Relax, lean back in your comfortable chair and join me on a journey. Imagine, if you will, that you own a beautiful, brake-free fixed-gear bicycle. The exquisite paint-job, iridescent in the shimmering sun, is rivaled only by the clean lines of your ride. From front to back, there is nothing to distract the eye as it rolls across the smooth geometry, free of superflous lugs and holes, or even reflectors.
Imagine now that you need to take this bike out at night. You want to be seen, of course, but you also want to be seen. Permanently fixed lights are, naturally, out of the question, as ridiculous as wearing a hair-mussing helmet. Even removable lights need unsightly brackets. What to do? You need a hipster lamp, something that the Bike Snob calls the Hipster Cyst. It is the Frog, from Aussie company Knog.
The Frog is a bright, weather sealed LED lamp in a silicone casing. The built-in strap stretches around bars and frames and hooks back on itself. I found a set at my local bike-shop for €11 ($16) apiece, for once actually less than the €12 list price. At this price, they’re a little above the cheapest lamps, but nowhere near the top end.
The best feature of the Frog is its size. The tiny lamps are hardly bigger than the button-cell and LED within. The switch is concealed and you turn things on and off by pressing the top of the light. One press for “on”, another for “flash” and one more to switch off. Flash is probably the best of these, as it is both eye-catching to other road-goers and stretches battery life from 80 hours to a maximum of 160 hours. That’s around two and a half months if you ride two hours every single night.
The frogs attach to any part of the bike, although for the pictures I just put them on the top-tube where they hang like little one-eyed vampire-bats. You stretch the loop around and slide it into the hook. It’s easy enough not to be annoying — good news when you have to take the lights off to stop them being stolen. I haven’t been out in a good downpour yet (and without fenders, I’ll be leaving the fixie at home and taking the Dutch bike anyway) but the case seals the lights well enough for all but the worst rainstorm. The only openings are for the LED itself and a gap underneath the case to remove the unit for battery replacement.
The main concern with any light is visibility. The Frogs are bright, although Knog has some multi-bulb alternatives too. I took these shots against the balcony in daylight, if that helps you to visualize the output. I’ll put it this way. I first switched one on inside a fairly bright bar, pointing at my eyes, and got major retina-burn.
Problems: They pick up dust. You can see how much in the photos. Also, the LEDs stay white until switched on, so I’d recommend buying front and back in different colors to avoid confusion, unlike me.
I like these little lights. We’ll see how much I still like them if those battery-life claims are exaggerated, though. Until then, I will not be looking to have my Hipster Cysts removed.
Product page [Knog]
