Fender mounted TAIL light

Hi,

Carl Sundquist wrote:
Does anyone make a RED tail light designed to fit onto a rear fender?

Yup, they were the only way to go here until recently ;-) They're being
displaced *quickly* by rack-mount taillights, because rack-mount has a
few benefits:

- heavy fender mount lights break the fenders
- fender-lights get dirty faster ;-)
- the height is better (with all the BIG cars around ;-)
- cable routing is easier, mostly
- Most fenders are too short, anyway ;-)

The only fender mounted light I found was

It's sold for less than half the price at DIY-markets here. Though,
beware of the contacts where the wires are attached - I had mine
corroding so much that after two years there was no light :-(

As I said, if you can mount the taillight to the rack, prefer this ;-)

but they are a white light with a reflector underneath. I don't want a
white light. I am not backing up.

;-) Well, they're using red LED so a clear-glass cover is actually a
sign of quality ;-) Try to avoid bulb-rear-lights as they tend to fail
quite often...

Ciao..

On Nov 24, 4:48*am, Bernhard Agthe wrote:
Hi,

Carl Sundquist wrote:
Does anyone make a RED tail light designed to fit onto a rear fender?

Yup, they were the only way to go here until recently ;-) They're being
displaced *quickly* by rack-mount taillights, because rack-mount has a
few benefits:

- heavy fender mount lights break the fenders
- fender-lights get dirty faster ;-)
- the height is better (with all the BIG cars around ;-)
- cable routing is easier, mostly
- Most fenders are too short, anyway ;-)

Agreed--the rear rack is the perfect place for an LED tail lamp now
that most fenders aren't metal and the LED lamp itself weighs more due
to carrying batteries. A visit to any proper Swedish shop will confirm
this. ;-) Of course USian lamps are still post-centric, meaning
they'll be obscured by the suckling pig on your rack this holiday
season.

Hi,

landotter wrote:
Agreed--the rear rack is the perfect place for an LED tail lamp now
that most fenders aren't metal and the LED lamp itself weighs more due
to carrying batteries. A visit to any proper Swedish shop will confirm
this. ;-) Of course USian lamps are still post-centric, meaning
they'll be obscured by the suckling pig on your rack this holiday
season.

Ah, I was not talking about a seat post lamp but about a
rear-end-of-rack-lamp ;-) Which will not be obsured by neither the pig
on the rack nor by a low trailer ;-)

With battery lamps you're likely out of luck anyway as they'Re mostly
for "half" bikes that have neither rack nor fender ;-) So the majority
mounts to the seat post - but you might be able to mount it to the rack,
anyway. Since I'm bad on maintenance once I return (I do most
maintenance before setting out) I usually had empty batteries in my
lights - so I dumped the battery lights completely and went for a (first
spoke- then hub-) dynamo driven lighting system which works great! Never
care about low batteries - the light even comes on automatically ;-)

Have fun!

landotter wrote:

Agreed--the rear rack is the perfect place for an LED tail lamp now
that most fenders aren't metal and the LED lamp itself weighs more due
to carrying batteries. A visit to any proper Swedish shop will confirm
this. ;-) Of course USian lamps are still post-centric, meaning
they'll be obscured by the suckling pig on your rack this holiday
season.

It's annoying how many rear racks don't come with the mounting hardware
for a tail light. I've fabricated a bunch of hardware for this purpose,
but it's not as good as just having the damn tail light mount welded to
the rack.

You need a really light light for a fender. Something like the Cateye
SD-LD100 which uses two coin cells. Probably some way to mount it to a
fender.

"http://www.cateye.com/en/product_detail/273"

The Blackburn Flea would also probably work, as it has a light Li-Ion
rechargeable battery built in.

"http://www.blackburndesign.com/lights.html"

The problem with a lot of LED tail lights is that they don't have a wide
enough viewing angle, due to a lack of side pointing LEDs.

The Cateye TL-LD1100 is the best tail light, but it's $35-40. I like the
old Blackburn Mars 2.0, which is only about $12, but changing the
batteries requires removing the light, and removing 3 screws.

On Nov 24, 11:54*am, Bernhard Agthe wrote:

With battery lamps you're likely out of luck anyway as they'Re mostly
for "half" bikes that have neither rack nor fender ;-) So the majority
mounts to the seat post - but you might be able to mount it to the rack,
anyway.

I have found that most seat-post attachments don't go down small
enough for rear rack tubes. Sometimes you can fatten up the tube with
a bit of inner tube rubber, but sometimes you can't.

As many seat-post lights are actually belt-clip lights with an added
part, I've found you can usually get the belt clip off, drill a hole
through it, add a bolt and star washer, and reassemble. Then you have
a bolt-on LED and you can put on the back of a rack with a P-clip or
with your rack's built-in lamp hole.