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A Bike Bus iridescent flag on the Bike Beam LED flag pole light

Adding a flag to your Bike Beam LED pole light

If you have a Bike Beam LED pole light, but don’t have a safety flag (or some other flag/pennant etc) on it yet, here’s how to add one.  Having a flag generally helps with dynamic daytime visibility, they’re fun, and you can add your own message to your bike ride as well. They’re useful to help people visible on kids bikes and cargo bikes, or to add some fun to your commute.  Some people have used them for Bike Party, Loud and Lit, and Thursday Night Rides. Step 1: Find or make a flag for the LED pole light that is the right size The Bike Beam has poles that are about 5/16″ or 8mm in diameter, so consider this when figuring what to fly on the LED pole.  The Bike Loud PDX and Pedalpalooza pennants I have are sewn […]

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Bikes with Bike Beam with LED flag pole lights

How we stay visible at night (Which bicycle lights do we use?)

Riding with your family is a great way to be outside, get exercise, have fun, all while traveling together.  Sometimes you end up riding home after the sun goes down – we found ourselves doing this after riding back from a recent event in Berkeley.  Being visible is an important component of safety. Though the burden shouldn’t be on you to ensure that others use the road safely, it helps to make sure others are aware of your presence. We use a couple of different types of bicycle lights and reflectors to stay visible. https://youtu.be/TQ9zlj9eXik Here’s how we stay visible at night (while riding as a family) Headlight Headlights are essential and are required according to state law.  Basically, the headlight needs to be: A lamp emitting a white light that, while the bicycle is in motion, illuminates the highway, […]

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Children riding bikes

How to attach a bike flag (Bike Beam)

  How to attach a bike flag, a guide Bicycle safety is probably a top priority for you, and one way to increase your visibility is to attach a bike safety flag. Where do I mount the bike safety flag? Attaching the bike safety flag is a relatively simple process. First, you need to choose a suitable location to mount the bicycle flag.  The Bike Beam comes with either a rack mount or axle mount.  But you can also attach it to a trailer.  Other safety flags usually come with an axle mount or can also fit into the bike flag mounting hole of a trailer.  You’ll usually want the flag at the rear of your bike. Different types of bike flag mounts There are 3 main types of bike flag mounts: Axle or quick release bike flag mount: This […]

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Bike Flag Light Pole, made in Oakland

Riding our light up bike pole lights (aka Bike Beam) in Oakland and Berkeley

Family bike riding around Oakland and Berkeley Our child is old enough to pedal themselves around to school, the library, and to sports practice.  Sometimes it’s hard, but usually we have a good time getting to where we need to go.  We get some exercise, take in our surroundings, wave to neighbors, give names to cats and dogs, and appreciate random sidewalk finds. And we can get around in an environmentally-friendly way. We ride around with a set of bike pole lights that I have been developing for a while.  The bike flag lights make us pretty easy to spot. If you see us, wave and say hello! I made our bike pole lights (aka the “Bike Beam” light) to keep my child visible When we first started riding around on neighborhood streets, I realized that my child was hard […]

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USB Headlight Tail Light Kit

My choice for children’s bike lights: Inexpensive (less than $15!) but effective bike lights for night riding

Getting a set of children’s bike lights probably worth it for your kid.  You can get a functional set for $10-15.  It’s an easy safety upgrade if you ride in anything but normal daylight. Bike lights for children’s bikes Your kid might need bike lights if you do anything more than recreational daytime rides. A lot of people view riding a bike as recreation.  That’s fine.  But if you’re also riding your bike to get from point A to point B with your child, sometimes you will have to ride in the dark.  It starts to get dark around 4:30pm during the Bay Area winters, so you may need lights even if you’re not staying out late.    Our school day ends around 3pm. If you have scheduled any after care, you’ll be coming home in the dark for at […]

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Bike safety flags for being extra visible while riding a bicycle, even in the daytime

Bike safety flags can help keep bicycle riders visible The greatest risk for someone riding a bike on roads with automobile traffic is being hit by a car.  I strongly support infrastructure improvements that physically protect someone riding a bike.  Dedicated bike paths and protected bike lanes can help a lot with this. I don’t like putting the burden of safety on the more vulnerable in general.  At the same time, if there’s a low-effort way to improve safety, it’s probably a good thing to do.  According to the NHTSA, the 2nd leading factor in bicyclist deaths is “Not visible (dark clothing, no lighting, etc)”.  Vehicles are getting bigger, which causes more line of sight problems for other users of the road. Adding a flag is an easy and low-cost way of improving visibility, but it does have a few […]

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13 Investigates: Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front blind zone | wthr.com

Are cars and trucks too tall? A quick note on rider visibility

It’s often hard to ride a bike safely as an adult when roads must be shared with automobiles. According to the NHTSA, the 2nd leading related factor for fatalities in bike/car crashes (in the USA) is “Not visible”. It makes sense that visibility is a leading factor. I don’t think I view the data as a whole as completely reliable, since I’d assume that in most of these cases the victim wasn’t around to tell their side of the story. Kids are less visible on bikes than adults and cars are getting bigger As a kid, it’s even more difficult to be visible. Children can ride erratically.  They are shorter, their bikes are shorter, and thus they are less visible to drivers.  The opposite is true for automobiles.  Vehicles are getting larger, which creates a bigger “blind zone” in front […]

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