Let there be light

ACCESSORY 18: Replacement headlight $13.28 @ Amazon

The original Cateye one broke after it fell off from my poor installation and running over it with the trike. My desperate attempt at a temporary replacement led me to the multi colored zipties and Home Depot flashlight I had laying around.

The body of the original Cateye was fine and actually just needs a replacement bulb. Since the mounting bracket was never really designed for application to trike, I needed a replacement anyway. The fastening design has to be unique to the trike b/c unlike a bicycle with a single bar, the trike has a t-bar. There's only less than a 1/4" wide surface area on each side of the boom for the headlight to fasten to. Searching high and low, I found a mounting mechanism that works perfectly.....

The rubber band! Each length of the band will go on either side of the boom. It's more of an 0-ring and the one that comes with the headlight was obviously too small. I knew I had to purchase a larger one to fit around the 1.75" diameter bar at the front crankshaft where I plan to mount the headlight, but that can easily be found.

This Sigma Illux comes with a couple zipties that's working well for now. It's very sturdy yet allows the light to come off easily when needed. It twists off! The light is a lot smaller than I imagined from the picture which is good. The narrower the better b/c my feet will be on either side of it. A narrower light will give me more clearance.

I have yet to use this in the dark, but the look of the installation is much cleaner than before. I can't wait to replace the zipties with a proper sized o-ring for the final that's-how-it-came-from-the-factory look.

Update: Installed with the ugly zipties. I'll replace these with the o-ring soon. The width of it is perfect. I don't have to worry about knocking it off with my leg while pedaling like I did with the last CatEye that was a bit wider.