Here’s a short video that tells the story behind the Giro ad in Urban Velo #31. It’s a profile of artist Chris McNally, who has done work for Puma, Levi’s, Ibis Cycles and more.

In use the Blinder is quite bright—Knog claims 80 Lumens of front white output and 44 Lumens from the rear red LED set. The rear is too bright to comfortably ride behind at night, a good thing as far as I’m concerned for being seen riding solo in traffic. I wouldn’t say you can see on a dark trail with the front or anything, but I may be guilty of doing some urban exploring with the Blinder as my guide though it is certainly a “be seen” type of light. The light itself is fully waterproof—I let mine blink through a complete charge submerged in a glass of water—and gets a claimed 3 hours of runtime on steady, with a claimed up to 40 hours blinking. Even for daily use, most people will find recharging it once or twice per week plenty.

The switch require a 2 second press to turn on, preventing finding it blinking in the bottom of your bag. You can click through a few different blink modes, and turn off the light my holding the button for another 2 seconds. The Blinder even remembers the blink mode you left on, a minor but mentionable nicety. The button also has a small LED indicator—red when the battery is low or charging, green when fully charged. When it comes to charging, just flip out the USB plug and insert into an open computer or charging port. I found that in some circumstances I needed a USB extension cord to easily plug the light in either due to the shape next to a laptop, or because it blocked the USB port next to it.

Color me impressed, the Blinder is my latest go-to blinkie. It’s initially pricey at $45, but add a year or two worth of batteries to a $30 light and you’re at the same final place. See the whole line of Blinder lights at www.knog.com.au

An eco-friendly bed and breakfast in the UK has hooked up a stationary bike in one of their rooms to the television, so if you want to watch your favorite shows (let’s assume it’s just raining outside) you have to start pedaling. This may be a sort of novelty experience for the visitor who wants to have as eco-friendly an experience as possible while traveling, but I don’t see why hotels and other such institutions can’t harness this power on a larger basis. Feel free to add comments on places you know that have done just that.

Let’s kick off the week of Bike To Work Day with this simply awesome video that is what the title says, “How a Bicycle is Made”.

Part of me thinks I’m about to watch a Tom & Jerry cartoon and another part is waiting for the MST3K silhouettes to pop up and start delivering witty snark. But really, it’s just an incredibly fascinating and detailed video from 1945 that shows questionably young workers putting bikes together with “bracket pieces” and makes me wish for ye days of olde when the bike industry necessitated seemingly endless rows of warehouses to keep up with the demand.

Do you think this is how they do it in Taiwan today?

I’m not exactly sure what to make of this short film. I don’t quite get it, but perhaps that is part of what makes it what it is.

A clip from The Last Kilometer, an upcoming film following cycling through five characters and five stories. From what I can see and have read, I’m going to like this film.