Light your Own Way with Pedalite
Source: Pedalite
News Posted: 17 Oct 2007
Product Preview: Pedalite kinetic energy powered LED commuter pedals – RRP: £34.99
More power to your feet, or more accurately from your feetHere at Everyday Cycling, as everywhere, the nights are drawing in and once more our daily commutes are again shrouded in darkness for a few months. So we need a few good ideas to help us keep on trucking through the winter. We’re also keen to hear about innovative cycling products. While we’re not in the business of trotting out dreary ‘me-too’ reviews of the latest middle of the road products, we are interested in genuine innovations which make your leisure or commuting cycling safe, more comfortable and more enjoyable.
We stumbled across the Pedalite pedal at Cycle 2007 and were really impressed with the concept – LED lighting encased in a tough Du Pont flat pedal, powered by green kinetic energy, that starts flashing when you start pedalling, remains lit for up to 5 minutes (great for junctions and traffic lights) and requires no batteries and no maintenance.
I’ve tried numerous lighting options over the years and always found drawbacks. Battery systems always let you down when you need them most. Dynamo hubs mean a new front wheel build and varying degrees of drag. Bottle dynamos are fickle, finicky items with a troubled relationship with winter commutes – i.e. exactly when you need reliable lights. That’s not to forget the deep joy that one only experiences when returning to the bike rack after a swift half in a city centre pub, only to find someone has helped themselves to your LED lights.
The Pedalites circumnavigate all these woes by ditching the batteries (and with them all the toxic landfill issues) and harness the kinetic energy produced by your own pedalling motion. The lights are always on, day or night and switch off by themselves (as soon as the capacitor discharges) – so now more returning to your bike at the bike rack to find some joker has switched your light on earlier and discharged your batteries, ready for the commute home. Plus your lights are always with you, under the soles of your feet.
Also the Pedalite’s flashing, up/down motion creates that unique cyclists lighting signature, differentiating it from the melee of lights to be found in the urban context. The Pedalite also throws out light forwards, to the side and to the rear, creating artificial width and (hopefully) a bit of extra elbow room as drivers pass. Clearly these guys have done their homework.
The Pedalite concept was apparently born, as many great ideas are, in a pub after a near miss on the daily commute. Like Tulio Campagnolo’s quick release lever (borne in the mind of the cyclist fumbling with a wheel change on a freezing roadside) the Pedalite seems to be another great innovation borne of bitter experience that has gladly borne fruit.
But the proof of the beer-born fruit pudding is in the eating (sorry, mixed metaphors there) and we’ll have a pair of Pedalites spannered onto S.S Everyday Cycling, my official programme test rig, as soon as Royal Mail will allow. You can rely on us to keep you posted.
In the meatime, you can find out more and buy online at
http://www.pedalite.com/