Ribbon Attact

Wiley cat being attacted by a Christmas ribbon

LED Lights for Classic and Vintage Bicycles?

When it comes to bicycle lighting, our primary objective is to be extremely visible. On bicycles without a dynamo, this means LED lighting. One downside to LED lights, is that most of what's currently on the market looks very modern and "techy".We try to find LED lights that are both the brightest and the least in conflict with the classic looks of our bikes. A good example of that is the set-up on my vintage Raleigh DL-1 (above). I have received some emails asking how those lights are attached, and so I will describe it here.

Like all of our LED lights, the lights on this bicycle are by Cateye - a company whose products seem to be consistently good. The headlight is the Opticube HL-EL530, mounted on the right fork blade. Mounting it in this manner requires 2 supplementary gadgets: the FlexTight mounting bracket, which comes packaged with the headlight, and the Minoura Besso fork mount, which must be purchased additionally.

The Opticube headlight is sold with a FlexTight mounting bracket included. This bracket is designed to be wrapped around a handlebar or around a long lug nut on the front wheel, like the one that comes standard on the Pashley and is pictured here. However, most bicycles - including my DL-1 - do not have sufficiently long lug nuts for this, and so you will need either a lug nut extender or a special mount that attaches to the fork blade like a branch, around which the FlexTight bracket can be wrapped. The mount we like to use for this is the Minoura Besso, priced in the $5-10 range.

Here is another view of this setup. You can see how the Minoura Besso mount is attached to the fork blade, and the Opticube headlight is then attached to it with the FlexTight bracket.

Yet another view from the back. I should note that some are against attaching a headlight to the fork blade, based on the idea that it can slip down and fall into the spokes. Personally, I think that this really depends on your attachment method. If you use a proper mount and attach it tightly, it seems extremely stable and not in the least prone to slippage. If you've had a bad experience with this method, please let me know; so far I have not heard of any.

This is what the headlight looks like in motion, "in the wild". From a short distance it actually resembles a vintage light, and it certainly comes across that way in pictures like these. Of course, up close you can tell that it is modern, but the design is nonetheless one of the most elegant ones available, as far as modern bike lights go.

For tail lights, we use two Cateye TL-LD610 lights, attaching one to each rear stay in the same way as on our Pashleys.

The diameter of the rear stays is usually not large enough to fit these lights, but they are sold with plastic liners to expand the stay diameter.

Using these two light strips on the rear stays is the nicest tail light setup we can think of. Not only does it make the bicycle highly visible in traffic, but it also gives the cars a good feel for its width - which can be very important in the dark.

And as far as aesthetics go, attaching the lights along the stays creates a very natural, unobtrusive look that does not conflict with any part of the bicycle's design.

My descriptions make it seem like the lights - especially the headlight - are a pain to attach, and I have to admit they kind of are. But you only need to do it once, and in the end it is worth it: Top of the line illumination, maximum safety, and classic looks will be your rewards.

Unknown snake

Hubby accidentally ran over this snake with the bushhog last week. I came to the conclusion that it's a lot harder to identify snakes with no heads.

At first I thought he was a Cottonmouth, but the tail is wrong. (They have odd tails, which narrow down from the body somewhat abruptly.)

Anybody else know what it is?

Hubby said he remembered something about being able to tell whether it's a poisonous snake or not by the scales on the tail. So I took a picture of that.



Turns out he was right. At the tip end of the snake, if the scales are divided in two, like here, the snake is not poisonous. If the scale is unbroken all the way across, it is a poisonous snake.

Memory tip:
Two scales = two words: Non-venomous.
One scale = one word: Venomous.

Please post a comment if you know the identity of this snake! The part of him that was left was about 2.5 feet long. He was in some tall grass not far from a drainage ditch.

Van Sweringen Photography: Yehuda approves!

How cool! I went to read the Yehuda Moon comic strip last night, and something on the website looked very familiar.



It took a while for it to hit me, but those are my photos used as examples of the Van Sweringen Flickr group. Thanks, Yehuda! So nice of you to pick my photos. From left to right, they are: Somervillain's Raleigh DL1, the Co-Habitant's Raleigh DL-1, and the Co-Habitant's Pashley.



The Co-Habitant's "track bike". I guess the Pashley does look very much Van Sweringen-ish, especially with those bags attached.



If you have no idea what I am talking about here, then clearly you are not yet addicted to the microcosm of Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery. Do yourself a favour and pay them a visit; best comic strip ever!

Is winter season over in SWPA?

There's still ice at Upper Meadow.

If you don't mind it being a little detached.

Here's what's left of the Schoolyard climbs.

The warm weather sure has put a hurting on our local ice. The winter season has ended for most local tool swinging folks, but Laura and I have been making the most of the ice still left. The recent below freezing temps and snowfall has helped to prolong our climbing just a bit. We thought all hope was lost, but low and behold we squeezed in a few more days of winter climbing since my last post. We spent a few days at Lower Meadow Run in Ohiopyle. Up until yesterday most of the mixed lines were still climbable. Many of the lines are running with a lot of water. Anger Management was in great condition and offered great dry tooling up to the plastic ice at the finish. We managed to climb Season Finale via the direct ice start in the AM only to see most of it come down by afternoon. Yesterday was the last day we climbed. There may be a little left, but I wouldn't expect much. If you're like us and don't want to hang up the tools just yet, get dry tooling. We've got plenty of great choss climbing around to keep your forearms pumped until next season.

Yucca & Mesquite

Most of the native trees or brush around my sons home is mesquite trees seen in the first 2 photos and the yuccas shown in the next 2 photos. Both are very drought resistant but the drought that is going on now is about to do in a lot of the native plant live in the southern New Mexico area.

Jemez Red Rocks