With the winter nights drawing in and car drivers not apparently getting much more intelligent in their attitude towards cyclists, October is the time to think about bike lights and the importance of being seen. In the UK there is definitely a peak of deaths and serious accidents involving cyclists on the roads around late October and November, when cyclists are often not in the mode of thinking about their visibility and drivers' eyes are adjusting to the fast approach of dusk.
At Sportive.com we bought a large selection of rear lights to try out ahead of the winter season. To our mind in urban riding the rear light is more important than the front light (both are of course vital) because you're more likely to be hit from behind by careless drivers (we don't have the stats to back this up, it's just a feeling we have from lots of urban riding).
The Knog Blinder Road rear lights were at the more expensive end of the spectrum and so we wanted to see whether they lived up to the price tag.
Straight out of the packet, the impression was good. The lights are lightweight but feel solid enough to deal with minor knocks, the rubber wrapping seems strong enough to be waterproof in extreme conditions and against the backspray from winter riding and the fitting onto the bike appears pretty easy to fit. When I turned the light on it produced a nice strong light with three strong glows from three of the LED lights and one even stronger glow from the bottom of the four lights. The Blinder has five different types of light output which Knog calls 'steady', 'fast', 'chaser', 'peloton' and 'eco'. The outputs are listed in the order in which they use up the rechargeable battery, from 3.5 hours for the steady mode to 20 hours for the eco mode (the other three are, in order, 4, 5 and 13 hours).
Weighing the light, it comes in at 50 grams, which is good for a rear light with an output of 70 lumens at peak (ie on the steady mode at full charge).
Fitting the lights onto the bike was relatively simple with the mounting strap holding the light tight to my seatpost. However when I took off the light to go shopping (you can't be too careful in central London and in my experience need to remove lights if you are away for any length of time, otherwise someone is liable to help themselves) I found that the metal hook easily detached from the rubber clasp and it was not immediately obvious how to reassemble the strap. For that reason this may not be 100% ideal for people who expect to be taking their rear lights on and off their bike several times a day.
On the bike, the lights were impressively good. Knog claims the Blinder offers 290 degree side illumination, which is absolutely key to the success of a rear light as if it shines too much backwards (but not to the side) then you increase the risk of being side swiped. Following a bike with the lights fitted I was able to see the bike from a fair distance (about 150 metres with clarity) and the intensity of the light was good.
The Knog blinder has a USB charger which will take roughly 5 hours to charge the lights back to full power. That's the problem with rechargeable lights. You have to remember to charge them and if you're the sort of person who is better off simply putting new batteries into bike lights when you need to rather than planning in advance to charge them then this isn't the rear light for you. However, if you do remember to plug them in and recharge them for when you will need them then you will, over the expected life of the batteries, save yourself the equivalent of 600 triple A batteries. Given the cost of these batteries then you'll be getting the value of your lights back several times over by not having to buy new ones every couple of weeks. The USB charger almost certainly won't plug direct into your computer because of the way it is embedded into the rear body of the light but Knog supply a USB extender which makes it far easier to plug in (however that is another thing to lose along the way).
As rear lights go, the Knog Blinder is one of our top choices. The price is actually very reasonable given the USB recharging and it will be one of the rear lights I take home for regular use on my commute home.
Knog Blinder Road USB rechargeable
Roughly £30 to £35, depending on stockists.
Peak light output: 70 lumens
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