A Damn Fine Review of Bike Tail Lights

The community blog for Bicycles Stack Exchange has this excellent review of 16 bike tail lights, and boy am I pissed off.

I’ve been building up to publishing my own version of the best bike tail light review the world has ever seen, and the author, “nhinkle,” has outdone even my grand ambitions — with fancy data graphs and graphics.

Review of the Best Bicycle Tail Lights in 2012
Screen Shot: Bicycles Stack Exchange

Who is this nhinkle?

nhinkle
nhinkle

All I’ve been able to ascertain is that he (or she) looks like this.

I’m going to go with a masculine pronoun, based on that avatar.

He covers lights by some of my favorite brands: Cygolite, Planet Bike, and Portland Design Works. But omits some other obvious brands, such as Light and Motion, and Busch & Müller.

Yeah. I’m nitpicking.

(Most of the Busch & Müller tail lights don’t even blink. It’s a German thing.)

In his final analysis, his choices are tail lights for which I already have a favorable bias: the Portland Design Works Danger Zone, Planet Bike Superflash Turbo, and the Cygolite Hotshot.

But his “best value” choices are a couple of lights that weren’t even on my freakin’ radar: The Blackburn Mars 4.0, and the SE 6-Way Flasher.

So if you’re thinking about bike tail lights, check out the very thorough article with all it’s fancy graphics. And when I finally publish my tail light review, I’ll try to approach the standards set by nhinkle.

Live long and prosper.

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