New HD Camera from Craigslist

I spotted a GoPro Helmet Hero HD camera on Craigslist Thursday night and contacted the seller. I was able to grab it. It was brand new and unopened. I took some pix of it. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but will post some videos soon!

 

This thing is a tiny jewel!

Ambrose

Magicshine MJ-818 videos

I received my Magicshine MJ-818 from Geomangear.com recently and had a few minutes to capture some video of it in my rec room. I'll get out and shoot some video of the bike with my taillight setup. There are three modes of operation. Steady on, steady blink and alternating bright and dim blinking. Here are the two more interesting modes.
Video number one is the steady blink mode:



Video number two is the alternating high and low blinking mode. Sorry about the focus issues, but you can still tell how bright it is:



My digital camera can't handle the intense brightness so it shows the two annoying rays above and below the light. Obviously, it's not that way in real life. It's just intensely bright. I'll have another video up soon showing the difference between it and the Planet Bike Superblinky light. The PBSb is .5 watts and the MJ-818 is 3 watts!

More later,
Ambrose

Vuelta 130mm 56T front crank

I really miss pedaling when riding near top speed. I've already increased my front crank size from 48 to 52T and still am not able to pedal at higher speeds so I thought I'd try increasing the crank size one more time. I picked up this 56T crank from eBay and paid $22 shipped which seems like a fair price. It's CNC machined right here in the USA. Here's a photo of the crank compared to my current Tiagra 52T crank. It's quite a bit larger. If this doesn't work, I'll need to go up to the highest size, which is 60T!

The 56 tooth crank is the aluminum one hanging on the bike.

Shots of bike

I know my bike hasn't changed much, but I had my bike and the camera out at the same time so I thought I'd take a couple of shots.

Here they are:

Upgraded Tail Light...

If you're a reader of my blog then you already know that I'm a big believer in being visible and having lots of lights on your bike. I currently have two Planet Bike Superflash Blinky taillights that are compact and very bright. One is on my helmet and the other is on my rear trunk bag. However, I've always longed for something REALLY bright.

I just ordered this taillight from geomangear.com.

http://www.geomangear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4_41&products_id=209

This light is the sister light to my two Magicshine MJ808 headlights and should increase my visibility quite a bit. More when the light arrives.

Ambrose