bike lights

While a headlight and tail light are essential for night-time bicycle commuting, one thing that really catches motorists' eyes is movement. Arclight Bike Pedals were designed with that in mind, as they feature auto-color-changing LED modules.

Recharging the battery of a bike helmet with built-in lights can (conceivably) be awkward, as the whole helmet has to be placed near an outlet. A new model gets around that problem, though, with a removable tail light module.

A large percentage of bike-versus-car accidents occur when automobiles pass too closely to cyclists. The Dashbike tail light was designed with that in mind, as it automatically records video of any too-close drive-bys.

Why just wear a plain ol' bike helmet, when you can wear one with a built-in headlight, tail lights, turn indicators and brake light? That's the thinking behind the Lumos Ultra, which I recently had the chance to try out on real-world roads.

In order to keep drivers from passing too close, some cyclists use bike-mounted foam "noodles" that extend out horizontally toward the traffic. The L-Bow takes that concept a step further, by applying it to a tail light.

While there are now many turn-indicator bike lights on the market, their bar-mounted controls are just one more bit of clutter to manage. Eesen's Shield tail light/turn indicator takes a different approach, as it's activated with a turn of the head.

Although there are now many light-equipped bike helmets on the market, the Torch T1 was one of the first. Its makers have now returned to Kickstarter, with a model that features LED panels which can be removed as needed.

It was just last week that we heard about the Otto, a simple-to-use bike tail light with some "smart" features. Well, the unrelated Luislight L300 could be considered the Otto's headlight equivalent.

Like a lot of other "smart" products, smart bike lights can sometimes be annoyingly complicated to operate. The Otto tail light is designed to be different, in that it does have some clever functions, but you just set it and forget it.

While there are now a multitude of bicycle LED turn indicators on the market, most of them require riders to press buttons on a handlebar unit. Intended to make things simpler and safer, the ticc device is instead activated via head-tilts.

We've seen a few different head- and tail-light-equipped bike helmets over the past several years, and some of the things have looked pretty … flashy. The Faro is a bit different, though, in that it has a classier, more refined appearance.

Bike headlights are now so bright that they can dazzle motorists, potentially causing those drivers to run into the cyclists using them. The Farina, however, is made to be bright without being blinding – plus it has some other nifty features.