Little but bright.......

Blackburn Flea USB front and rear Review

Normally I wouldn’t have lights on my bike other than when completely necessary or riding in the woods at night. But after recently buying some albeit very nice black Endura cycling clothing I’ve been feeling a little invisible to car drivers even during daytime rides. This feeling is not helped by my attempt to increase the mileage of my rides in forcing me on to main roads that I do not know as well as my usual quite lanes. This seamed like a set of lights that I was missing. I have really bright front lights but my main use for these lights will be primarily for daytime use during the winter rides so I didn’t need really bright I wanted something cool and lightweight.

BlackBurn Flea Light set. see the silicone in straps. individual LED's gives a good spread. Battery indicators build intoon/off buttons.

I had often overlooked the Blackburn flea lights as not giving enough light for the price, until I realised what a great use they have. These have RRP £44.99 as a set and are available individually front or rear for £24.99 The front lights are available in lots of cool colures too to suit your kit, helmet, bar tape or bike, but that is up to you. I had overlooked these lights before as there are larger commuting lights available around the same price that give a better beam of light (such and Bontrager ion2) however this type of light does not give enough light to go riding without the aid of street lights. If this is the type of riding you do, you need to look at a whole different category of light and be prepared to pay a lot more. These larger lights at around the same price tend to use AA or AAA batteries and are not rechargeable.

Having said that the Blackburn flea lights gives out 40 lumens of light which is bright from a safety, to be seen point of view. Although the Blackburn flea does not give a beam due to the design of the LED’s. The flea lights give out bright light that can be seen brightly form a wider angle than can be seen from the larger lights that focus the light into a beam. So for people to see you they give a lot of light and are very good at this. The rear Blackburn Flea this is very bright light for the size much more than you would expect from such a small light and really is very good even when compared to larger lights.

The advantage of the Blackburn flea lights is a built in rechargeable Li-ion battery, fast USB recharge and they are really small and really lightweight. The advantage to having a rechargeable battery will pay for its self if you are doing a lot of riding over the cost of buying AA or AAA batteries. Add to this Blackburn’s lifetime warranty as with all of their products.

Blackburn has built 3 modes into both front and rear lights. The front has (in order) High, Low and Strobe. This gives 1 hour on high 3 hours on low and 5 hours on strobe. The rear light has Constant, Flash and Strobe. This gives the 6 hours constant and 12 hours on either of the flashing modes.

I really like the strobe mode you get on both front and rear this give a burst of 3 flashes followed by a short pause then a burst again. I think this gives a really different light that gabs attention much more than either a constant or standard flashing light.

Blackburn use a small USB recharger that will work with any powered USB port the recharge time is really quick this takes no more than 2 hours. The charger uses magnets to transfer power so the light remains waterproof.

Rear flea mounting. Note metal clip almost corrects for seat angle.

These lights are so lightweight and disappear on to my road bike without even noticing that they are there, there is almost no excuse not the have them fitted. They weigh 17g each. Part of this weight saving is the mounting system of the light, it uses a Velcro strap which is a bit basic but it works very well and is so simple, it also has a silicone gripper that stops the mount from turning and enables a firm secure fit of the light. When looking at the rear light the metal wire clip looks like a weak point but it’s really not its very strong incredibly stiff and will take years of abuse.

These lights for me work great and will live on my road bike through out the winter even during day rides. Having used them for the first time on a long 77-mile ride that lasted nearly 5 hours. I may have been just me but cars did seem to give a little more space and making me feel a little safer. Well apart from one car who continued to try and drive on the same bit of tarmac that I was current riding on, but hey there is always one. The battery after the ride the front was showing less than 25% battery remaining so Blackburn’s claims of burn time seams accurate. I think this makes these light a very good buy and backed buy Blackburn’s warranty it’s hard to go wrong

Blackburn Flea lights are available from lots of cycle shops, but if there is anything if missed or you would like more information Blackburn should have it.

Or if your after a local bike shop Madison can put you in touch.

There’s a first time for everything……….

First blog post so here goes. Hopefully this will get more interesting as I get a bit more practice in. The things I imagine you will find within my blog will be quite a bit of bike stuff because that what I do best, general gear reviews and things I find cool. There will probably be quite a bit about my training for a 24 hour mountain bike race next summer, only difference to this years 24 hour race is I wont have 9 other team mates around me and plan to do it solo. Not quite sure how yet. I’m pretty sure there will be some cool photos of random stuff that I see and wish to share.