The baby had us/me up super early this morning and I could not go back to sleep. Left a little earlier and was able to get a little more distance in, 28 miles. The swell is up but the full moon and morning high tides are keeping me on the bike and out of the water. Good lights are part of the combo that make riding in the dark a pleasure, my DiNotte 140 has been going strong fo ra few years now. One of the other components are fatter cushy tires that are a little more forgiving of the imperfections in the road, Rivendell Jack Browns are my tires of choice.
View towards home from Rincon Point, Queen of the coast. Time for a break and some pictures.
First shot is with the GoPro® Helmet HERO™ Wide Camera. I have mostly been shooting hand-held, as this morning’s shot propped up. While the pictures are not what you would get with a DSLR, the quality is still shockingly good. I have not even begun to explore the video capability yet due to my own software limitations, that though will not be a hurdle much longer. The beauty of this camera is in the size, simplicity , weather resistance and durability. I moved from a Canon DSLR to my Panasonic GF1 to scale down the size. This takes it two steps further and the camera is always in my bag.
I probably should have been surfing this morning, but would have had a 45 min time window. I can ride with lights, surfing is a little harder in the dark. Daylight savings time is the bane of people who enjoy their mornings, I have dreamed for years of abolishing it.
Some of you may remember my love of riding for wild or semi wild foods from my Walnut Ride. Time to enjoy the dry weather and the morning chill, and ride for the pomegranates I had seen a few weeks ago. No laws were broken and the trees are on public easement. Living in an area surrounded by agriculture it would be all to easy to just grab fruit from the end row of the farms and orchards, but that would kind of defeat the point, and I am pretty sure it is stealing. These particular trees are on the fence line of land grabbed by the water district when they built the Casitas damn. Many ranchers and homeowners lost land to eminent domain with this one, and there are quite a bit of interesting things tucked into the corners of this area without having to jump the fences lined with “No Trespassing” signs. This morning it was a truncated version of a favorite loop to get the quarry and make it home in time for baby duty. Having fresh fruit keeps you out of trouble when you are a little late.
I am looking forward to daylight savings time coming to an end, a little more morning light for a bit.
While I have loved my DiNotte 140L tail light for a few years now it has been a mixed relationship due to the mounting. If you are not familiar with these lights they are extremely bright AA powered LED lights with a very simple O-ring mounting system. While elegantly simple the mounting requires attachment to a round tube, i.e. handlebars, seat post or frame tubes. Not so easy when you have an assortment of racks and bags that can block the light from behind defeating the whole purpose. I have a Old Man Mountain "Cold Springs" rack on the back of my Rawland. This rack combined with my saddle bag has always left me a bit challenged with mounting solutions that leave the light visible, yet allowing for a secure place to mount the battery pack and panniers.
Then I had my eureka moment while modeling ideas with a short piece of scrap dowel. I will expand on my love of dowels and wood for prototyping in a future post. This time I only needed a short piece less than 2 inches long, drilled a hole through the center, and filed some grooves in the top side for O-ring retention. I ran a long M5 bolt through the mounting track on the rack and bolted the mount between the rack and wheel.
I used the light this week in the rain on multiple rides, and it worked fantastically. The cord is the perfect length to put the battery pack into the side pocket of the carradice bag, and everything has stayed in place.
This light when mounted well will not blind approaching motorists but they will have little excuse to not see you. I have found that even on the lower powered non-blinking settings cars still give far wider birth when passing then with any other tail light in my collection. Hopefully this or a similar solution can be adapted to help you better mount your own tail light far a safer night ride.
