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Electric Bike Accessories

Hiplok DX Review – 2020

HipLok On Waist

Hiplok DX Review – 2020

One of the most important accessories for an eBike is the lock, especially because of how many different factors you need to consider. Simple, inexpensive locks are easy to carry around and install, but are very easy to break and don’t do much to deter thieves. You can buy something that’s very secure, but the downside often comes from a very expensive price tag, the overall weight, and the difficulty that comes with trying to install it.

That is why we want to highlight the Hiplok DX maximum security lock. This is a traditional U style lock that weighs just 2.4 lbs, but is built with 14mm premium hardened steel that will guard your eBike against most common thieving tools. Forgetting your lock is a common mistake for many bikers, but the Hiplok takes its name from being a fantastic lock that you can clip onto your belt or the waist of your pants. Taking just seconds to secure, this weatherproof lock will work with all kinds of bicycles, and even has a lifetime warranty backing it and attesting to its quality.
[Read more…] about Hiplok DX Review – 2020

Kryptonite Incite Series Lights – X6, X8, XBR 2020

Incite X6

Kryptonite X6 Side Illumination Port

Kryptonite X6 Light Pannel

Overview:

The Incite X6 is a $75 headlight from Kryptonite, and was developed with the low light commuter in mind. Double lens technology provides the rider with a focused light beam to emit the path, and side illumination ports to keep the rider visible to traffic.
The Incite X6 has a phenomenal 30 hour max run time, and 7 modes of use: The combination of a long run time and modern light distribution technology makes the X6 a great choice for any commuter or road based rider.

Includes:

  • Double lens technology for precise light distribution
  • Snap Tight bracket
  • Auto Adjust Brightness mode – automatically adjusts light output based on surrounding light
  • “Get Home Safe Mode” – Switches to “Economy Flash Mode” when the battery is below 10%
  • 3-30hrs of run time
  • Side Illumination Ports for visibility to peripheral traffic
  • 2 year limited warranty

Specs:

  • 60 LUX
  • 30hrs of battery life on the “Eco” Setting
  • 3hrs of battery life on “High Steady”
  • 7 Modes – Auto Adjust Brightness Mode, Low Steady, Medium Steady, High Steady, Daytime pulse, Nightime pulse, Economic Flash

Kryptonite X6 LCD Display

Lumens Vs. Lux

Lumens :

Measures the amount of light emitted from the source, but does not measure how focused the light ray is. Most light manufactures will advertise the number of lumens their light has, but numbers aren’t everything.

Lux :

Measures the illumination of a surface at a specific distance. The Lux measurement is a more accurate measurement for how effective the light is for visibility, and focus.

Our Experience

Our team was quite impressed with the design of the X6, Kryptonites double lens technology made the X6 bright enough to light up our riding route at night, despite only being 60 lux. We appreciated how simple the interface of the X6 was, and found it was easy to use and interact with even when riding. We also appreciated the “get home safe mode” that conserves the battery life when the charge is below 10%, this feature will significantly improve safety for late night, or early morning commuters.

In our opinion the $75 price point makes the Incite X6 a better option for a commuter headlight than the X8 ($145). The X6 is only slightly dimmer than the X8, and provides 1 more mode of use, and a longer run time than the X8 – When it comes to bang for your buck, our team agreed that the X6 is definitely the way to go for a commuter headlight.
Kryptonite X6 LCD Display from Above

Kryptonite X6 Side View ON

Incite X8

Kryptonite X8 Side Logo

Overview:

The Incite X8 is a $145 advanced commuter headlight that provides 6 light modes, and a phenomenal LCD display that shows run time, battery capacity, mode, and time.

The Incite X8 has a focused light beam that will keep the path in front of you emitted without blinding others: This light has a solid runtime of up to 24 hours, and is a great light for anybody who needs reliability and efficiency in their headlight.

Kryptonite X8 LCD Display

Includes:

  • Award-Winning light distribution technology
  • LCD Display – Shows: Battery Runtime, Battery Capacity Indicator, Mode, and Time
  • Side Lighting for safety and visibility
  • USB Rechargeable
  • 3-24hrs of runtime
  • Snap Tight Bracket
  • Side Illumination Ports for visibility to peripheral traffic
  • “Get Home Safe Mode” – Switches to “Economy Flash Mode” when the battery is below 10%
  • 2 year limited warranty

Kryptonite X8 Light Pannel

Specs:

  • 80 Lux
  • 24hrs of runtime on “Eco”
  • 3hrs of runtime on “High Steady”
  • 6 modes – Low Steady, Medium Steady, High Steady, Daytime pulse, Nighttime pulse, economic flash

x6

Lumens Vs. Lux

Lumens :

Measures the amount of light emitted from the source, but does not measure how focused the light ray is. Most light manufactures will advertise the number of lumens their light has, but numbers aren’t everything.

Lux :

Measures the illumination of a surface at a specific distance. The Lux measurement is a more accurate measurement for how effective the light is for visibility, and focus.

Our Experience

Overall, we were impressed by the design of Kryptonites Incite X8 head light. While it may have not been as “bright” as some other lights we’ve tested the focus of the beam made visibility when riding just as good. We also felt the $145 price point was a bit high, as Kryptonite makes lights with similar specs for nearly half of that price.

Because of the lux based approach, the Incite X8 isn’t going to die quickly on max power: We noticed how much longer the battery life on the X8 is than its competitors, which is great in terms of efficiency and reliability.

In terms of commuting our team agreed that this is a great option for a commuting headlight. Kryptonite has done a good job developing and engineering an efficient, focused headlight that provides plenty of settings and features to set it up perfectly for your commu
Kryptonite X8 LCD Display On 2
Kryptonite X8 Side Illumination Port

Incite XBR

Kryptonite XBR Side Profile
Kryptonite XBR On

Overview:

Kryptonites Incite XBR Tail Light is a low profile, high performance tail light that’s going to provide a light mode for every situation, and enough battery life to get you to your destination safely. The XBR’s $40 price point, efficiency and versatility make it a great taillight for commuters, and those riding in low light conditions.

Includes:

  • Acceleration Sensor – reduced speed detection turns on another LED after reducing speed by 3.5mph
  • Brake light is 3 times brighter than normal “Steady Mode”
  • USB Rechargeable
  • Flexible mount with bracket
  • 10-36hrs of runtime with battery indicator (Becomes red when the battery is less than 25%)
  • Side Illumination Ports for visibility to peripheral traffic
  • 2 year limited warranty

Specs:

  • .20 LUX
  • 36hrs of runtime on “Eco” Setting
  • 10hrs of runtime on “High Steady” Setting
  • 7 Modes – High Flash, Low steady w/ brake function, Daytime Brake Light Mode, Daytime pulse, Nighttime pulse, Economic flash, High steady w/ brake function,

Lumens Vs. Lux

Lumens :

Measures the amount of light emitted from the source, but does not measure how focused the light ray is. Most light manufactures will advertise the number of lumens their light has, but numbers aren’t everything.

Lux :

Measures the illumination of a surface at a specific distance. The Lux measurement is a more accurate measurement for how effective the light is for visibility, and focus.

xbr

Our Experience

Our team agreed that the Incite XBR proved to be a very well rounded tail light : The battery life was phenomenal, and the 7 light modes settings made it ready for any situation. We ran the XBR in “High Steady” mode most of the time, the visibility of the XBR in this mode plus the brake light function made us feel safe riding around in low light conditions.

Another thing that made us feel safer was the side illumination ports, these ports allowed us to be seen by traffic that wasn’t directly in front, or behind us. The XBR’s small size and flexible mount also made it easy for us to install on every bike we used it on.

Overall we were quite impressed with the Incite XBR, we would recommend this tail light to anybody who plans on riding in low light conditions, or in areas with a lot of traffic. You’ll definitely be seen by others and have plenty of battery life to keep it that way on longer rides. The $40 pricepoint is close to the price of other tail lights, however we feel like the XBR is more bang for your buck because of the 7 different light modes to choose from.
Kryptonite XBR Off Zoomed Out

Kryptonite XBR On Up Close

Reflective Bike Backpack: Riderbag Reflektor35 Review

RiderBag Wearing Bag

Being easily seen is important for bicyclists, as a lack of visibility is often cited as one of the leading factors in many of the 45,000 biking accidents and collisions that happen per year. While there are a number of great accessories that increase visibility, they often come in the form of bulky, hard to wear backpacks or vests, or tend to only work at night or certain parts of the day. Many visibility options are also quite uncomfortable to wear, or don’t offer other benefits outside of just increasing the biker’s profile.
[Read more…] about Reflective Bike Backpack: Riderbag Reflektor35 Review

Gecko Tyres Review – Puncture Proof and Sustainable

What Are Gecko Puncture Proof Tires?

Having a puncture can be a total nightmare; you might find yourself stuck in unpleasant weather attempting the fix, or discover your particular type of tyre are one of those hard to get off the rim ones, or find that that you thought you had removed the object causing the puncture only to discover that the tire goes down again immediately after ‘fixing’. Or a whole host of other problems…if only there were a truly puncture-proof tyre…

In fact so-called puncture proof tyres have been around a while. We aren’t talking the ones with kevlar and other types of reinforcement that are still in essence pneumatic and can still suffer punctures from very sharp and sizeable objects. Truly puncture-proof tyres are one-piece construction and have no inner tube but rather are a ‘solid’ tyre, though ‘solid’ can be something of a misnomer, as we discover later.

But product launches of ‘solid’ tyres over the years have come and gone and reviews of them in the cycling press have been almost universally critical. They were found to be extremely harsh to ride and at worst potentially dangerous because of issues such as derimming and skidding. At best they were hard to ride with huge rolling resistance and a jarring, uncomfortable ride.

Gecko tyres replace the puncturable air space in a pneumatic tyre with a unique cellular – and totally unpunctureable – form of rubber.

Enter Gecko’s cellular tyres. Manufactured in the UK and the brainchild of rubber scientist Richard Adams, they are described as ‘cellular’ rather than solid, meaning that, whilst they are contain no pneumatic air chamber that can be punctured, they do contain air mixed in with a special rubber compound to give the tires some ‘give’ and to reduce weight. But stick a nail straight into them and it has no effect as there is nothing to puncture.
The cellular rubber compound is based on traditional thermoset rubber compounds similar to those being used in conventional pneumatic tyres. The Gecko is the product of over 35 years industry experience and is a patented technology.

EBR has tested a number of different versions of Gecko’s tires over a lengthy period of time including the latest fastest, free-est rolling ones and have generally been very impressed. Here’s a summary of our various test results; each of the tires Gecko produce is a different size and uses a different mix of rubber compound and so may suit different riders.

The Tests

EBR’s initial test riding on 26″ tyres found that, whilst ride quality and rolling resistance may not be up there with pneumatics, they are clearly here to stay and e-bikes were an ideal recipient for them as the extra power from the motor means extra rolling resistance is much less noticeable.  Cornering at speed on all manner of surfaces felt safe and though the tires were noticeably harsher than pneumatics that aspect certainly wasn’t too off-putting.

One of Gecko’s early 26″ cellular tires

A second version of the 26″ tires were billed as ‘comfort’ tires with a deliberately wider profile and a softer compound. These were noticeably less harsh and road holding and bike handling didn’t feel an awful lot different to pneumatics  – only when you hit a really big pothole or kerb was there a big difference.  The softer compound needed a little more power to overcome resistance but with the e-bike power set to full the bike still performed well, climbing hills with ease.

These Comfort tyres have been on long term test on an e-bike for several thousand miles and have performed pretty faultlessly. Whilst there has been much greater wear on the rear tyre than the front to the point where the tread pattern and outer casing has worn away this actually doesn’t seem to have affected performance at all noticeably and the cellular ‘core’ of the tyre keeps on performing well and giving grip in all conditions.

Initial power consumption for the first 26″ tires tested was around 20-30 Wh per mile depending on rider and terrain, though the Freego hub motor-powered test bike was maybe not the most efficient model and these figures could well improve on a crank drive. Gecko say their own tests on a more efficient e-bike on these particular tires meant only a 15% reduction on battery range; with today’s bigger batteries on e-bikes you would still have a very reasonable range using Geckos.

Gecko’s 700 x 40 tires were faster than earlier Comfort versions

The innovation continued with larger 700 x 40 tyres, larger tyres themselves being more efficient and free-rolling than smaller ones and made with a harder Regular compound instead of the previous Comfort compound. They certainly proved freer-rolling than the Comfort versions as in repeated roll down tests the Regular tyres came out ahead each time.

 

700 x 27 Gecko tyres – the quickest yet

Finally we tried the recently released, narrow profile 700 x 27 tyres and found these the freest rolling yet and certainly a huge improvement on previous versions. They were the best blend of speed and comfort – not as comfortable as the Comfort versions but certainly an improvement on the Regular model and only a little slower than pneumatics, especially in comparison with earlier models.

They were actually tested on a non-electric bike as we were keen to see just how fast they were without electric assist. They were perfectly usable for shorter trips around town with plenty of grip cornering and good, stable handling characteristics.

The weight of the larger tyres is around 1.5kg but the 700 x 27 ‘skinnies’ weighed in at less than half that at 730g per tyre, no doubt a major factor in their free-rolling and nimble-handling properties.

Other Advantages

There are a number of advantages to Gecko technology apart from the obvious one of never having to worry about punctures or carry a spare tube, tyre levers and pump around with you.

The orange clips shown here fit snugly under the rim and do a good job of securing the tire in place. They are pretty easy for the end-user to fit themselves.

Whilst the earlier tires came ready fitted to test bikes I fitted the latest 700 x 27 tire size to my own bike and found it fairly easy so riders can order online and fit at home.

Some UK bike schemes aimed at the public or workers have found Geckos invaluable; they have been used in the Rail2Ride project that looks to promote travel between train stations and Worcester University.  Sustainable Travel Solutions (STS) have been using them on the e-bikes they lease to the likes of National Health Service workers and the police, who use them for both work duties and commuting.

Gecko claim they are more sustainable option than other brands of puncture resistant and puncture proof tyres on several counts.

Gecko also say they have solid sustainable credentials as they are ‘70% less damaging to the environment than a leading puncture-resistant alternative’ adding ‘We believe our Gecko cellular rubber technology can successfully fill the gap between traditional pneumatic rubber material technology and the ‘foamed plastic’ solid tyre material technologies such as ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) & polyurethane (PU).’

All in all, it looks like the puncture-proof tire really is coming of age.

 

 

Chrome BLCKCHRM Lako 3-Way Tote Review 2020

Chrome_BLCKCHRM_Backpack_Over_Shoulder
There is no shortage of bag options on the market, but the difference between a good or bad bike bag is the difference between wrecking your cargo or protecting it when you have a crash. Having a bag that is affordable and looks great as well is important to many bikers, besides having multiple carry options. When it comes to having a great bag, there’s much more you have to consider than you might otherwise expect.

It’s because of these factors that we can recommend looking at the BLCKCHRM 22X Lako 3-Way Tote bag. Manufactured by Chrome Industries, a popular urban clothing and equipment manufacturer that has been building great bags since 1995, the 22X Lake is the latest bag made with city riders in mind. The 3-way tote bag offers multiple carry options when it’s not fitted to your eBike, with multiple compartments to fit your cell phone, laptop, and other important gear. The 22x shell offers great durability, while the cool BLCKCHRM look fits in well with the rest of the stylish bag lineup. Featuring a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects and 0% financing options, there is a lot of value when it comes to the BLCKCHRM 22X Lako bag.
[Read more…] about Chrome BLCKCHRM Lako 3-Way Tote Review 2020

Seatylock Comfort Classic Review 2020

Seatylock
When it comes to eBikes, and bicycles in general, an important accessory to consider is your ebike lock. A simple, lightweight lock might be easy to throw in your backpack, but won’t do much to deter thieves as they cut through the lock or find ways to undo it. At the same time, you don’t want to lug around a heavy and bulky lock.

Finally, even if you do lock up your bike properly, you are still at risk of having someone come by and steal your saddle.

Click here to see current pricing for the Seatylock

Seatylock_on_bike
[Read more…] about Seatylock Comfort Classic Review 2020

Carrying Cargo: Old Man Mountain Sherpa Rack & Chrome Barrage Pannier

I’ve recently been riding the Cube Stereo Hybrid 160 HPC SL eMTB as an all around eBike for off road and on road adventures, commuting, and errand running. 

It has also been a good test eBike for a number of accessories that enable it to be a great do-it-all eBike. 

Carrying cargo is an important part for adventure rides and running errands around town. 

A good combination of gear for carrying cargo on this full suspension eMTB is the Old Man Mountain Sherpa Rack with Chrome Barrage Pannier.

[Read more…] about Carrying Cargo: Old Man Mountain Sherpa Rack & Chrome Barrage Pannier

Hollywood Racks Sport Rider SE Electric Cargo Bike Rack Review [VIDEO]

Hollywood Racks has been very progressive in developing many electric bike racks for vehicles and the latest addition to their line up is an eCargo bike option. 

The Hollywood Racks Sport Rider SE for Cargo Bikes accommodates longer and wider cargo bikes that also generally weigh more than traditional bikes.

This rack can support eBikes up to 80 pounds of weight per bike!

That can be 2 eCargo bikes or a variety of eBike types, including fat tire eBikes. 

The base price for the Sport Rider SE for Cargo Bikes is $439.99. [Read more…] about Hollywood Racks Sport Rider SE Electric Cargo Bike Rack Review [VIDEO]

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