Why is it so hard to hang on to a bike light? I don't understand why all the bike light companies make the lights so easy to take off your handle bars. I don't have my cup holder, and bell, and compass stolen all the time, mostly because they BOLT on, and you need a TOOL to take them off.
I have had a half dozen bike lights stolen this year, and it's because they are too easy to take off. I can't even walk into a store for two minuets to get a soda without having all my lights striped. The only lights I can find that are even the littlest bit theft proof are sub-standard Reellights that are a pain in the butt to install, expensive, and not very bright.
Dear bike-parts people; I want a good BRIGHT light that will stay on my handlebars and be too much work for would-be-thieves. Zefal has the right idea with their lock'n'roll skewers, and so does Pinheads. The idea shouldn't be about making stuff easier to get off; it should be about making it more difficult or downright impossible to get off without the right tools.
Somebody give me a theft proof bike light please!
Doesn't exist. Anyone who's involved in making bike lights apparently lives in la-la suburbia land where no one would steal a light off a bike, or on some planet where the population consists solely of women who carry big purses they can drop their detachable light into whenever they go inside.
ReplyDeleteI wrestled with this issue after having a few lights stolen. Reellights suck because they're about one foot off the ground - again, designed for some country road where the car gradually approaches you from a mile away. My solution was to get AA battery LED flashlights and use hose clamps to attach them to my bike. Because this won't even do the trick where I live, where lots of people carry knives and screwdrivers and will steal anything that's not bolted down and many things that are, I cut the screw heads off the hose clamps after tightening them. Now, obviously, this is far from ideal because a flashlight is a concentrated beam, and many of these little LED flashlights are way too bright. And for the rear, it's hard to aim that beam straight behind you (and you need to stick red acetate or something over the lens to make it red). But I can't think of any other possible solution. Every single blinky light is made of soft plastic, and even if you clamped or glued it on, some crackhead would just destroy it trying to rip it off. My bike stays outside 100% of the time and these lights have held for a year.
I feel your pain. There are a gazillion bike accessories out there an nobody had decided to make a light with a metal housing/attachment that thieves can't easily rip off.