied this problem, but at $185, not an option. After using a discount code, I paid $108 for these, including postage.

I have a standard test for a fabric's ability to stop wind - I hold it to my mouth and try to blow through it. Unlike, for example, the PI Barrier Fleece around the face on my PI balaclava, which I cannot blow through at all (like Saran Wrap), the Voler fabric I can blow right through. This, once again, turned out to be a perfect predictor - unfortunately.

Above the waist the bib fleece extends up to my naval in front, and all the way up to my neck in back. It's close to an additional base layer above the waist, and prevents "frozen belly". I really appreciate the extra protection in front.  All-in-all though, a major disappointment, and a head-scratcher too. Why make a bib whose upper is too warm to ride above the 50's, and whose leg protection is inadequate below 60?  Hard to understand.

Once home, with shoes and clothes still on, I tried slipping my PI leg warmers over the top of the tights. That worked very well, even over shoes, and the reflective piping on the 10" zippers will be welcome too. Fortunately, the PI leg warmers have sticky grippers on both the inside and outside up top, so they can be pulled all the way up to the crotch and stay there.

This would make the bib tights very versatile for cold morning starts, especially with a SS jersey and arm warmers up top, but that's not why I bought them. I don't want bib tights that are only warm down to 55F in calm conditions, and 60 in windy conditions. I wanted protection down to the 38-40F range.  Will keep looking until I find something that meets this requirement.

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I wore the new PI Barrier XL vest alone tonight. It doesn't seal very well at the armpits, which I hated early, but appreciated once I got warmed up and wanted to vent some heat. It does flap ( a HUGE source of aerodynamic drag) a bit in the wind, but I bought it XL to fit over my black Columbia Titanium jacket with pit-zips - not exactly Hi-Viz by itself -  so am happy with the size. I know I have broad shoulders, but would it kill PI to make the arms an inch longer over the shoulders?

I wish someone would just make a 1" zipper strip that zips into your existing zipper and adds another 1" of girth. Perfect way to adjust the size of a vest or jacket for different layering schemes. DUH!

In part because of the cold, and in part because my glutes and quads are still kind of sore, my hams were taking a beating tonight, and my left one, under the knee, was threatening to cramp. I wish I'd had the leg warmers along to see if temp was the problem.

I turned on all my lights at WBP - everything up brighter than everything else - and had cars nearly running into each other head-on to give me my lane. Nice! That's how it's supposed to work. I am going to replace the PB SuperBlinky with the new Turbo version though, as the lens body on the Turbo is more translucent than clear, and when on in constant mode, the entire body of the light glows red. Not so with the older version, which offers almost no side visibility. $25.