Reelight in 2023

 This isn't Nihola specific, but Reelights are great lights for utility cycles, so here goes.  (Also in two of the following photos, a Nihola is in the background!)

I have a lot of Reelight lights, the ones that go on racks ("cargo carrier", whatever) are especially good, as they are protected against damage.  Both Niholas have had one of those for years, I suppose a whole decade now.  There can be a little fiddling with spoke magnets, and the generator-cylinder can be pushed around by accident, but mostly things are great.  Then they improved things.  Not sure what year that happened, but in 2022 I got my first fancy new Reelight Nova.

The new generator goes by the rim, there are no spoke magnets, and the cable can be replaced.  The replaceable cable especially sounds good, as I have personally ruined 2 or 3 Reelights by pulling out or otherwise damaging the cable.  (In at least one case, destruction involved falling over on ice.)

Here we have the generator mostly installed.

I had, in 2022, the need to equip a pre-teen bike for winter school commuting.  I got a rear Reelight Nova for the cargo rack and installed it, zip-tied the cable like I should.  It worked OK.  I'm not so sure the light effect was better than the old models, but it was sufficient.  It started out blinking and went to steady light.  Could have blinked a bit more at low speed.  The generator needed to be installed quite close to the rim, which is potentially problematic for the rear wheel in front-facing dropouts.  The wheel can move if the nuts loosen, and it would take hardly any movement for the generator to rub on the rim.  In practice, the kid was light enough, and I tightened the nuts enough, that the wheel stayed put.  The generator was also not a problem when removing the wheel to change the tire, and was only rarely bumped into the rim.  Overall not so bad.

It ended badly however, due to some series of events that only my kid knows.

This is how it went.

One end of the cable is still in the light.

I think I'll get a new cable for the light some day to get it back in service.  I should point out that the cable exits the light housing sideways at an angle, which is less ideal than the old cable, which left the housing centered.  The large plug probably required this change.  In most cases this could be better, but specifically for the rear rack-mounted light, it exposed the cable to more risk.  After leaving the light, the cable had to traverse an air gap, near the outside edge of the bike, before it could be tip-tied to the rack.  This is the first time a rack-mounted Reelight has failed in this household.

Before that unfortunate event, it turned out that the inlaws had, for Xmas, bought a front version of this light, and found it didn't work at all for their needs.  They wanted to illuminate a bit of where they were going, which was not even slightly in the cards.  I scored that light, and on it went ... to replace a different front light that broke during a winter crash (or something).

Nice happy new front light (installed upside down for cable clearance).

I have high hopes that the new front installation will last.  For one thing, the light itself contains no battery and is therefore lightweight, and unlikely to get much of a shock if the bike should fall.  But also I like the placement of the generator better than a rear installation, high and mostly out of the way (its at top of the wheel, just visible under the snow).  The front wheel also has no need to move, so placement should be quite static.

The functionality as a light is pretty good, if your goal is to be seen, rather than to see.  It provides a sharp noticeable light spot to any eye that points its general direction, because it doesn't focus light into a narrow beam.  This works well for being seen out of the corner of an eye, I can confirm, and of course it always flips on automatically, being driven by the generator.  Overall pretty good.

So that is a story about Reelight and a kid bike.

More about Reelights on Niholas

I thought I should add a bit to the topic of Reelights on a Nihola.  I had noticed that the rear blinker (SL620) wasn't flashing at walking speeds (which is also pedaling speed on a particular hill I drive up most mornings) so I added a third magnet, and that solved the problem.  It seems to flash at just about any speed, it seems to quickly charge up its capacitor (for flashing when stopped), and I can't think of any downside except that I had to find a third magnet.

Reelight magnet and generator on a Nihola.

Magnet placement is actually a little bit important.  My wheels are 36 spoke, so two magnets can not be spaced evenly (unless mounted off-centered on the spokes).  Three magnets can be mounted at even intervals (while all being mounted centered), which is what I did on the Nihola.  However unequal spacing can actually be a good thing with a flashing Reelight, because the light often flashes right when the magnet passes the generator, and if the magnets arrive at uneven intervals, the light flashes less evenly.  But it gets better than that, because the light also appears to try to flash according to a timer.  The precise way that power-pulses and the timer interact is hard to determine, but I mounted three magnets on my wife's commuting bike as well, at highly unequal intervals, and it seems to give a nice semi-random flashing pattern at biking speed.  (And it also flashes at walking speed.)

Three magnets at a good speed, I'm guessing 25 km/hr, gives almost continuous illumination on a Reelight SL620.  It still flickers and does random-looking things, but a human eye wouldn't perceive it as getting dark.

Anyway a final bit about mounting the generator on a Nihola.  The steel frame in the rear is fairly thin, and proves somewhat less than ideal grip to the Reelight generator.  Its not a big deal, but a few times I've had to adjust it to keep it from rubbing on the magnets.

Lights

Its getting good and dark in Olso now, with rain and fog and not really snow or ice yet.  I've still been driving a Nihola to work as its the easiest for for me to get my son to and from his daycare.

Lights.  By default the Nihola has little metal tabs on the top of the wheel wells which are suitable for mounting bike lights that conform to what appears to be an obsolete standard.  In other words, there are tabs for which you will have a hard time finding lights.  There is also the possibility of putting lights on the baggage rack (if installed), on the seat post, or the handlebar (although the handlebar would be hidden behind the rain cover, when installed.)

The tab mounts above the wheel wells are located below the top of the cargo box, so lights on those mounts are not visible from the opposite side of the trike.

The Nihola store sells little lights for the wheel-well-tabs in white and red, powered by 2x AAA's, and a person would have two of each, ideally.  I have two types of these lights, one is bright and focused while the other is more of a marker light, presumably with improved battery life as required by a Danish law from 2012.  (Both may have had the Abus brand but I've never seen them for sale online.)  I think its a real shame lights fitting those mounts are hard to find, because I also have 3 or so plastic mounts for that standard which can be placed anywhere on a bike, and I have maybe 9 lights that fit all these, so I can easily move them around between bikes and locations as batteries weaken.  Yay for standardization.

A brighter, more focused red with a dimmer, unfocused white.

Anyway because of the problems getting these lights, on one Nihola I drilled holes in the front mounting tabs which I can use to mount any sort of fork crown compatible light.  I put some inexpensive 0.5W lights powered by AA batteries on.  They stand up kind of goofy-looking but I think that improves their visibility.  On the baggage rack of the same Nihola I also installed a Reelight SL620 (flash with backup), which is worth spending some more time on.

A fork-crown light mounted on a Nihola.

Reelight is probably the best supplier of battery-free lights for a Nihola.  Their top model (RL720) has a 2 meter cord for the front light according to Reelight (via an email), so the generator should be mountable on the rear wheel, while powering a light mounted on the tab above a front wheel.  This is probably the only dynamo headlight option for a Nihola.  I'm pretty happy with my battery front lights so far, so haven't tried this out yet.  I also am not sure I want to drive a semi-powerful headlight all summer, and there is always the concern when using a hulking cargo bike/trike in the winter that it might not be possible to go fast enough to properly illuminate a dynamo light.  But anyway, they also make stand-alone rear lights for a baggage rack or seat post which are quite effective without adding any perceptible drag.  As I mentioned before, I have one on the baggage rack of a Nihola.  This is usually my only rear light, but when its dark and rainy I like to turn on a supplementary battery-powered rear light or two, which sit on the mounting tabs.

So thats the story of lighting for Nihola.

On our two (soon to be three) regular "Danish-style" commuter bikes, we have a Dynanmo hub and various Reelight models.  No battery lights.  Add full fenders, hub gears and robust tires, and we're ready to go day or night without screwing around.