Four days!

On Apr 24, 12:57 pm, DeF <""d.farrow\"@your finger.murdoch.edu.au">

Quoted message said:

How do PBK do it? Ordered 20/4/07, arrived
24/4/07. Do they have some special deal to
get the blue parcels special priority? How
come the other UK shops can't match this?

They've beaten ayup lights, I ordered mine last w'end, and not here
yet!

Halcyon said:

DeF said:

How do PBK do it? Ordered 20/4/07, arrived
24/4/07. Do they have some special deal to
get the blue parcels special priority? How
come the other UK shops can't match this?

DeF

Chain Reaction Cycles, http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Default.aspx
are just as fast and have a larger range. Irish I think.
Halcyon

Larger range in some respects (more MTB stuff) but no Campagnolo!
Also, based on my quick random survey, they seem a little more
expensive.

Luckily for all of us, there are plenty of options. I've even
got stuff from this mob in the past:
http://www.xxcycle.com/

DeF

--
e-mail: d.farrow@your finger.murdoch.edu.au
To reply, you'll have to remove your finger.

Bleve said:

On Apr 24, 12:57 pm, DeF <""d.farrow\"@your finger.murdoch.edu.au">

Quoted message said:

How do PBK do it? Ordered 20/4/07, arrived
24/4/07. Do they have some special deal to
get the blue parcels special priority? How
come the other UK shops can't match this?

They've beaten ayup lights, I ordered mine last w'end, and not here
yet!

For the record, they (my ay-up lights) arrived yesterday. They're
very nice, the stem attachment is particularly well designed, the only
thing missing is an on-off switch.

Bleve said:

For the record, they (my ay-up lights) arrived yesterday. They're
very nice, the stem attachment is particularly well designed, the only
thing missing is an on-off switch.

For the record and off the topic, would be interested to know if you recommend them. I'm looking at buying a set of lights for my bike and the CFO's bike. Budgetry approval is complete.

I'd be interested to see your thoughts.

On May 1, 1:19 pm, parawolf <parawolf.2pv...@no-

mx.forums.cyclingforums.com said:

Bleve said:

For the record, they (my ay-up lights) arrived yesterday. They're
very nice, the stem attachment is particularly well designed, the only
thing missing is an on-off switch.

For the record and off the topic, would be interested to know if you
recommend them. I'm looking at buying a set of lights for my bike and
the CFO's bike. Budgetry approval is complete.

I'd be interested to see your thoughts.

I've only just put them on my wet weather roady, haven't actually used
them yet. I was most attracted to the handlebar mount, which is the
best of any I've seen in terms of not getting in the way. I have my
computer on my stem, which does cause an issue with the velcro-on
battery but I suspect that's an unusual case. If your stem is clean
and at least 70mm long it should fit beautifully.

The design choice to make the light and battery easy to remove is a
blessing. It's great for avoiding stuff getting nicked. You do have
to remember to take the bits though, if you're planning (or it just
happens!) to be out after dark.

Not having a switch is a pain because to turn the light off, you have
to remove the lamps and battery pack, or have a live wire flapping
around and a plug and a socket that can get [censored] in them. I think it
can be tucked into the strap, but that's still messy. I understand
the decision, switches are chronically unreliable, but it's still a
PITA. It is easy to remove both, except if you have a populated stem.
I might have to hack into my velcro strap so it doesn't foul on my
computer mount (Sigma BC1200). If you were trying to set it up at
night in the dark you'd need a torch or a decent moonlit night, no
'grope for the switch' here.

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy
and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ). Compared to the "seeing"[1] lights we sell in the LBS,
the ayup is great value and I think, a better solution than most I've
seen in terms of mounts. I'm going to see if it's possible to sell
them through the shop, as they're really good.

[1] seeing lights - ie: see where you're going, as opposed to 'be
seen' lights, which are generally LED flashers.

Bleve said:

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ). Compared to the "seeing"[1] lights we sell in the LBS,
the ayup is great value and I think, a better solution than most I've
seen in terms of mounts. I'm going to see if it's possible to sell
them through the shop, as they're really good.

[1] seeing lights - ie: see where you're going, as opposed to 'be
seen' lights, which are generally LED flashers.

Bingo, thats what I would hope you were going to say. Happy to stand behind the product and sell 'em. Good enough for me.

Bleve said:

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy
and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ).

I'd be interested to compare the light output with my home built Cree XR-E single LED light (previously it used a Luxeon III).

On May 1, 3:30 pm, ghostgum <ghostgum.2pw...@no-

mx.forums.cyclingforums.com said:

Bleve said:

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy
and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ).

I'd be interested to compare the light output with my home built Cree
XR-E single LED light (previously it used a Luxeon III).

I don't have the facility to test either of them in any sort of non-
subjective manner. What sold me on the ayup was the handlebar/stem
mount. I can get lights wholesale, I didn't get this one because it's
cheap (although it is ....). I don't have the time to spend making my
own, nor the skills with electronics to make something that won't fry
a lamp or chew batteries up 🙂

On 2007-05-01, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy
and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ).

Ooh, now here's an etiquette question to back up that one about tubes
earlier this year.

What do you do about lending halogen lamps out to friends, and one
blows? They will blow anyway, on average once in 100 hours. The
person who it blows on is just unlucky -- you can't expect them to pay
the full cost of an (expensive! I haven't replaced my nightflux 5w
one yet, because I have only been to one bike shop in 6 months, and
that one tried to sell me a cateye bulb for $50, for what amounts to
an overvolted 4.5v MR11 halogen bulb, $2 from stores somewhere on teh
intarweb) new bulb just because they happened to be the one it blew
on. But I'm not about to volunteer to replace the expensive globe
that I am not using!

--
TimC
The Sell Dervers are balanced behind another Sell Derver, and both
have their data protected from Badness by a Dedundant Array of
Inexpensive Risks -- Aquarion in ASR revealing the secrets of RAID

On 2007-05-01, ghostgum (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Bleve said:

I'm very impressed by the construction of the thing, it seems sturdy
and robust, and the 2 3w luxeons seem significantly brighter than my
old 10w halogen Vistalite (now residing in the 'lend to friends'
bucket 🙂 ).

I'd be interested to compare the light output with my home built Cree
XR-E single LED light (previously it used a Luxeon III).

I'm just looking for MR11 sized 5W and upwards LEDs that can just be
plugged into my niteflux. They exist, but price seems to be $50
(however, lifetime = 50 times that of a halogen). Still looking...

--
TimC
Computer screens simply ooze buckets of yang.
To balance this, place some women around the corners of the room.
-- Kaz Cooke, Dumb Feng Shui

In article <[email hidden]>,

Bleve said:

I've only just put them on my wet weather roady, haven't actually used
them yet.

It's a bit early to ask you, but I wonder if anyone who has had them for
a while has any comments on the charger and batteries. They sound good,
but maybe I'm being blinded why high-sounding waffle. And it seems to me
that the charger is what lets a lot of bike lights down.

--
Shane Stanley

On May 1, 5:19 pm, Shane Stanley <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Bleve said:

I've only just put them on my wet weather roady, haven't actually used
them yet.

It's a bit early to ask you, but I wonder if anyone who has had them for
a while has any comments on the charger and batteries. They sound good,
but maybe I'm being blinded why high-sounding waffle. And it seems to me
that the charger is what lets a lot of bike lights down.

I intend to use this thing to death, will keep you informed ....

On May 1, 5:19 pm, Shane Stanley <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Bleve said:

I've only just put them on my wet weather roady, haven't actually used
them yet.

It's a bit early to ask you, but I wonder if anyone who has had them for
a while has any comments on the charger and batteries. They sound good,
but maybe I'm being blinded why high-sounding waffle. And it seems to me
that the charger is what lets a lot of bike lights down.

Shouldn't be a problem.

The batteries are Li-Ion, which are pretty trivial to charge compared
to NiMH or NiCad.

Shelf life is another issue... they will drop capacity over time,
regardless of usage patterns.

Well I just placed my order for two sets of AyUp lights and a second handle bar mount. Looking forward to 'em. Probably scare a few people on the North Road Ride this time next week hopefully 🙂

Bleve said:

I don't have the facility to test either of them in any sort of non-
subjective manner. What sold me on the ayup was the handlebar/stem
mount.

My method of testing several lights was to shine them at the same surface (dining table ceiling) from the same distance and to photograph it with a digital camera with fixed exposure. You can find out reliably which is brighter in the middle. So far figuring out which puts out the most overall light has been reasonably obvious.

So the way to compare the lights will be to get both your bike and my bike pointing at the same wall on the same evening.

The handlebar mount is likely to be more elegant than mine! I'm using a handlebar drink bottle bracket.

parawolf said:

Well I just placed my order for two sets of AyUp lights and a second handle bar mount. Looking forward to 'em. Probably scare a few people on the North Road Ride this time next week hopefully 🙂

Do they have any way to vary the power output? I've got two settings: full power (4W) and partial power (0.7W). The latter is used when I don't need to light up the path in front of me, want to extend battery life, or don't wish to blind an oncoming cyclist. Even on partial power, a rider 2 metres in front is going to be aware that you are behind.

On 2007-05-01, ghostgum (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Bleve said:

I don't have the facility to test either of them in any sort of non-
subjective manner. What sold me on the ayup was the handlebar/stem
mount.

My method of testing several lights was to shine them at the same
surface (dining table ceiling) from the same distance and to photograph
it with a digital camera with fixed exposure. You can find out reliably
which is brighter in the middle. So far figuring out which puts out the
most overall light has been reasonably obvious.

And turn off auto colour balance -- dunno how to do that on my camera
-- I seem to recall having done that before, and still coming back
with identical exposures looking a different colour temperature.
Perhaps try shooting in raw mode, if you can decode the file format.

--
TimC
"Thanks to the joint efforts of OpenOffice, Mozilla, and a few others, Emacs
officially entered the category of lightweight utilities." -- kalifa on /.

On May 1, 10:15 pm, ghostgum <ghostgum.2pw...@no-

mx.forums.cyclingforums.com said:

parawolf said:

Well I just placed my order for two sets of AyUp lights and a second
handle bar mount. Looking forward to 'em. Probably scare a few people
on the North Road Ride this time next week hopefully 🙂

Do they have any way to vary the power output? I've got two settings:
full power (4W) and partial power (0.7W). The latter is used when I
don't need to light up the path in front of me, want to extend battery
life, or don't wish to blind an oncoming cyclist. Even on partial
power, a rider 2 metres in front is going to be aware that you are
behind.

No. The philosophy is 'kiss'. The lamps are on swivels so you can
point them down to 'dim' them, but 6 hrs burn time from a single
charge, why bother to dim them? I can understand that reasoning. The
on switch is 'plug it in', if you want to know how simple it is 🙂

Bleve said:

No. The philosophy is 'kiss'. The lamps are on swivels so you can
point them down to 'dim' them, but 6 hrs burn time from a single
charge, why bother to dim them? I can understand that reasoning. The
on switch is 'plug it in', if you want to know how simple it is 🙂

I understand that philosophy, and have used it myself on previous lights,
but it can be really annoying in racing. A lot of night races require the
marshals to read your number as you transition, and they don't like bright
lights in their face. A glove over the light sort of works, but costs you
control in what is often a slow and awkward area.

It wouldn't be too hard to put an inline switch somewhere and shouldn't
cost any reliability. A touch of gaff can do wonders for keeping
connections together as a backup. Heck, I've seen Dolphin torches gaffed to
handlebars at events before...

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
And you don't think the government lets you buy _real_ tinfoil do you?
-- D.C. Ross, the Monastery.

Woo AyUp delivered, ordered Tuesday 7:30pm arrived this morning at my partners work.

cooool toys to play with tonight 😉