Brilliant gear for your emissions-free bike

So you’re preventing global warming by riding your bicycle everywhere, but it gets scary at night, and bright headlamps need batteries… which eventually turn into chunks of totally non-recyclable toxic waste. A Japanese product designer has come up with a solution — a wind-powered bicycle lamp.

The wind produced by the moving bike feeds a low-power yet bright LED lamp with illumination of up to 1700 lux (I’m not sure just how bright that is, but a google search found that rats exposed to 1700 lux for 12 hours suffered retinal damage… so I’m guessing that’s pretty bright). The energy produced by the moving bicycle is stored in a rechargeable lithium battery, so you never have to buy a new one, and you don’t go all dark when stopped at an intersection. The unit is easy to mount, since there are no wires, and especially due to, the designers say, “its reduced language of form.”

I couldn’t find anywhere online to actually buy one of these.. sorry! but here is a link with more info. Thanks to Mika over at Bootsnall’s Travel Gear Blog for sending this one along.

Also, in case you need a reminder that it can be dangerous for bikers on the U.S. roads… ghost bikes are turning up on roadsides all around the country. I saw one here in Providence a couple of weeks ago, and it was in a bike lane too.