Based on my 2017 tour, I pulled together a packing list. Items in italics are likely to be dropped. Most of this stuff is small. I can’t help but laugh that the medication list keeps growing.
Electronics
Iphone
Headphones
Camera
Power pack
Chargers/cables for all lights, camera and phone
Clothing
Sandals
Rain jacket
Rain pants
Rain boots
Shirts (2 synthetic, 2 cotton)
Bike shorts (2) and shell
Off-bike shorts and belt
Synthetic underpants (2)
Sunsleeves
Swim trunks
Bike shoes
Floppy hat
Headsweat
Buff
Bandana (2)
Socks (3 pair)
Personal Items
Unnscented castille soap
Bath towel
Washcloth
Toothpaste
Floss
Toothbrush
Comb
Razor
Shaving cream
Bug spray
Sunscreen
Prescription sunglasses
Backup prescription glasses
Folding cane or trekking pole
Miscellaneous
Maps
Plastic utensils
Swiss Army Knife
Metal kitchen knife
Duct tape
Zip ties (2)
Bungies (2)
Cord for hanging this
Cargo net
Clothes pins (2)
Chain break
Spare link
Wire for holding chain
Multitool
Fiber Fix spokes (2)
Spare tubes (3)
Patch kit
Tire levers
Pump
$1 bills for tire boot
Spare tire
Lube
Chain cleaner
Rag
Lock (Ottolock)
Water bladder
Camping Gear
Ultralight tent
Ground sheet
Lightweight sleeping bag
Sleeping bag liner
Inflatable camp pillow
Sleeping pad
Dry bag
Water filter
Medicines
Brio
Latanoprost
Ibuprofen (and PM)
Gabapentin
Albuterol
24-hour antihistamine
81mg aspirin
Beano
It all has to fit into four panniers (two small in front, two large in back), a handlebar bag, and in a drybag on top of the rear rack. Heavy stuff goes up front. Things I need to access while riding go up front and in my handlebar bag. Clothes, camping gear, anything not needed for the day’s ride go in back.
Some of these things are consumables. Speaking of consumables, I’ll be bringing food along the way. Peanut butter (or refried beans) on tortillas is compact and light. I also eat a lot of apples, partly because motel breakfast bars have them. I’ll bring a couple of energy bars for emergencies.
I think I have all these things except for the Swiss Army knife and the power pack. I’ve used a very small power pack in the past but I can get one with near 5 times the capacity for less than $30. Might as well.
I have been ramping up my preparations for my bike tour this summer. I’ve finished all the work around the house that I can tolerate. (The to-do list is never-ending.) Here’s a short list of stuff I’ve been doing.
Bike and Body
Over the winter I had the good folks at Bikes at Vienna work on The Mule. They replaced the crummy front brake, both tires, the chain, and cassette. Ready to rumble.
I had horrible pain in my left hip and knee during my 2019 tour. It became much worse when I started climbing across Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. Only cortisone injections would calm the pain. So it was discouraging that my left hip started back up when I took The Mule out for test rides over the past two weeks.
I took out a tape measure and compared all the distances between saddle, bottom bracket, and handlebars to those on the Cross Check which does not cause the hip and knee issues. Then I did my best to configure the saddle height and fore/after position to mimic the Cross Check. Within a day, my hip pain went away. I want to experiment a bit more with a slightly higher handlebar but I’m confident that I have hit the sweet spot.
Since I have switched to riding in shorts, my riding has become much more efficient and comfortable, which is not to say that I am fast. Far from it. Over the last two years I dialed back working out to spare my body, sore from spinal stenosis, the stress. I seemed to have emerged rather more pear-shaped. My waist is much bigger and my shoulders and upper back muscles seem to have vanished. Despite this distressing development, I seem to be able to climb hills on my bike with less effort. Maybe lowering my center of gravity was fortuitous outcome of pandemic sloth.
Tents and Gear
I am a bit behind with my packing. I spent several days comparing the two tents we have at home. My daughter has a two-person Kelty Escape tent that she has used at two Bonnaroo music festivals. I tried it out in the backyard. It’s ROOMY! I love it. Alas, it’s heavy as an anvil.
During my 2019 tour my REI tent finally died after 16 years of service. It was roomy and comfy and even had a nifty inside rainfall feature. No amount of seam sealer applications could solve this so I bought a Big Agnes Ultralight Fly Creek tent to replace it. Unlike the other two tents this one is not free standing, meaning it doesn’t work properly without being staked into the ground. I only used it about four times during the tour and could not for the life of me figure out how to set it up to my satisfaction. The single spine pole that supported the top of the tent would always flop to one side. The interior side walls of the tent would sag. It felt like sleeping in a coffin.
A couple of nights ago I watched several YouTube videos on how to set up the tent. It turns out there are a few tricks. First. stake out the four corners of the tent. Then use the poles to establish the tent structure. No flop at the top! Next put on the rain fly reusing the stakes on the corners. There are clips and straps on the underside of the rainfly that attach to the sides and top of the tent. Connect all these and tie them down with stakes on either side of the tent. The guy-wires of the tent all have these odd little plastic tensioners on them. The videos solved the puzzle on how to use them to adjust things. Damned if they didn’t work well.
Some other tricks I learned. The stakes should be placed at a 45-degree angle to the ground with the tops pointing away from the tent. The stakes should be set on opposite sides in sequence. Do one corner, then the opposite corner; one side then the opposite side. This creates harmony in the tent universe. Finally, use the tent backwards. In other words, sleep with your head next to the door at the end of the tent. This is where the tent is tallest.
After a few tries I got the hang of it and the tent is pretty darned nice. It also weighs a good four pounds less than the Kelty. Weight will matter a lot in the mountains so this is a good thing.
Ultralight home
Back Pain
I have received another epidural injection for back pain a few days ago. It doesn’t seem like it did much. My physiatrist is recommending that I talk to a back surgeon. This will wait until I get back from the ride. There’s no point in discussing it now. Unless my condition improves, I’ll be looking at surgery next December and recovery over the cold winter months.
My pain doctor gave me a prescription for gabapentin. This gives me mild relief by extending the amount of time I can spend on my feet without pain, perhaps by 20 – 30 minutes. The only way to get rid of the pain is to do physical therapy (basically gentle yoga on the floor) or simply sit down for a few minutes. Riding my bike doesn’t bother my back at all.
The Packing List
I don’t have a packing list written down but I do know what to bring. One thing I am not bringing is my metal mesh bag. I’ve been carrying this around for all my recent tours to keep critters out of my food and have only used it once. I’ll bring string and hoist a pannier instead. (And use bear boxes when necessary.)
I need to get a bigger back-up battery for my electronics. I have a small one but can buy one with four times the juice for $40. I also need a new Swiss army knife because my 45 year old knife was lost after I used it in the garden opening mulch bags.
I am bringing some Adventure Cycling Association maps for routes near my planned trip route and for Oregon. They may be useful.
Pannier Test
Sometime in the next couple of nights I am taking a flashlight and searching for holes in my panniers. I have ten bags, four small and six large, to choose from. They are all Ortlieb roll top models but have been beaten up pretty bad by decades of commuting, errand running, and touring. Once I find the two small ones and two big ones with the fewest holes, I’ll break out some duct tape and repair them. I’ll also use kitchen plastic bags as a back up.
Passport
I applied for an Irish EU passport in January. It was supposed to be completed in early April but there is apparent no efficiency quite like Irish bureaucracy. Today I learned that my passport has been mailed. My application included my US passport and my Certificate of Foreign Birth (my Irish citizenship) and I will be relieved when they are returned in the coming days.
Filling the Bare Spot
A couple of years ago we lost our last pine tree. It was part of a stand of two pines and five cypress trees. The cypress trees all succumbed to snow loads over the course of a ten year period. Then a blight of some sort took out the pines. After two years of looking a big bare spot where the pines once stood, I finally decided to dig out the vines and roots and other junk and plant something where the pines once stood. Two azaleas and a dogwood are now planted amid a whole mess of pine bark mulch. This took at least five hours over two days to accomplish.
It was a pretty mellow month as far as bike riding is concerned. I rode 774 1/2 miles quite a bit less than last year, but, in my defense, I did take five days off. All my bikes are now ready for the summer after some TLC at bike hospitals. The Mule is tour-ready. Big Nellie is out of the basement. The Cross Check has a new rear wheel. Little Nellie gathers dusts. (Anybody want to buy a lightly – okay, over 20,000 miles) used folding travel bike?)
My longest ride of the month was yesterday. I rode 53 miles on Big Nellie through the azaleas and dogwoods in Bethesda. Dang, if that neck of the woods doesn’t have awesome landscaping.
So far this year, I have ridden 2,824 miles. That’s an average of 23 1/2 miles a day and a 8,590 mile yearly pace.
Tour Prep
I am starting to prep for my bike tour in earnest. Today was the tent competition. I have a lightweight backpacking tent and my daughter has a heavier, inexpensive tent. The heavier tent is roomier and is free standing. I will be sleeping in it tonight to make sure my back can take sleeping on the ground.
I need to acquire a few goodies for the tour. I would like to have a bigger back up battery for those days when my phone runs down. I also need some all purpose soap (like Dr. Bronner’s). I think my last task will be to inspect my panniers and patch the holes in them. Duct tape to the rescue.
Reading and Watching
I’ve been watching baseball games nearly every night since the season started. The Nationals are pretty lame this year. Cold weather has kept me from attending any games. I might get one in before I leave for the tour.
We did a quick trip up to Harford to visit our daughter who is finishing up her first year in law school. We went to a Yard Goats minor league baseball game, ate some Frank Pepe’s pizza, visited Mystic Aquarium, and ate at Dunkin Donuts. Mission accomplished.
My wife and I are watching Moon Knight, a Marvel series on Disney+. It is bizarre to say the least. Oscar Issac, Ethan Hawke, and May Calamaway are all very good. I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking when they first read the script. My guess is WTF?!
I read only two books: Lola and Vida, the fourth and fifth books in the Diva series by Delacorta. They were okay. One more to go (Alba).
Over the weekend we travelled to Hartford to hang out with our daughter who is attending her first year of law school. On Saturday night we caught a minor league baseball game at Dunkin Donuts Park, known to all as The Dunk. It’s a new ballpark, very well designed and maintained. Minor league baseball is a trip. This was fireworks night so we could only get standing room tickets. Not a problem at $10 a pop.
The AA game pitted the hometown Hartford Yard Goats, the AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, against the Somerset Patriots, the oddly named New York Yankee farm club. The teams were competitive. The play was competent. What was more interesting was the endless and creative marketing that went on during the game. After every strike out for example, the announcer said words to the effect “That’s another strike out for addiction” referring to some local program related to drug addition recovery. What a weird promo!
In between every inning there was a contest pitting kids against each other. One contest featured to two two teams of two. One player, with his back to his teammate, would toss a chicken wing up in the air and his partner had to catch it in a bucket he held on his head. No lie.
Another contest was a race between two kids who raced to put on fire department pants, jackets and helmets. Then run to the finish line.
The best was the Baby Goat Race. A bunch of cute little kids dressed up in what looked like pajamas raced around the infield on the outfield grass. They had little goat heads attached to their PJs. Total sports excitement.
The post-game fireworks were quite minor league in keeping with the scope of things. They were still entertaining though. Ooh. Ahh.
The whole night had a joyous, small town, middle class, feel to it. The crowd was whiter than Ivory soap which was a bit of a shock considering the city of Hartford’s ethnic diversity. The stands below our SRO perch were filled with grade school kids. They had a ton of energy. Not one of them watched the game.
The game featured a pitch clock. Once the pitcher got the ball, he had 12 second to throw it. Otherwise the late pitch would be called a ball. When a runner was on base, 18 seconds were allowed. In between innings the clock was set to 2 minutes. Relievers had two minutes to throw their first pitch. The game lasted a bit over 3 hours but the pace was noticeably brisker than a major league game. It would have been shorter but for numerous pitching changes. If you ever see a major league game played in the 60s or 70s you’ll notice the pitchers and batters don’t mess around. Batters stay in the batters box. Pitchers don’t go for long contemplative trips around the mound. This minor league game was like that.
As for the refreshments, The Dunk has pretty much everything. It has a very popular barbeque vendor in left field. We stood near it and there was a long line throughout the game. There were local craft beers on sale as well as the usual baseball munchies, hot dogs, popcorn and such. And, of course, coffee and donuts because Dunks.
Oh, did I mention the highest point in the ballpark has a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup on it.
For those of you unfamiliar with southern New England Dunks are everywhere. It’s insane. Of course, we managed to eat breakfast at one in West Hartford. When in Rome…
The one sound I absolutely hate to hear when I am riding a bike is the POP! that comes when a spoke breaks. The POP! is followed almost immediately by DAMN! From me.
When you break a spoke, your wheel goes out of true. The rim rubs against the brake pads. And the integrity of the wheel is compromised which can lead to another POP! DAMN!
I tend to carry all kinds of fix-it stuff when I ride. I have tubes and patch kits and tire levers and a pump and a multitool and tire boots and master chain links and on and on. I draw that line at carrying spare spokes and cassette tool and a wrench.
No worries. Instead of becoming Joe Mechanic on the side of the road, you can pull out a fiber fix spoke instead. No tools needed. A fiber fix spoke is a kevlar cord that comes attached to a cam – a twisty thing for increasing tension on the cord.
Just remove the broken spoke. Then follow the simple instructions to install the Fiber Fix spoke without any tools. No lie. It only takes a few minutes. Check out this video. I am a mechanical idiot and I’ve done it one tours.
And off you go. I’ve heard of people using these for hundreds of miles way out West where bike shops are few and far between. The only downside is that you can get too aggressive and pull the spoke nipple right through the rim. Then you have screwed the pooch. Don’t screw the pooch.
The picture below makes it look much bigger than it is. The entire device fits in its own little plastic tube about the size of your thumb.
A Fiber Fix spoke will set you back about $15. They are re-usable so one should last you a long time.
There are few things that suck on a bike tour more than having a flat tire on a highway in a cold rain. Okay, having a flat tire on a muddy trail when it’s sleeting is one, but you get the point.
My first truly long distance bike tour was from Indiana to DC. Prior to the trip, I realized that the back tire on my Tour Easy, the tire that would carry 75 percent of the weight, was old. So I bought a new tire. It fit my wheel and was inexpensive. Great.
I never made it to DC. In the middle of nowhere my new tire had not just a flat but a sidewall blowout. No bueno.
I was on the unpaved GAP Trail between nowhere and no place. It was after 5 on a Sunday. I had no cell signal. It was raining. I was stuck. Oh, and I was sick.
Not having brought a spare tire, I used duct tape and all my spare tubes to limp into Rockwood, PA where some kindly B&B operators took pity on me. I quit the tour the next day.
I decided from then on to get some serious rubber for my wheels. I put Schwalbe Marathon tires on my Tour Easy recumbent. They worked great. Despite the fact that they had a special belt under the tread to prevent punctures, I did get the occasional flat. Then I discovered something better: Schwable Marathon Plus tires.
These bad boys weight about 50 percent more than regular Marathons because, in addition to a belt under the tread, they have an extra hunk of rubber on top of that. The extra weight means you experience more rolling resistance. When touring this is pretty much no big deal because your plodding along at a slow speed anyway. (For non-touring purposes I use lighter Schwalbe Mondials. Not as puncture proof but they roll a lot easier.)
I have used Marathon Pluses on five tours. On road and off. For a total of about 9,500 miles. Not one flat. I still can’t believe it. They also last forever. I have put over 6,000 miles on one pair and they still have plenty of tread on them. I buy a new pair for each tour; the old ones go on my Cross Check and my Tour Easy. As it is, I have four or five old ones, lying around the house. They have plenty of life left in them.
Last year while riding around town I managed to get a few flats on old Marathon Pluses. One occurred when I rolled over a strangely shaped chunk of metal. Another happened when I ran over a long, exceptionally sharp screw. The tire went into the trash bin after that.
If you read touring journals, you’ll find that Marathon Pluses, despite being somewhat pricey, are very popular with the bike touring crowd. This year I bought Marathon Plus Tours, because the regular Pluses were sold out. Plus Tours have a slightly different tread for unpaved trails. What a coincidence. The first 300 miles of my tour will be on the unpaved Katy Trail in Missouri.
If you are going on a long tour, don’t screw around with inexpensive or old tires. You won’t regret spending the money on Marathon Pluses.
March, as usual, was a bit unpredictable. Weather changed from winter to spring to winter to spring. This frustrated my attempts to dial into warmer weather. It could be worse. I could be up north where this process typically happens in April. Count your blessings.
Bicycling
I managed to ride 821 miles this month. about 66 miles more than last year. Only 101 miles were indoors on my Tour Easy. (Last year I rode indoors 122 miles.) But for 32 miles on my Bike Friday and 73 on The Mule, the rest of my riding was on my Cross Check. I grew noticeably stronger pushing the big gears on my Cross Check and feel almost tour-ready. I cut way back on eating crap and my weight came down a few pounds. (I rarely weigh myself, relying instead on how my clothes fit.) My guess is I weigh about 215 pounds. I’d like to be closer to 200 for the tour in May. So far this year I’ve ridden 2,050 miles, 20 more than in 2021.
Reading
My reading started to decline as I spent more time outdoors. I read About Grace by Anthony Doerr. It’s a rather strange tale about a man who has premonitions in his dreams. The book is not quite in the same league as Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See but it’s easy to see how his writing improved from Grace to Light. I am looking forward to reading Cloud Cuckoo Land when it comes out in paperback. Having plowed through a bunch of best selling novels, I decided to revisit some of my old books. I started re-reading the Diva series by Delacourt, the pen name of Daniel Odier. I read the first three short novels, Diva, Nana, and Luna. Set in France, these are tales of Alba, a sexy underage teenager, and her boyfriend of sorts, a 40-something grifter named Serge Gorodish. (Yes, it’s unabashedly politically incorrect.) Diva involves gangsters, an opera singer, and two cassette tapes. (The books were written over 40 years ago.) Nana is the tale of how the two came together and how Gorodish comes into (well, steals) a fortune while conning an entire town. In Luna, Alba is kidnapped and taken to a secluded estate. The tale predates cell phones and the Internet so it’s rather interesting how Gorodish comes to her rescue. I have three more Diva books to go.
Movies and Such
We went to our first concert in over two years. Le Vent du Nord is a Quebec folk band that we have seen numerous times. This time everyone was masked and boosted. You have to love a band with a hurdy gurdy, I always say. I didn’t watch any movies this month which seems strange. I did watch a couple of Washington Nationals spring training games. Suffice it to say, it’s going to be a very long year on Half Street. They lost yesterday’s untelevised game by the football score of 29-8. Pitching is everything and they got none. We also watched the first episode of Moon Knight, another Marvel series. This one looks promising, thanks to terrific acting by Oscar Isaacs and Ethan Hawke. If I had to guess, the creative team is fond of psychedelics.
Medical
As is often the case, I use the winter months to catch up on my medical problems. This year’s problem is annoying pain in my left calf and my lower back. I had a CT scan to rule out another deep vein thrombosis (blood clot) in my calf. Then, my pain doctor gave me rather shocking painful injections in my spine to calm the pain in my calf. These injections seemed to work. My lower back pain lingers. I can walk about 1/4 of a mile pain free then a dull ache in my lower back develops. We tried diagnostic injections in my spine but they had no effect. I am scheduled for an updated MRI and then another set of injections lower in my spine. The diagnostic injection contained a small amount of cortisone. The stuff makes you feel fantastic, which may explain the improvement in my riding. If the next set of injections doesn’t help, I may need surgery. Eek.
Many years ago a paper by a Brown University economist was referred to as economic bafflegab in Newsweek magazine. I vaguely recall it having something to do with the economic tradeoffs of loving your family members or some such nonsense. The term economic bafflegab stuck with me.
To many economists, every problem is an economic problem. This leads to the application of economic thought to all kinds of situations. Here are some examples.
Hurricanes are good for economic growth. That’s right. Economic growth is measured as Gross Domestic Product, the sum of all expenditures on new goods and services. When a hurricane destroys a community, it devastates wealth, the stock of old goods. The recovery causes a surge in spending on new goods and services causing a temporary spike in GDP. It’s hard to remember this when the roof of your house just blew down the street.
Economists love to point out perverse incentives or, as the rest of humanity calls them, unintended consequences. Take seat belts for example. With a seat belt (and airbags and other safety features), drivers can drive faster and more recklessly with reduced adverse consequences. This is called the Peltzmann effect. Which led economists Gordon Tullock to propose, presumably with tongue firmly in cheek, to have a sharp metal spike installed on the middle of steering wheels. In fact, if you sit in a car made in the 1950s you’ll find all sorts of nasty stuff like toggle switches and metal dashboard that should have scared anybody into driving like a nun. I’ve heard that there are some people who say that wearing a bicycle helmet may be dangerous. The reasoning is that motorists are less careful around helmeted bicyclists than unhelmeted bicyclists. To offset this bit of unpleasantness, I always carry a bicycle death ray when I ride.
Another example is the case of the murderous economist. Apparently displeased with his spouse, an economist bludgeoned his wife in their kitchen with a baseball bat, killing her. Realizing what he had done, he went about trying to make it look like an intruder had done the deed. He then called the police to report that his wife had been murdered. When he called the police, he didn’t use the 911 emergency line, because, as he explained to the authorities, there was no emergency; his wife was already dead. (I am not making this up.) He was convicted of manslaughter. (Full disclosure: I met the economist when he was a visiting professor at Brown. He seemed like a nice guy which is what people always say about the killer next store, isn’t it?)
Our latest installment of economics gone batty is the case of the everyday bicyclist. This is the person that uses their bike instead of a car for regular transportation. This paper by a Wharton professor finds that people who substitute bikes for cars may actually do more harm than good. While it is true that using a bike instead of a car has the obvious positive effect of reducing energy consumption, there is a downside. The everyday bicyclist tends to live a longer and healthier life, thereby increasing population. Darn it if more people don’t consumer more energy. (I confess I only read the abstract. I didn’t delve into whether the increased population was caused by better health or that bicyclists are friskier than non-bicyclists.)
Of course, economics offers all kinds of interesting solutions for public policy problems. We all know that we consume far more health care resources in our old age than in our youth. The solution of course is to hand out cigarettes and whiskey to college kids.
Of perhaps we can paraphrase some Shakespearean advice: the first thing we do is kill all the economists.
I don’t know about you but I’m going for a bike ride, environment be damned.
Putting on and taking off pedals is often difficult. The threads on the pedals go in the direction of the pedal. If you don’t grease the threads and take them off once in a while they practically fuse themselves to the crank arms. I found this out at Bike Virginia. The transport crew was loading our bikes onto a truck bound for the start of the ride in Lexington, Virginia. They tried and tried and tried to remove the pedals from my trusty old Trek 1200. Finally, they gave up.
They were probably using a pedal wrench with an opening at 3 and 6 o’clock or at 6 and 12 o’clock. When you look at these wrenches you think, “Works for me.” Well, no. If your pedals are stuck, these wrenches will only succeed in knuckle scrapes and frustration. I know. I have three different kinds of these wrenches. They suck.
Instead you need a wrench that has an opening at 10 or 2 o’clock. For some mysterious reason this gives you just the right amount of mojo to loosen even the tightest pedal. After years of hassle, I finally coughed up the dinero and bought a Park Tool PW-4 wrench. It has a long, beefy handle for leverage and the offset openings are trademarked by Hogwarts because they can do magic. You just put it on the pedal and pop! the pedal threads release. No muss. No fuss.
When I started grad school, I was a bike rider. Then winter came. Back in the Carter Administration the only reasonably priced, lightweight bike lights were “be seen” lights. They had a tiny incandescent bulb backed with a bit of reflective metal. You could see about three feet in front of you. They were good for walking home in the dark. They were powered (using the term loosely) by AA batteries than seemed to drain with each pedal stroke.
Bike lights were so useless that I became a runner. Seriously.
Many years later halogen lights came on the market. Dang were these awesome. They were much brighter. They were powered by a battery pack, originally the size and shape of a water bottle. If memory serves, these lights faded slowly as the power ran out. I used a NiteRider halogen light for many years, going through a couple of batteries in the process. They were a vast improvement. The batteries had an annoying habit of dying if you didn’t keep them charged.
Halogen lights have been supplanted by LED lights. These are smaller, charge faster, and are lighter weight. After my last halogen light died, I bought bought a Light and Motion Stella LED light. It had a small head lamp that I put on my helmet. The battery was the size of a deck of cards and was attached via a small cable. I loved the light but finding a place for the deck of cards was sometimes a problem. When I wasn’t wearing a vest or jacket, I’d stick it down the back of my pants. Eww.
The cord eventually broke and Light and Motion discontinued the Stella so I bought the closest substitute. This was similar in design except the cable now detached from the battery instead of from the light. And the battery was now an odd lumpy shape.
The cable on that light began to fray (it still works though after about eight years) so I bought an Urban 500, a different design. The light is in a tube that contains the battery. It can mount it on handlebars or helmet. Like the Stella, this baby puts out some serious light so you need to be mindful of blinding on-coming traffic on trails. Newer models are even more powerful. The all-in-one design means you can use them in camp at night or when the power goes out at home. Your family will love it when you burn their retinas out in the living room.
One advantage to this design is that you can take it off your helmet and mount it on the handlebars. I prefer helmet mounting because the light goes where my head and eyes are pointed. When the light is on your handlebars you can miss things like critters lurking near the trail. That said, these lights tend to have a narrow beam. I realized after riding until midnight in North Dakota in 2018 that I had absolutely no idea what I was riding past.
Here’s what this design looks like. This Rando model is very similar to the Urban 500. Specs on various Light and Motion lights vary. Some are brighter, charge faster, and such.
Recently, I bought the Vis 360 Pro which is a different design, intended for mounting on a helmet. The headlamp looks like the one on the Stella. It comes with a rear light (which contains the battery). The light works fine but I prefer the simplicity of the all-in-one tubular design.
The Vis 360 is intended to be left on your helmet. The Urban/Rando style lights can be removed quickly for safe keeping.
The only downside to LED lights that I have used is the fact that they go dark without much warning, instead of fading out like the halogen lights did. In any case, to my way of thinking, bike lights are the biggest improvement in cycling equipment in the last three decades. Most of my nighttime riding is to and from DC on unlit trails. Any of these Light and Motion lights is up to the task.
I have no idea what other manufacturers lights are like these days. If you shop around and wait for sales, you can get a high-quality headlight for under $100.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 