Here at Fuck Gas we organize a lot of bike rides. The bulk of these rides happen after dark and generally end up cruising thru some areas that are less than well lit. For this, headlights are strongly encouraged for such endeavors, but never required. Fun is the only requirement to join in on a Fuck Gas ride. Ride at your own risk kids.
At any rate, the headlight. I upgraded to the Half Watt Blaze after the inaugural Fuck Gas event, the 40oz Fun Run. Do to my collision with a oddly placed curb on a not so lit up street resulting in me OTB and breaking my collar bone the thought entered my head that maybe I needed more light on the front end of this rig. To be honest, I got the half watt do to it’s blackness. The 1 watt model is white and I can admit it, black is cool - white, not so much. However, after riding with the half watt for the last couple months I can say it does the job, but more light is never a bad thing.
My morning commutes begin at 5:30 am and there’s nothing close to sunlight at that hour. There’s a few streets I cover that having that extra watt would be damn fine. However, I have to say the half-watt blaze provides plenty of light to get me safely around town and down some of the darkest roads.
One of my favorite aspects to the Blaze lights is the mounting. Easy tool free installation and removal are key. Coupled with an adjustable mounting bracket to fit bars from 25.4mm - 31.8mm in diameter you should be good to go. Also if you’re a fan of the blinky method the Blaze will suit your needs as the single push button switch goes from off to blinking to steady then back to off with each push. I run it on steady for my morning commutes which last about 30 minutes and night rides which I don’t keep too much track of time on and recharge the 2 AA batteries the Blaze runs on about every other week just to be safe. Planet Bike actually supplies 2 disposable AA’s with the light, so bonus there. Planet Bike’s stated run time for the half-watt Blaze is 100 hours although I have noticed a drop in light output after less than that which is why I went to recharging my batteries more often.
In the end I am completely satisified with the half-watt Blaze. To top it all off, if you are unaware of Planet Bike, they not only make a boat load of kick ass products but contribute 25% of every sale to bike advocacy efforts. Double bonus. You can find them on the web at planetbike.com and if you contact them directly make sure and tell them Fuck Gas pointed you their direction.
