The Knog Beetle is a stealthy (in black, anyway) little bike light that comes with either white or red dual LED bulbs. It’s available in eight shades (Black, White, Translucent, Red, Magenta, Orange, Sky Blue, Dark Grey) of rubbery, strappy silicone coolness, and it’s highly durable to drops, kids and foul weather.
I’ve ridden mine through rain and snow, freezing temps and hotter ‘n hell days, and they’re still flashing just fine. They’ll blink in fast, slow and police modes, with the latter alternating pulses between the two bulbs, or just shine solidly for fun. I say for fun because they’re really not bright enough to light your path at anything above a crawl, but for flashers they’re plenty bright enough to alert motorists and pedestrians within a couple blocks’ distance.
They come with two button cell batteries that are good for about 35 hours of constant steady use, or 160 hours of flashing, and they retail for $21.99 and weigh just 22g. You can stick them pretty much anywhere on your bike, and they dismount in a hurry if you’re worried they’ll get taken…but they haven’t come loose or fallen off accidentally during my entire test.
They’re cool, they’re cheap and they work well in crappy conditions. Good buy if you dig their style. More pics after the break…
Straight on, they’re plenty bright. I usually mount mine on the steerer tube spacers underneath the stem, where it’s pretty much invisible unless you’re looking for it. If you’re going for stealth to avoid theft, match the color on your bike (black on carbon works particularly well in this instance).
The strap is pretty stretchy, and it’ll fit around odd shaped tubes as shown on my flat bar and rear stays. You’ll get a bit of side visibility from the design of the “reflector”, but most of the visual safety is going to be about 120º in front of you…
…unless you’re mounting it like this, which you’ll pretty much have to do on the rear. Which means you’ll get to decide which side of you and your bike you want to protect. I suggest your good side.
Be forewarned: if you mount it on your seatpost, there’s a chance your thighs will rub it ever so slightly, which is double annoying because the silicone outer shell is sorta grippy.
To replace the batteries, simply peel back the silicone, but do it carefully…the internals can pop loose. They don’t break, but you do have to piece it all back together.
Nothing to complain about, really. I’d recommend them to my mother.
