Let’s take a quick stroll around the Blackburn booth at iceBike* – first up is the new SuperFlea light. We love the miniature Flea lights for commuting, but the SuperFlea ramps up the brightness to 105 Lumens. Still USB charged and it’ll run on full for 1.5 hours, or 2.5 on medium and 3.5hrs on flashing.
SuperFlea. Still pretty small and super convenient.
Blackburn is moving more into the complete bike accessories range with saddles, more racks and tools and bags too. Here’s the Fire Trail saddle, which completely isolated the saddle rails from the base, to give more cush.
New seat post (and touring) racks from Blackburn
These Blackburn saddlebags are seam welded and waterproof, ready for that winter tour (or just getting to work...)
We did like the look of these saddlebags. Waterproof zips and a dry-bag style soft construction. Quick on and off the bike and if you're not using it, it'll fold up small too.
Blackburn's waterproof phone wallet still allows you to use the touch screen. Something to stick your phone in, even if just to protect it from sweat. Eww...
SKS pump – here’s the SKS Spaero pump. It features a pull-out hose with a thread-on, reversible chuck. We’re reliably informed that it’ll pump to 73PSI and it’s meant for high-volume mountain bike tyres. It weighs 160g and costs £35, or £29.99 if you don’t mind a bit more plastic instead of shiny aluminium.
Simple rubber band retention system too.
Gore Ride-On Cables – now with super-light casing.
Want to lighten your bike more? Gore's new super light gear cable outer is still as slick shifting as its regular Ride On cables, but with a much lighter non-metallic housing, saving around an ounce for a metre of cable outer over this Nokon set. Now in mountain bike lengths!
San Marco brought along this collectable museum of saddles - from the earliest carbon rail saddles, to the one Lance rode into Paris on.
Need a special saddle to finish off that Belgian or French/Czech/British/Dutch colour scheme Classics bike?
Electron lights
Electron showed us two new front lights that look worth putting on the ‘must try’ list. The Terra3 is 800 lumens, self-contained, cable free and very smart looking. It’ll run for three hours on full, or nine on low power and costs £149.
With the glow-worms fully excited
And glow worms asleep... It'll be out in May, in time for 24 hour season!
Here's the Electron Terra Mini - 160 lumens and helmet or bar mounted. It charges by USB and offers 3/6 or 9 hour run times.
Side-visible lenses too.
Here's the simple hingeless mount for a quick clutter-free removal
And here's a quick look at Electron's VERY bright, three LED rear light too. Quite dazzling...
With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
Prices….?