BBB Signal LED Rear Light

Yet another bicycle rear light! This one is interesting because it also uses a COB LED module that produces a warm organic glow. It should produce a light that looks like the Moon Comet Rear Light. The main difference in the appearance of the light is that this light has a more low profile light mount as compared to the Moon Comet light mount. I am looking for a low profile rear light that does not stick out so much from the back of the road bike seat post, which is why I got this light to try out.

BBB Signal LED Rear Light

3 steady modes with the different brightness and runtime. I thought it had a flashing mode, but it doesn't. This is not good as I would much prefer to use a flashing rear light for better visibility.

More detailed info about Lux, Candela and Lumen that I can't fully understand. Very useful for comparison with other lights.

Items found in the light packaging

The COB LED module can be seen clearly under the red transparent casing. The black rubber is the only button on this light.

Nicely designed rubber mount

The light can be swiveled on the mount to suit different mounting requirements

Quite lightweight at only 32 grams including the mount

Nice red glow! I really like the glow and it is rather bright too.

As mounted on the seatpost of the Merida Scultura 5000 road bike

When viewed from the side, the mount is rather flat and does not stick out too much from the seatpost

Good side visibility

Quite visible and bright when viewed from the back. The viewing angle is very wide due to the COB LED design.

How is the brightness of this light compared to other lights? I used a Smart 0.5W rear light for comparison as it is a rather popular light and most people would have seen it before.See the pictures below for the brightness and beam angle comparison. All the exposure is kept the same by focusing on the same area when taking the picture.

Smart 0.5W rear light. Very bright and focused beam.

BBB Signal LED Rear Light. Wide, soft and diffused light beam.

The two lights side by side. The BBB light wins out in terms of viewing angle and coverage, but the Smart light wins with its bright focused beam.

Operating this light is very easy and standard. A long press on the button turns on or off the light, while a short press switches between the 3 modes. Charging is via a micro USB port.

Pros:
1) Wide viewing angle
2) Consistent brightness across the wide viewing angle
3) Lightweight
4) Slim and compact size
5) Easy to install and remove from the bike with the rubber mount
6) USB rechargeable
7) Rain proof

Cons:
1) Expensive (similar price to Moon Comet)
2) Short battery life. Only 6 hours at lowest brightness and 1.5 hours at maximum brightness.
3) No flashing mode makes it less visible
4) Beam is not as bright as other lights with more focused beams

Overall, this is a nice light by itself. Lightweight and compact with a bright and wide beam. However, the main drawback is the lack of a flashing mode. This light is designed for some European markets which is why it does not have a flashing mode. Without a flashing mode, it will not be as visible, which is why I will not be using it on the bike. Will think of some other uses for this rear light.

Merida Scultura 5000 - Colouring the Bike

When I get a new bike, I always have the urge to add some decorations to the bike. Usually this is in the form of some coloured accessories or add-ons to give the bike some extra dash of colour. The Dahon Boardwalk is dressed in black and gold, while the Dahon MuEX is decorated with red accents on the nice black frame.

For this new Merida Scultura 5000, the frame colour is mainly black with some stripes of sky blue across the frame. I decided to add a bit of blue accents to the bike to personalise it a bit more. However, the important part is to add just blue accents to the bike, and not overwhelm the bike with large areas of blue.

First, I decided to add a couple of bar end lights to try out. At only a few dollars from Taobao, there is no harm trying them out to see how they fare. They are not available in blue, which is why I got the black ones.

Simple pair of bar end lights

Bar end lights when turned on. Not very bright though.

How it looks when installed at the end of the drop bar.

Just press on the translucent rubber to turn on the light. Not very bright in the day, but quite visible at night.

It was found that these bar end lights are not very bright, but then again, I can't expect too much from a cheap light like this. Definitely not bright enough to be a primary rear light, but good enough to add a bit of lighted bling to the bike.

Next would be all the little blue parts that I used to accent the bike! The tricky part about this shade of blue is that it is not that common. Sky blue is not a common colour for bicycle components, and thus it is difficult to find the correct shade of blue to match the blue on the frame.

Presta valve caps in blue. This shade of blue is the closest I could find that matches the sky blue on the frame.

Fits nicely on the Presta valves on the bike. Nothing too flashy here.

Zoomed out view of the blue valve cap on the wheel. Very subtle tinge of blue.

Other than the valve caps, I came across the rubber seatpost ring made by Fizik. The purpose of this seatpost ring is to prevent water from flowing down into the frame through the seatpost area. I managed to find the correct sized ring for my seatpost (Diameter 27.2mm), and in almost the correct shade of sky blue!

Light blue Fizik seatpost rubber ring

Fits nicely on the seatpost...

...and the shade of blue matches the blue on the frame quite nicely.

Lastly, these coloured inner cable end caps add a nice dash of colour to the end of the shifter cables and brake cables. These are the little details that matter, and it shows the level of detail that you apply to the bike. Not expensive and yet useful.

Available in all sorts of colour from Taobao, and very cheaply too. This shade of blue is a little dark though.

Blue inner cable end cap seen at the end of the shifter cable on the RD

Another coloured end cap on the shifter cable of the FD

Update:
Came across this bottle cage which has a nice shade of blue that matches the frame colour perfectly! Decided to get two of these bottle cages to replace the original Merida bottle cages.

Sky blue bottle cage 

Made of glass fibre reinforced nylon. Tough engineering plastic. 

Comparing it side by side with the original Merida bottle cage. The Merida bottle cage is actually very nice and lightweight, just that it does not have the blue colour. 

Somewhat heavier than most other bottle cages at 42 grams each. 

Merida aluminium bottle cage is actually very lightweight at only 25 grams, comparable to many carbon bottle cages out there. 

The blue coloured bottle cage fits in really nicely with the rest of the frame

I decided to install both the new bottle cages despite them adding a little bit more weight to the bike. 

I also discovered that the small tool bottle fits nicely into the new bottle cage!

In another post, I wrote about how the Merida bottle cage does not match nicely with the tool bottle. However, since the tool bottle can now fit snugly into the new blue bottle cage, I moved the tools from the large tool bottle to the smaller tool bottle. The small amount of weight gained from using the new bottle cages has been offset by the change to a smaller tool bottle.

Final view of the bike with the new blue bottle cages and the small tool bottle! Compare this to the previous set up, with the large tool bottle and the Merida bottle cages.

When I add colour to a bike, I try not to overwhelm the bike with too much colour. Instead, I feel that the better way is to add little coloured accents here and there, to bring out the original colour that is on the frame. This can be seen on the MuEX which I built earlier this year.

Lots more to write about for this Merida bike!

Merida Scultura 5000 - Tools and Accessories

After getting my new Merida Scultura 5000 road bike, it is time to add some accessories to the bike! As I want this bike to be a lightweight road bike, it would be best to minimise the amount of additional weight due to tools and accessories. However, some tools are essential, such as a small hand pump, tire levers and a spare tube.

There are a few ways to carry tools on a road bike. By far the most common is to use a rear saddle bag, but it can be kind of bulky (even the small ones) and spoils the streamlined look of the road bike. An alternative way is to get a top tube mounted bag which rests on the top tube, just behind the stem. However, I find that I will hit the top tube bag when I move down from the saddle during a stop, so that is out of the question too. Some riders will put spares in the back pockets of the cycling jersey, but I am always afraid that the items will drop out too easily.

Finally I decided to use one of the water bottle cages to hold the tools and spares. You can always use an old water bottle to hold the stuff, but I wanted to get a nicer looking tool bottle that can be used to store tools. Although this occupies one of the water bottle cages, leaving only one for the actual water bottle, I feel that this should be enough for most of the rides I do. On longer rides where I will need two water bottles, I will probably put the tool bottle in the backpack.

The two water bottle cages on the Merida frame. One will be used for the tool bottle!

This is the Large sized tool bottle...

...and this is the Small sized tool bottle. What is the difference? Let's find out!

They are similar in circumference, and only differ in height. The small tool bottle is about 133mm in height, while the large tool bottle is about 183mm in height.

I first tried the small tool bottle, but it does not fit tightly in the bottle cage. The catch on the bottle cage is higher than the tool bottle, and the bottle's circumference is slightly smaller than the bottle cage.

The large tool bottle has a depression at the side which is meant for the catch, however it is unable to fit securely.

To get the large tool bottle to fit, I turned the tool bottle around such that the catch on the bottle cage pushes against the flat side of the tool bottle. This creates some interference which fits the tool bottle snugly in the bottle cage.

After some trial and error, I found that all my tools can actually fit in the small tool bottle. However, the small tool bottle cannot be securely fitted to the bottle cage, which is why I decided to use the large tool bottle.

As the tools are unable to fully fill the large tool bottle, they will rattle in the empty space in the large tool bottle. My solution is to fit in 2 pieces of lightweight foam to fill up the space at the bottom of the tool bottle, before putting in the tools. This is kind of silly as the extra space is wasted, but I can't think of a better way for now, apart from stuffing in more tools?

2 x foam blocks are first placed into the large tool bottle. This takes up the extra space in the bottle, and also provides a soft layer to prevent the tools from rattling against the bottom of the tool bottle.

The weight of the empty large tool bottle + 2 pieces of foam inside.

The large tool bottle with all my selected tools and spares! This means that the tools and spares weigh about 400 grams.

The full complement of tools and spares in my tool bottle

Items in my tool bottle:
1) 2 x cable ties. Weigh next to nothing, but useful for tying up loose stuff or cables if they are broken or loose. A roll of tape will also work.
2) Topeak Mini 9 Multi Tool. Bare minimum of tools to adjust and tighten bolts and screws on the bike.
3) Topeak Universal Chain Tool. Necessary if you ever need to fix a broken chain.
4) 11 speed KMC Missing Link (spare quick release chain links). Quick and easy way to fix a broken chain by removing the damaged link with the chain tool, and installing these Missing Links by hand.
5) Schwalbe Tire Levers. Best tire levers for removing tight tires from the rims.
6) 700x18/25C spare tube
7) Park Tool Emergency Tire Boot. Used to patch a torn tire if sliced through by sharp road debris. Different from a tube patch.
8) Park Tool Super Patch Kit. Comes with sandpaper for scuffing the tube and some pre-glued patches for fixing the hole in the tube. Only will be used if the spare tube also gets punctured.
9) Some cash for buying food and drinks, and for taking the taxi home if all else fails
10) Lezyne CO2 Trigger Drive, for quick inflation of a flat tube to the correct high pressure.
11) Lezyne Pressure Drive hand pump (not shown). Just in case the CO2 cartridge fails.

That is a pretty long list of spares and tools! Some may be redundant, but it is better to be safe. If I were to trim down the list, I would remove the Lezyne CO2 Trigger drive and depend solely on the hand pump. The emergency tire boot, patch kit, KMC Missing Link and cable ties can also be removed, but they are so lightweight that there is no reason not to carry them.

The other tools and spares are absolute essentials for me. Multi tool, chain tool, tire levers, spare tube and hand pump are the minimum that I would carry on this road bike.

So how does everything fit into the tool bottle? It is important to fit everything snugly so that there is no space for the tools to rattle about in the tool bottle.

Managed to squeeze everything into the tool bottle. The multi tool (not shown) will be placed on top since it will be the most frequently accessed.

The tool bottle fits nicely into the bottle cage and looks well integrated with the frame. No extra bags hanging around the bike!

Other than the tools and spares, the other accessories would be the front light, rear light and the cycle computer.

For the rear light I am using the Bontrager Flare 3, which was originally mounted on the rear rack of the Dahon Boardwalk.

Bontrager Flare 3 rear light mounted on the seat post.

There are a few accessories on the handlebar which I want to use, so it was quite tricky to arrange everything such that they fit on the narrow drop bar, and yet don't interfere with my hands when holding the top of the drop bar.

Since there are no bags on the bike to hold my mobile phone when I am riding, I had to mount a Topeak Smartphone DryBag on the drop bar. This bag is rather big and takes up one whole side of the drop bar. This leaves only the other side of the drop bar for the cycle computer and the front light.

For the other side of the handlebar, I had to get another of the Bar Fly Bracket for Cateye cycle computers, so that the cycle computer can be moved to the side. This also puts the cycle computer closer to the side so that it is easier for me to reach the cycle computer with my hands. The cycle computer that I am using is the Cateye Strada Digital Wireless.

Lastly, the front light that is on this road bike is the slim Moon Comet front light. I just took one of the two Moon Comet front lights that are on the Dahon Boardwalk and installed it on this bike.

Managed to fit everything nicely on the drop bar!

The Topeak bag is large but necessary for holding the phone.

With the large Topeak bag removed, the handlebar looks much neater. 

Overall view of the bike with the tool bottle and the lights installed. The rear light kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, maybe I will change it to a rear light with a lower profile...

Update:
After getting some new bottle cages, I can now use the small tool bottle on the bike as they fit nicely into the new bottle cages. Click on the link below to find out.

Merida Scultura 5000 - Colouring the Bike