Revolights started as a Kickstarter campaign and has since gone into full production. The lighting system is a unique approach to providing your bike with side lighting to increase your visibility during night time riding. This is an inherent problem with night time biking. Typical bike lights focus the light that they are putting out front and back instead of to the side. Even if the light that you have has a design that allows light to come out the side, it is most likely a minimal amount.
Revolights intends to change that with a unique lighting system. The whole system weighs a bit under 13 ounces per wheel and can mount to any 700C or 27″ rim with the provided hardware. The battery mounts to the hub and cables run up the spokes to the LED light strips. A magnet mounted on the fork provides positioning information to the system so that the LED’s know when to turn on/off. All in all, this is a great idea and the look that it provides is cool enough for even hipsters to enjoy. 🙂
As unique of an approach it may be, I think that the current offering of reflective strips around tires may be a better option. For one, the reflective strips are offered on a fairly wide array of tires these days. This makes for a much less expensive solution to this problem. A bikers main concern at night is being hit by a car at night. The only way that I see a car not seeing you from the side with reflective strips is if they are driving with their lights off.
Initially the Kickstarter project only allowed interested parties to purchase the entire set and Revolights are now offered separately as front and rear units. If you have some cash laying around and do a lot of night biking, you can pick up a single set for $139.
This isn’t the only way of drawing more attention to yourself at night with LED’s on your wheels. If you’re looking for a less expensive alternative and don’t care about the clean lines of the Revolight, you may want to consider looking at the offerings of MonkeyLectric. They offer two alternatives in different varieties of colors for $75 and $50.
Despite this drawback of cost, I still think it is a cool idea. Check out the video of the product in action:
Revolights. Join the revolution. from revolights on Vimeo.
For FAQS and additional information check out http://Revolights.com.
Leave a Reply