Trigger Bell - A safer bike bell

The Trigger Bell is a small but very well-designed bell that works on a very broad range of handlebars, intended to allow you to work the bell without moving your hand from where it naturally sits to operate the brakes and gears. Effective and good value, it sets a high bar for other bells to reach.

• Pros: Fits various bar and brake combinations, can be worked without moving the hand
• Cons: Can become muffled in the rain

Bicycle bells have been around for over a century, and it might not immediately seem there's much left to improve. But the Trigger Bell is so well thought out and nicely executed that I think it would be my first choice of bell for most bikes right now. I could easily see me wanting N+1 of these to equip my modest fleet, or at least the parts of it that mingle with pedestrians and horse riders.

The bell is designed so that it can be mounted in a variety of orientations. As nicely illustrated on the manufacturer's website, this allows you to get it into a position where you can reach the trigger with your thumb, regardless of whether you run straight or drop bars, and regardless of how your brakes and gear-shifters are orientated.

I mostly ran it wrapped around the left-hand hood of a Shimano 105 drop-bar shifter for my test, but also mounted it on a Brompton and a flat-bar hybrid to see how it worked, and found no issues. With most setups, the bell seems to work best when operated by the left hand, although for certain types of brake/shifter combinations, the Trigger Bell website suggests the right hand can work better.

The reason for all this flexibility is that the Trigger Bell is designed so it can be operated with your thumb while the rest of your hand works your brakes and gears – something that could easily be useful if you come round a bend to find yourself heading towards a pedestrian who is not sticking to the right part of a shared path, for example.

In testing, I never had to use it in an emergency setting, but did check whether I could ding and brake at the same time and found it was easy.

The bell has a very bright, friendly tone and when I used it to alert people I was coming, I never experienced a negative reaction. Some bells are too loud or too imperious in tone, but this one seems to strike the right balance.

On a quiet road, I found it was audible to some horse riders from at least 50 metres distance. How it would compete with noisy motor traffic is, of course, less certain.

The only slight niggle I had with the Trigger Bell is that it tended to become muffled in the rain. But I've found this same problem with various other mini bells over the years and I don't think I've ever tried one that stands up fully to being wet. If all-weather performance is important to you then you're probably better with one of the big old CLING-CLONG two-tone jobs – but good luck mounting one of those on drop bars!

Overall, the Trigger Bell is a great example of how a bit of thought and ingenuity can make an everyday item effective and pleasurable to own. It is easy to recommend it for whatever bike you might happen to ride.

Verdict

Well designed and works on almost any bike – if you want a small but useful bell, look no further than this