Developed in Madrid, BLINK! Saddles provide the rider with brake lights, turn signals and position lighting. The inventors claim the turn signals make indicating easier to see for drivers and other cyclists, and safer for the rider themselves as they don’t have to risk losing balance by giving an arm signal when turning.
Garmin Varia UT800 automically adjusts to adapt to light conditions
The video shows that the saddle has a main light in the middle, and two lights either side for signalling.
The indicating signals are performed via a wireless remote system controlled from buttons on your handlebars. An SBS ‘Smart Brake System’ also senses when the rider is slowing down, beaming out flashing warning lights to notify traffic behind. The lights have a claimed 270 degrees of visibility, so traffic can see the rider from all angles as well as straight in front.
Charging is a simple affair via USB, and the whole unit is completely weatherproof. With $5000 already raised on Kickstarter, BLINK! Have 25 days left to reach their $45,000 target, with the first shipping and delivery dates scheduled for November 2017. With a 30% discount offered if a backer pledges 115 euros, this suggests the RRP will be 165 euros when the saddle goes on general sale. More info can be found on the BLINK! website or on their Kickstarter page.
27 thoughts on “BLINK! saddles are the first with integrated lighting and turn signals”
More over-engineered
More over-engineered pointless shit that puts the burden on cyclists to not be killed. Hopefully this fails alongside most other similar integrated indicator crap.
danthomascyclist wrote:
Not a fan then Dan? Each to their own 🙂
Wonder if anyone has ever
Wonder if anyone has ever come across any analysis of how late kickstarter projects are as all the ones I have backed have always been late and very poor at keeping customers updated.
What does this fix? Saddle
What does this fix? Saddle and light – why on earth would I want them combined!
Not getting my vote on that basis as well as fully sympathising with the sentiment of danthomas.
Love to see it in Dragon’s Den though!!!
FatBoyW wrote:
The fix is thst the light is much higher, so a drunk low seated Ferrari driver, will see you earlier if there is a high crest ahead. But I had to try around 10 saddles before finding ball free comfort at my Romin, so what you will you do if you simply don’t feel comfortable? So my cheapo 1w led has little to fear.
Can you fit a saddle bag on
Can you fit a saddle bag on it?
” An SBS ‘Smart Break System
” An SBS ‘Smart Break System also senses when the rider is slowing down” Does this mean that the saddle falls apart if the bike is stolen?
Also why does the sentence begin with the word ‘an’ I thought that was only used when two vowels sounds from two words were inplace together, as in ‘an error’ for example?
Darren C wrote:
SBS begins with the letter e.
Darren C wrote:
Yes ‘break’ is an embarrassing error!
But ‘an SBS’ is perfectly correct, trust the sound of the letter.
GavinT wrote:
Thanks Gavin that is a bad one, my apologies it’s now corrected – I’m new so need breaking in before my work is error-free!
No worries, pedantry is my speciality! 😉
Darren C wrote:
Hi Darren – this means that the lights detect breaking or sharp slowing down… i.e. the lights start flashing more frequently to give a warning signal to traffic behind.
Re: ‘SBS’ – ‘SBS’ phonetically starts with a vowel sound, and my understanding is that phonetics always trumps the technical grammatical rule when deciding which to use. ‘A SBS’ doesn’t sound right to me if you pronounce the initials, although ‘An Smart Breaking System’ does indeed sound wrong. I propose a social media poll, q+a or live TV debate to settle the matter once and for all if we don’t reach an agreement!
Slightly less useless than
Slightly less useless than the helmet with the turn indicators and lights, but similarly a solution looking for a problem.
I’m beginning to wonder if my incredibly effective fitness-enhancing, money-saving, pollution-preventing idea of a machine with two wheels, frame and pedals might be good to get crowd funded. Silly me, of course not; it works.
@Jack – Braking! The lights
@Jack – Braking! The lights detect braking! 🙂
GavinT wrote:
I’ve just sacked myself Gavin, back to school for Jack!
Thank you all for clearing
Thank you all for clearing that up, I never though about the SBS sounding like ‘esss’, we all learn something every day!
Well that’s utterly pointless
Well that’s utterly pointless. Also for many riders likely to be obscured by clothing or, erm, their physique. And obvs everyone has USB charging available in their shed/garage /facepalm
kil0ran wrote:
I’ve seen lights mounted on seatposts that were obscured by the bag on a pannier rack, so putting it up there might be a solution for some people, if they can’t mount it to the rack.
I’m sure most people have a mobile phone power bank of some sort that could be used for charging it, so that’s not, in itself, a complete fail and probably avoids loads of coin cell batteries ending up in landfill.
I’ve surprised myself by
I’ve surprised myself by actually quite liking the concept – my best bike has an aero seat post that makes it tricky to fit a light bracket to (yes, I know about rail mounts – in fact, I’ve just got the Fizik Cateye mount for that bike).
I’d be more keen to see a version that can be retro-fitted to existing saddles, either on the back of the rails or using the Fizik mount, so you can use any saddle you like and it’s easy to swap it between bikes. It would also make it a lot easier to charge/theft proof it if you can take it indoors.
Even then, it still looks like it needs a bit more work to get me to buy one – the main light looks too tucked away and not very big and more of the sides needs to flash orange for the indicators.
LastBoyScout wrote:
I’ve surprised myself by actually quite liking the concept – my best bike has an aero seat post that makes it tricky to fit a light bracket to (yes, I know about rail mounts – in fact, I’ve just got the Fizik Cateye mount for that bike).
I’d be more keen to see a version that can be retro-fitted to existing saddles, either on the back of the rails or using the Fizik mount, so you can use any saddle you like and it’s easy to swap it between bikes. It would also make it a lot easier to charge/theft proof it if you can take it indoors.
Even then, it still looks like it needs a bit more work to get me to buy one – the main light looks too tucked away and not very big and more of the sides needs to flash orange for the indicators.
— LastBoyScout
I think that you can mount an Exposure Tracer rear light to the underneath of the saddle. There’s a mount which attaches to the rails.
I saw one of the “built into
I saw one of the “built into a helmet” ones recently. Wasn’t until after he’d turned the indicator off that I realised what it was, the orange was so close to red that it looked like a blinking rear light and it wasn’t that obvious that it was only one side flashing.
Didn’t the Raleigh Chopper or
Didn’t the Raleigh Chopper or one of its copies or derivatives have rear lights built into the saddle?
In about 1970?
The light doesn’t look very
The light doesn’t look very bright.
McVittees wrote:
Try adjusting your monitor…
They might as well go the
They might as well go the whole hog and add ANT+ light control so that this can be controlled from your cycle computer, wearable etc…but for all above reasons and these
…this probably won’t get very far.
Maybe they could also install
Maybe they could also install a small phone vibrator motor to the saddle, giving the rider the impression that they’ve got ABS on the bike and the LEDS could blink accordingly… to warn those very observant cars (or mates) that might plow into the back of you (causing untold disk rotor damage to one’s calf/calves)…ho hum
Indicators? On a bike? Why
Indicators? On a bike? Why has no one thought of this before?