This bike light starts when you stop

Home / News / This bike light starts when you stop

Come on then, enlighten me.
There are umpteen million bicycles in Britain, and that’s a fact. Whether you attribute it to ongoing race success by British riders or to better bikes and kit, the roads are seething with cyclists. Which causes a problem for other road users, because something that is ubiquitous is invisible. High-viz jackets and flashing lights – you’re fighting a losing battle if the driver is psychologically switched off to your existence.

But this is a light, so how does it help?
Because accelerometer sensors inside the Lumicycle Insight recognise when you have hit the brakes and light up the rear light, just like brake lights on motorbikes and cars and everything else on the road. The driver sees a new thing – sees a light where once there was none – and acts. Everyone lives to see another day and there are no irksome insurance claims. Yay!

Accelerometer? Have the designers ridden on British corrugated roads?
Indeed they have, for British they be. There’s tech built in to this light that ‘learns’ how you’re riding and interprets when you’re braking and when you’re just bashing about on potholes. Patent-pending tech, too, so you know they’re serious.

And what about at nighttime? Can I also use it as a normal rear light?
Of course – it pumps out a healthy 50 lumens in light mode, but fires out 200 lumens of Cree and Samsung LED action when braking is sensed. The battery can last for between 10 and 24 hours depending on the lighting mode, and is rechargeable by USB, 12v car adaptor or one of the lithium-ion battery packs that Lumicycle uses for its super-powerful off-road front lights.

What will this high-tech marvel cost me?
It’s £80, direct from Lumicycle in Hampshire, which is a lot for a rear light. But this is serious engineering: it’s made of extruded aluminium and is properly sealed against the elements. The question you ought to be asking yourself is what will cost you to be hit from behind by a car? Your rear wheel? Your frame? Your LIFE? (Dramatic piano fill; fade to black…)

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.