VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Several years ago I published a video about a very simple trick used to loosen and remove even the most stubborn pedals from just about any bike. Over the years I've used this trick on hundreds of bikes that I've worked on or had to disassemble for shipping.
I recently sold this 20 inch Specialized to an online buyer and ran into a minor issue when attempting to remove the pedals. So the pedal spindles on this particular bike have really narrow wrench flats and neither of the 15 millimeter wrenches that I have were narrow enough to actually fit on the pedals to be able to loosen them. I didn't have an actual pedal wrench available or time to locate one. My adjustable wrench was way too wide to make proper contact with a flat portion of the spindle so that wasn't a solution either, until I came up with this idea...
These are a couple of the hex bits out of a small screwdriver set. I placed one of the bits on the top flat surface of the spindle then grabbed the other one and held it on the other side, then I took the adjustable wrench and clamped it down against both bits like this. With the adjustable wrench in place I grabbed the bike firmly by the handlebars and applied both brakes, and then using my trick, I loosened the pedal by stepping on it and then applying my body weight to the wrench with the heel of my foot.
Voila! Piece of cake.
Hope you found this helpful, and thank you for watching.
VIDEO TREANSCRIPT
The ride started early Saturday morning at the Pedal Driven bike shop located in the historic district in Sanford Florida.
"He's got skinny tire bike"
"We are about this embark on this
adventure here with Matt"
"Oh yeah"
"Matt's the owner of this shop where we're starting here. Also here with Tony"
"What'sup guys?"
"Ready to do this?"
"Yeah definitely!
Riding to Alexander Springs"
"All right let's go!"
The ride was planned having two different starting locations the first being at the bike shop. Shortly after nine when we started we were joined by one more rider the four of us then rode nine and a half miles to the second starting location where we would be joined by the remaining ridersand what would make up the bulk of our group.
"Hey we got a good group here!" "Nice! Hello!"
I wasn't exactly sure how many more riders to expect and so I was stoked to see an additional 12 show up for a total of 16.
"Frank what's going on man! Good to see ya!"
About five minutes after the second group of riders arrived we resumed by entering the Markham Woods trail system right across the street from our second starting location. The route then took us into the Seminole State Forest a few miles later. About halfway through the Seminole Forest we stopped for some quick local knowledge about Blackwater Creek from Ron.
"Upstream is also really really cool. It splits - sulfur run goes one way if you go up far enough you run into an old railroad bridge. That's where most people like to go, it actually is a full bridge across the River."
From there we continued moving north toward the Cassia trailhead at the north end of the Seminole State Forest. Once there the group stopped for a moment to regroup and be updated on what lie ahead.
"Yeah we're gonna be on pavement here for about two two and a quarter miles on 44 and then we turn left on Royal Trails, that's another roughly two two-ish miles, maybe two and a quarter and that takes us right to Maggie Jones, which, Maggie Jones is gonna be a lot like what we just did except the final, I guess the final two or three miles, it turns into
pavement and it starts becoming light residential, but the majority of it is just like what we just rode - gravel, wilderness. Yeah so if you guys need any water, drinks, food, bathrooms, whatever, get it at the Dollar General because once we leave there that's our last stop until we actually get to Alexander Springs, which is like another 12 miles of
singletrack up the road and it's so it's a good, at least a good hour. By the looks of this we'll probably have a little bit more sand than expected so that's going to probably slow us down a bit."
A little over an hour and 13 miles later we arrived in Paisley at the Dollar General - the only store for miles in any direction. Here the riders restocked withwater, drinks, and snacks. After what was around a 20-minute stop at the store we resumed progress on what was the final leg of the day's ride: 12 miles of singletrack on the Paisley trail.
"All right we are taking a quick break here to regroup, we are still waiting on I think two riders that are falling back a little bit. We're basically almost in the middle of nowhere. And here they come!"
"All right breaks over let's go!"
"All right we just made it to Alexander Springs!"
About 33 miles and several hours after the day start we arrived at our destination: Alexander Springs.
"So here we are at Alexander Springs and we just grabbed a couple picnic tables and grilling some hamburgers hotdogs, and some food that was driven up for us."
A couple of the riders had someone meet us there with a grill and some great food.
"I'm about to go take a shower over that way facilities might take a swim in the spring. Yeah we're all here and we've just eaten so in a little bit get cleaned up and then go to camp."
"So I'm walking down to the spring over there apologies if the video quality isn't optimal because I have my phone in a plastic bag right now because I'm trying to try to get an underwater view of the spring itself. It looks like this awesome crater."
Well that didn't work too well... I had my phone and closed in a sealed plastic ziplock bag for waterproofing but the pressure of the water up against the touchscreen pressed the stop record button so this is all I was able to get.
"Alright here we are we just left the springs park proper and we're a little bit across the street in this wooded area, you can see everybody is about to set up camp, everybody's clearing their spot."
"This is gonna be home sweet home for the night. Matt here's testing out his new hammock, already got it set up, just about two stragglers just rolling in."
So I should mention that most of the riders in our group hadn't planned on camping or riding back and so had made arrangements to be picked up at the picnic site. That left the following eight that you see here plus myself.
"So we are here I think everybody's, uh, as you can see behind me everybody's pretty much got their sleeping arrangements fully set up. Most of us are in tents as you can see, except for these three guys here in hammocks but we're basically set up for the evening and we started a fire which will be adding wood to here in a little bit. So we're fixing to have a pretty cool night we should have fantastic weather. It's gonna be awesome.
DAY 2
"What time is it? All right here we are morning two, 7:08 am and everybody's packing up ready to hit the trail in a little bit."
"I think we're all getting ready to make a deposit"
"In the safety deposit box?"
"So this turned out to be a fantastic campsite, got a fantastic campfire. We've all eaten breakfast and we're about ready to rock and roll here in probably 20 or 30 minutes more or less so we will be making the trip homeward bound."
"That spring did a great job"
"It did, it did."
"Cleanest water you could find."
"So how were you sleeping in a t-shirt?"
"Next time you'll bring more stuff right?"
"So Speedy Gonzales wasn't so... all of the lightweight approach wasn't so much the way
to go on this was it?"
"Alright this is what's left of our campsite this area here is we where we had two tents and two hammocks set up over here there was another guy with a hammock over there and some tents over that way. We extinguished the campfire, we had a nice fire going on right here and that's taken care of."
"All right we are packed up and ready to roll we're waiting on one rider who went to get some water."
"All right we're back here at the Dollar General on the return leg home we just finished the Paisley bike trail and there's the rest of the group waiting for us we're here at the basically the almost halfway stop on the way back at the Dollar General. We stopped here yesterday on the way up and this is the only store around for a miles in this area so it's kind of like an Oasis in the middle of nowhere."
This was the point where we lost two more riders. One of the guys lives in an area that's in the opposite direction to where we were heading and so he broke off from the group here and rode home. The other rider was becoming a victim of fatigue and decided it best if he hung back at this location and had his wife come pick him up.
"I don't know I think we may have a slight holdup here I don't know what's going on we got a rider back there whistling for us oh okay so one of our riders left his backpack at the store and he's gotta.... he's got to run back toget it." So while we waited for Dean to retrieve his backpack this rather unique and interesting vehicle drove by and we were trying to figure out exactly what it was.
"Is that a new model of something? I didn't get a good look at it just the
sides and the back. What kind of car was it?"
"Yeah that ain't an Excursion though. An Excursion is longer than that."
"That sounded like a Ford engine though, GM diesels don't sound like that."
"All right we just pulled into the Cassia trailhead now. We're at the north end of the Seminole State Forest now so we only have about less than 14, 15 miles to go to complete this ride. We just came up a section of paved road over there which was pretty challenging because it's an uphill and into the wind and we're starting to get tired and we stopped
here to regroup eaten a little bit of snacks here.
"What say there Tony?"
"It was, that was good, that was good thanks to Speedy Gonzales over here. I'm gonna
start calling you t-shirt guy. How's that?
"This guy didn't bring ****. He brought like a... he he brought like a silk sock to go bike packing, meanwhile everybody else is pretty loaded. Frank here wussed out, dropped his bag off with somebody so a car is gonna come get him... I'm just giving you crap Frank. No it's all good. Yeah we're almost done."
"All right guys we're on the homestretch. Bear Pond Trailhead. And how many miles is it to your place from here?"
"You come here all the time! It's gotta be like probably about five miles..."
"...five miles?" "Seven? All right home stretch. Almost there!!" "Let's do it"
"Alright we're here on the home stretch on the Markham woods single track we've got like just a couple miles to go when we ran into some people from yesterday that rode up with us. They're out here riding their Sunday ride."
"You did something when you did something like that."
"This is it man we're done."
"Great weekend, great ride, great times great weather, pretty much great everything."
"Suck it up guys."
"Here we are. We made it. Ride completed!"
"Strike a mean pose like a total badass or something."
"Yeah you mean that mean pose no no no no no I need I need you to stand up man."
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Me:
"Today is Wednesday, February 20th and I'm about to pull into the Markham Woods trail. Let's go for a ride."
Two Orlando area bike shops collaborated with Kona bicycles and on this day they showed up with the Kona factory van and a full fleet of demo bikes for riders to try out.
Me:
"Now I'm here with Wilson, he's out of Richmond Virginia with the Kona demo truck, awesome setup here and all of these awesome Kona bikes. What can you tell us about Kona bikes?"
Wilson:
"Oh man so we've been around for a little bit over 30 years now, one of the last few independent mountain bike brands in the US. Yeah so we make all kinds of bikes we make bikes that are a good time have fun on, we make a range - so out here I've got my long travel enduro bikes, I've got short travel cross-country bikes, I've got hardtails that are fun for trails and going fast, I've got some gravel bikes - we have a new gravel bike out this year that's a good time on trails or the road. Yeah man I mean we're all about having fun on a bike and out there."
Me:
"Awesome! Well we want to thank you for coming to our Wednesdays at Markham ride it's it's quickly becoming one of the premiere weekly off-road rides in the Orlando area."
Wilson:
"Sweet! Awesome!"
Me:
"We're stoked to have you here."
Wilson:
"Glad we've been able to work. Yeah it's cool to see all
the enthusiasm in Florida."
Me:
"I'm here with Kyle from Kyle's bike shop."
Kyle:
"What's up John?"
Me:
"What's going on man?"
Kyle:
"Going good"
Me:
"Good deal. So tell us - people that are
interested in buying a Kona Bike, tell us about your shop where you're
located, that sort of thing."
Kyle:
"Sure, so yeah we're in downtown Orlando in the milk district in downtown. Wwe've been at Kona dealer since 2008,
pretty cool company to deal with we've always had good relations with them. One thing I like about Kona is they're a small company who has a big reputation. They're kind of rider owned, rider developed... everybody that works with their company rides, so you can tell when they put the packages together that these are
people that care more about the riders and say maybe the bottom end."
Me:
"Okay so am I correct in thinking that you are one of two Kona dealers in the greater Orlando area?"
Kyle:
"Right, that's right. There's this awesome new bike shop now in Sanford they're also a Kona Dealer you know so we worked together on this Kona demo to where it could be right in the middle between the two shops and we both came and help out and we're really far enough away to where we're really only helping each other grow the brand."
Me:
"Very cool, very cool."
Me:
"All right I'm here with Matt from...
Matt:
"...Pedal Driven in Sanford."
Me:
"Sanford. So you are one or two of two Kona dealers in the
greater Orlando area?"
Matt:
"This is correct."
Me:
"So if people on the north side of town and further want a Kona bicycle they would come to see you?"
Matt:
"Come to see me."
Me:
"What else can you tell us about your shop and especially in relation to Kona here?"
Matt:
"So we are Kona a shop obviously, we sell Jamis also, love everything steel,love hardtails, all that good stuff, yeah we just have a shop you want to come hang out and that's where we're gonna try to be very inviting. Come by and have a cup of coffee!"
After an entire afternoon of test riding various 2019 Kona bikes the riders turned their attention to the Wednesday's at Markham weekly night ride.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hey my name is Brian Baker and I'm the trail boss for the Minneola trailhead bike park here in Minneola Florida, and this trail has been here for about about five months now. It took what was a year in the making, actually started way back in last July, and had to work with City Council members and county officials and got together with OMBA and SORBA and got a whole bunch of help from everybody, and was able to put this trail together in a matter of four hours actually. We're able to cut it out to put it together in four hours with the help of about thirty-four volunteers, and it's really been an amazing gathering of people, amazing gathering of effort.
We have a lot of sponsors that we're very thankful for helping us out, helping us with the trailer bringing out free swag, free snacks, you know, keeping us hydrated out here, and as you can see you know we got plenty of riders coming out here and enjoying the trail.
We're right off the South Lake Apopka Trail, (the paved trail) that goes all the way over to Orlando, and all the way out to Groveland, so we have awesome access here. You can essentially you know come right off the trail right down here in Minneola trailhead and come over here - it's just a single track and get on and have a good time. We have so many bikers in the area - you know that's one of the things that really inspired me to get the trail going - is that you know we didn't have another trail for another 45 minutes from this destination, and so my kids and I, you know we wanted something that was closer to home, so I said "What the heck, you know let's see if we can get a bike trail here", and Minneola was you know really good about catching on and donating this terrain, this acreage here that we could put our bike trail on. So again, it was just really, to me, an inspiring gathering and support coming together to make it happen.
So here we are enjoying the trail, it's a beautiful day in Florida and let's ride!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi I'm Harry. We're here at Soldiers Creek Mountain Bike Park. This is a nice trail maintained by Sorba Orlando It's a singletrack it goes along the Soldiers Creek. The trail goes along soldiers Creek and it winds along about 1.3 miles. It's nice - a little bit of elevation here and there nice and cool under the big trees and it's a really good ride here and local, just outside of Winter Springs, and right near the Boombah Park.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi how's it going? My name is Joshua Jianuzzi and welcome to the Orlando mountain bike park. We're located here inside of Lake druid Park which is off of SR 50 also known as Colonial Drive of back road of Coy drive here and we're in between Coy Town and just outside of the milk district about ten minutes outside of downtown Orlando.
This is a SORBA Orlando mountain bike park. This property was donated by the naval base about seven, eight years ago, we tried to open this once before and had some issues with soil and the city was nice enough to help us out get us going. With the help of city individuals, fellow mountain bikers, local organizations like Summit Church with their NiServ, Green Up which is also a part of the city Orlando, thanks to Janice Rahill and David Wagg, Tommy and Anton, big help all the individual riders have been a big part of the build up and construction of the park... Been here for a little over three years maintaining it.
We've got just under a mile of singletrack, we've got a pumptrack here, its a mix between a skills area and also another tot track with some other wooden features as well to kind of hone in your skills. We are mostly a beginner park as we are fresh here for the last three and a half years. We opened up October 31st of 2015.
Yeah so we've got new features we're building and designing, I'm out here as much as I can with different volunteers, different organizations I'm just digging in and trying to share the fun with everybody so you can get out and enjoy the ride.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hello I'm Bobby and I'm the trail volunteer for the Florida Forestry Service out here at the Little Big Econ State Forest. The Snow Hill Bike Trail has been around here since the late 80's and it follows mostly in the deer paths. There's about 15 miles of singletrack out here at snow hill bike trail but most of it winds through the state forest here and a group of volunteers from SORBA Orlando comes out here and maintains the trail and works with the Florida Forestry Service.
The terrain out here at the snow hill bike trail consists of mostly sand but it's also mixed in with some muck and some loose dirt but most of it is sandy. This land used to be used for harvesting turpentine and it was a farm for cabbage and celery.
This is a wildlife preserve and there are all kinds of wildlife out here that are native to Florida. Since it's a Preserve you might find alligators in the water which is common here in Florida as well as snakes, turtles, gopher turtle and also wild hog and wild turkey. There's quite a few deer out here as well that you'll find along the bike trail.
A good portion of the trail runs along the little big econ River. On the weekends the river is quite active - there's kayaking and camping along the river.
The Snow Hill bike trail is located just outside of the town of Geneva and sits between Geneva and Oviedo Florida. The Little Big Econ State Forest is located about 15 minutes east of the University of Central Florida and it's about a 30-minute drive from downtown Orlando.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
I'm Mitch Greenberg and welcome to the Markham Woods mountain bike trail. This trail was established in 2013 thanks to the generous contribution of Wekiva Springs State Park. We currently have about nine to ten miles of trail here, mostly beginner-friendly. We cater to mountain biking, trail runners, hikers, family use. We do have some interesting features on the trail such as log overs, jumps, various sinks out here, varied terrain for people to see but this area is generally beginner-friendly. There are some other interesting features such as palmetto roots and some historic features to this piece of property as well. We have a great facility here parking lot provided by Seminole County, restroom facilities that are taken care of also by Seminole County, parking and access is easy. The location is near I-4 & Lake Mary Florida, so check it out have fun!
What goes around comes around. We've all heard the saying. And I guess to some, or a great extent, it is more or less at least somewhat true, I don't really know. What I do know is that it usually seems to be associated with something negative - some sort of negative karma, or whatever.
Not this time. Two days ago I had just finished uploading and publishing a video to YouTube and was posting the YouTube link on Facebook when out of nowhere I received a private message from a friend whom I hadn't heard from in quite some time. The message read "2 years ago. Amazing trip....".
This is a screenshot of that message:
Under the text caption in the message is a short video. This is that video:
Kim is a fellow cyclist and mountain bike adventurer from Denmark. About 2.5 years ago I joined up with 2 other friends and Orlando area locals for a somewhat local overnight bikepacking adventure. Kim was here vacationing in the Orlando area and visiting one of the guys and he came along for the ride. That's how we met.
The ride was relatively short (by most bikepacking standards), but an epic one nonetheless. I had wanted to capture the experience as I do on many of my rides, so I recorded bits and pieces of video footage along the way, assembled it all into a timeline, and published it online. That was over 2 years ago.
Fast forward to this past Friday when I received the unexpected message above. I hadn't heard from Kim in a very long time and it was very refreshing and rewarding to receive a message of this nature. It made my entire afternoon to see that someone half a world away was reflecting back on some good times and epic moments that we had.
Cheers, buddy. We'll meet again sometime for another ride. I guess what goes around comes around is mostly true.
You can view the entire video of the ride I did with Kim & friends here:
I have a very nice entry level/beginner's bike for sale for anyone who might be interested. It's a 21 speed DiamondBack Outlook with 26" wheels, a 20" aluminum alloy frame (suitable for riders 6 feet tall and above), and is equipped with front suspension. The bike is in like new condition. Leave a comment below if you're interested.
Some of you may have seen my recent September Critical Mass Bike Ride video. The Critical Mass rides are always a fun experience and while I tried to capture the essence of the entire scene in the video, one of my primary objectives in attending the recent September 2018 ride was to shoot some aerial drone footage of the 'Mass riders for videographer Chad Pearce who was creating a short biopic about Orlando Critical Mass frontman Nicholas Mandino.
In this short, but fantastic video Nick talks about some of his personal battles that led him to become a cyclist and how cycling provided a form of liberation. He then goes on to talk about how this led to him forming the "Orlando Chapter" of the monthly worldwide cycling movement and phenomenon known as Critical Mass.
It's been a while since I attended a Critical Mass Ride. At least 6 to 8 months. While I really enjoy attending these things and riding with 3, 4,or 5 hundred like minded riders, the last Friday of each month has a strange habit of creeping up on me without notice and as a result I usually remember that this ride is taking pace at the last possible second - which is always too late to attend. That is, when I DO remember!
I hadn't really planned or considered attending this month's Critical Mass ride but a friend brought something to my attention the day before. A documentary video about the phenomenon that is Critical Mass and it's organizer is being produced for an Orlando area community web site and they wanted someone with a drone who could shoot aerial footage of the ride. I have a couple of drones so I confirmed that I could attend and do it. With a day's advance notice I surely wouldn't forget this time.
With bike locked & loaded, batteries charged, and drones packed and ready I made the 10.5 mile ride on my bike Friday afternoon to the starting point at Loch Haven Park. The original plan was to do the ride and shoot a few random aerial scenes of the riders along the way, then hand off the video footage to the producer of the documentary. Simple enough. But then I figured, since I am going, I may as well bring my other gear as well, and shoot a bunch of various shots, both aerial and handheld, and use them in a video of my own creation in addition to supplying the aerial footage for the documentary.
The Seminole State Forest. It's a beautiful wilderness expanse that's right in my backyard - If you consider 17 miles away to be in your backyard, that is. I've ridden all over this area numerous times and even camped there overnight on a couple of occasions. I mostly ride there by myself, so when some guys started getting together for a bi-weekly ride there, I thought I'd check it out.
Here's a brief recap / replay of last Thursdays' ride. Thanks to Matt Steward from Pedal Driven Bike Shop in Sanford, Florida for taking the initiative on creating this recurring ride. Hopefully it will become a weekly thing soon.
view this on eBay
I forgot I had this Dura Ace cassette laying around. It's been laying around for a few years among some of my other stuff. It's brand new-in-the-box, never even removed from the original Shimano packaging. I've got it up on eBay so if you like Dura Ace and still run 9 speed road stuff check out the link above.
Cheers
Friday, July 20, 2018
It's been a little while since I've ridden in one of the urban mountain bike rides in Orlando. I used to participate in these rides pretty religiously, so after seeing the Facebook reminder posted by the ride leader last week, I decided to go. It was pretty much business as usual: Approximately 20 miles in distance over just about any and all types of terrain that an urban jungle has to offer. City streets, alleys, grassy transitions, brick roads, staircases of various heights & lengths (lots of them), and a few drop-off ledges just to name a few.
I decided to make a return visit earlier this week with some camera gear on board. I figured I'd try to catch some various random shots of the riders doing their thing. Leave me a comment and subscribe for updates on future content if you like this sort of thing!
The City of Altamonte Springs hosted it's annual Fourth of July Red, Hot & Boom fireworks & concert show this past Tuesday night (July 3rd). The weather turned out to be fantastic despite a threat of light rain forecasted earlier in the day. In typical fashion, the fireworks show was first class and spectator attendance was high as to be expected. Most of the roads surrounding the show's venue at Crane's Roost Park were either restricted to one-way traffic or closed off to motor vehicles altogehter.
Note that I said "closed to motor vehicles". But not bikes!!! With all the road closures and crowd congestion there was no better way to get around than on my bike. I have to admit that all the congestion etc. made for a pretty fun and technical Urban Assault riding environment as well! The fireworks show was scheduled to begin at about 9:30pm so I set out about 2 hours earlier to get a bit of riding in and check out the location & spots. I took my camera & drone along as well to get some various shots of the area.
I arrived at the Crane's Roost area around 7:45 and rode all around the area until 10pm without really stopping except to launch the drone for a moment a couple of times and once to chit chat with some police officers for a quick moment.
All in all it was a fun ride with some great sights & sounds.
The DL06 is the second XANES brand bike light I've reviewed. The previous one being the XL07 model, which I reviewed about a month ago and can be seen here. The XL07 is a single LED, USB-powered light. Prior to that (over a year ago), I reviewed another bike light - a non-branded light that is also single LED and also USB powered.
I really like USB powered lights mainly for their versatility in terms of how they can be powered. When I'm out bikepacking and adventuring, I usually have several electronic gadgets (mainly a couple of smartphones used as a camera and for navigation) that I need to keep charged. Having a bike light that runs off the same batteries that I use to charge my phones is a huge plus - It eliminates the need to carry proprietary, model-specific batteries for the light and also makes charging simpler when the need arises since all I have to worry about are a couple of USB power bank style batteries (which I run everything off of).
The DL06 is a little different in this regard. First off, it's a USB rechargeable light, and not necessarily a USB powered light. In other words, the DL06 has it's own built-in, internal battery which is comprised of two 18650 Li-Ion cells that are rated at 6000mah. As a result, the light is a fully self contained light system that is about three times larger (and heavier) than the two lights I previously tested, minus their batteries, of course. Secondly, the DL06 has dual CREE XML T6 LED's, while the lights I tested previously only have single LED elements. The entire system is housed in a finned, black anodised aluminum heat sink casing that is IP65 rated for water and dust resistance.
The light has 4 operating modes: The familiar low, medium, and high brightness settings, and one steady flash mode. By default, the light powers on to its lowest brightness setting, and each successive press of the rear-mounted switch increases the brightness. If the power button is held down for 2 seconds in any mode, the light enters a steady flash mode. Press the switch again and the light will exit the flash mode and return to the previous state/ mode that it was in. Like many lights, the DL06 has a "clicker" style power switch on the rear of the housing off to the left side. Next to the switch (near the center) are 3 small LED battery level indicator lights. To the right of those is a micro-USB charging port, covered by a water resistant rubber cap. The DL06 can be plugged into an external power source while it is in operation, so technically it can be charged while being used, provided that the power supply delivers more juice than is being consumed by the light itself. The power switch illuminates red when the light is being charged, and then turns off when charging is complete. The battery indicator LED's remain lit corresponding to the battery's charge level. The battery itself takes roughly 5 hours to fully charge from empty using a standard 2.4A USB cell phone charger.
The light comes with 2 handlebar mounts and attaches to each mount via a familiar and simple slide-click mechanism. The mounts themselves are basically plastic pieces that wrap around the handlebar and clamp in place with a thumb screw. The mounts are made to fit 34.9mm dia handlebars and the light is supplied with rubber shims to adapt the light for use on a smaller diameter handlebar (eg. 26.4mm) if necessary. One of the mounts is a dual-clamp design which straddles the handlebar stem, positioning the light over the stem exactly in the middle of the handlebars. The other mount is a narrower single clamp style with a rotating slide lock for precise aiming of the light.
This light is bright! While it doesn't throw a beam quite as far as the XANES XL07 I previously reviewed, it is definitely as bright or brighter and casts a wider pattern with more even illumination from the center out to the side edges. The beam pattern makes it a great all-around light for any use ranging from off-road technical singletrack to road riding. And since it's fully self contained and easily detached from the bike, it can be used as a great flashlight off the bike as well - no dangling cords or external batteries to mess with.
I tested the run time of the DL06 by first fully charging it, then turning it on high and leaving it running overnight next to a timer on my laptop PC. The light ran for 3 hours 45 minutes at full brightness before the first LED battery charge indicator went out. After that, the light ran for another 3+ hours before the final battery indicator started to flicker, at which point I ended the test at 7 hours. In spite of this, the DL06 still had some juice left in the tank to keep going. Once again, the light ran for 3 hours, 43 minutes at full, maximum brightness. It should be noted however that as the battery charge level decreased after this point, the brightness of the light gradually decreased ever so slightly until the test was done. In spite of this, it still had more than adequate output brightness to be useful throughout the entire duration of the test. It should also be noted that I did not test its run time on the medium and low settings. Based on the run time I got on high, I am confident that the DL06 should easily run at least 2-3 times longer on the lower settings. That's about 14 hours on medium and 21 hours on low. Pretty impressive.
A few weeks ago I completed a video review of the XANES XL07 LED Bike Light over on my YouTube channel. The light was sent to me by the folks over at Banggood.com.
I've been using this great little light and putting it through it's paces 2-3 times a week for the last month or so now. The light is basically a single CREE XML T6 LED element housed in a black anodised aluminum case. The build quality of the light head is very solid. It doesn't feel cheap of flimsy at all. The light is held onto the handlebars (or most anything round up to about 3/4" diameter) by a plastic mount which wraps around the bars and is secured via a small threaded thumb wheel. The light unit itself attaches to the bar mount via a simple slide-lock mechanism which is rotatable for precise aiming of the light.
In addition to the handlebar mount, the XL07 comes with an elastic headband mount which is basically the same as the headband mounts supplied with many other Chinese bike lights. The headband can be worn directly on the head, or it can be stretched over a bike helmet to be used as a helmet mount. The light is also supplied with a silicone rubber "lamp shade". At first I had no idea what the intent was for this accessory and though it was some sort of gimmick. But I soon realized that the lamp shade makes for a great diffuser that softens the light and broadens the output which in turn makes the XL07 quite useful in off the bike camping situations where an area light is needed.
One unique thing about this light is its ability to operate on various voltages from 4.2 up to 8.4 VDC. The light has a round 5521 style connector on the end of the cord, but also comes with a 5521 to USB cable as well. This makes for a very versatile light setup, able to be powered by wide variety of batteries and power supplies. The cord + USB cable is also plenty sufficient in length - With the light installed on my handlebars, I ride with the cord coiled around the top tube of my bike and then up the seatpost to a small seatbag where a USB battery is carried. There is no shortage of cable length at all.
The light is IP65 rated for water and dust resistance and has 6 different operating modes: High, medium, and low brightness, plus fast, slow, and S.O.S. flashing modes. The high and medium modes are more than adequate for any riding condition, including technical singletrack. The beam pattern throws a good amount of light far ahead - I have no problem seeing small rocks and other objects that are 45-50 feet ahead on gravel roads for example. The light pattern is somewhat narrow however, like a spotlight. While there is indeed some peripheral illumination to the sides, it isn't much. The lowest brightness setting is more of a "be seen" level of brightness and while it may work on open roads etc. it's not quite bright enough wherever the road or trail ahead needs to be well illuminated.
Power consumption of the XL07 is similar to the other USB powered lights I've tried, anywhere from 1-2A at 5V on high, around 0,8-0,9A on medium, and about 0.1A on low. Note that power consumption of the light can vary slightly depending on the battery or power supply used, but overall amperage readings show that this is a pretty efficient light that will provide some pretty long run times if paired with a suitable battery. I've gotten nearly 3 hours running the XL07 on high PLUS another non-branded CREE XML T6 light (used as a tail light) running on medium power - at the same time off the same battery. It should be noted that the XL07 is not supplied with a battery - you'll have to supply your own.
The XANES XL07 is available from Banggood.com for $28.99 although, when I very recently checked the site again they had lowered the price to $16.99. I find this to be a pretty good price for such a versatile, well made, and well performing light.
What if FedEx was to create a mountain bike commercial? I had a bunch of small to medium sized packages to send out yesterday. Good excuse for a bike ride. So I set out to create what it might look like. What do you get when you go pedaling and use the mountain bike to ship & deliver stuff at the same time? PEDEX! I actually do this quite often so I thought I'd create a faux FedEx commercial video of sorts. Just for the heck of it. So yesterday I loaded the stuff into the bike trailer and went for a spin...
