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Product

Oct 17, 2013

Light & Motion Taz 1000 Handlebar Light

Winter in the Northern Hemisphere means shorter days and longer nights. Light & Motion’s compact Taz 1000 LED light is bright enough to trail ride with and small enough to stow in a hydration pack for those just-in-case afternoon rides. The business end of the Taz has a trio of LED lamps which are powered by a rechargeable Lithium ion battery. Like most modern lighting systems, the Taz offers a dizzying array of digitally-controlled illumination modes that range from a high-power, 1000-lumen setting, to a long-duration 200-lumen option. There are side lamps for safety, for when the Taz is being used in urban settings, that can be switched off and Light & Motion includes the flashing mode that is also popular for road riding. For those who like simplicity (that would be me), holding down the power button for one second when you turn the system on puts the Taz into ‘Race’ mode – which is the one mountain bikers will use almost exclusively. In Race mode, one touch of the power button toggles the light from maximum output, to 50-percent power. Burn times run from one hour and forty minutes at the maximum 1000-lumen output, to a whopping 18 hours in the 200-lumen economy mode. A colored LED sequence displays battery burn time, and when the system nears exhaustion, it automatically switches to economy mode to buy a rider some time to ride to safety. Taz recharges using an included micro USB cable and mounts to the handlebar with a well-designed elastic-band-type hold-down. The Taz 1000 weighs 216 grams and the MSRP is $249 USD at better bike retailers.
Light & Motion

Light & Motion's TAZ 1000 light is housed in a metal case and built to take a beating. Parabolic reflectors and lumen-tested LED lamps ensure that the Taz delivers its advertised intensity in a very useful beam pattern. The main switch doubles as an illuminated 'fuel gauge.'

Light & Motion's Taz 1000 is a good choice for moderately-paced trail riding and closed-course endurance racing. We found that the Taz is the perfect bailout light for the many times we left in the afternoon and returned after nightfall. Its bright flood-type beam gets out far enough to ride familiar trails at a good pace and is wide enough to afford some peripheral vision, which helped us to see around turns and to prevent missing trail intersections. Light & Motion's burn-time estimates are right on the money (although we admit that we didn't ride for 18 hours in the 200-lumen mode), and the system charged up quickly. Most of the time, it was topped off in an hour. One concern that proved unfounded was that the elastic mounting clamp would rattle out of position when we were pounding over rough trails. It held fast on both aluminum and carbon bars - with some assistance from the rubberized, reusable tape that is included in the kit. While the Taz 1000 will not give the power and beam width to satisfy a rider who wants to mach through the woods at his or her daytime shuttle pace, Light & Motion's compact bar-mount light will let you ride fast enough to keep it real, and chances are that you'll keep it in your kit so it will be available when you need it. - RC

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Promax Dropper Post Seat Clamp

If your dropper post uses an external hose or cable housing, you probably will like the Promax seat clamp. The sweet-looking clamp is color-anodized aluminum and it incorporates an adjustable housing guide that can be positioned on either the right or left side of the clamp. The clamping screw threads into a stainless steel cylinder for long-term reliability, and the clamping slot is angled to help to prevent pinching of thin aluminum or carbon fiber tubes. Colors are red, blue, black and gold, and Promax offers it in most popular seat-tube diameters with a MSRP of $19.99 USD.
Promax Components

Slots machined into the Promax seatpost clamp dove-tail into the base of the aluminum cable guide. Loosening a pair of screws on the guide allows it to be rotated in the slots to perfectly position the housing.

For owners who sweat the details when they build up a bike, Promax offers a finishing touch in one area that rarely looks quite right. Two small Allen screws fix the housing guide, which slides in tracks that are machined into sides of the clamp. Take care not to drop the tiny hardware bits as you install the guide because you may never see them again. The guide can be positioned exactly where you need the housing to be in order to keep it from fouling with suspension rockers, grinding on the rear tire, or looping into contact with your legs as the post extends and retracts. Perhaps more important, however, is that the Promax dropper post seat clamp looks a magnitude better than a crappy zip tie holding a dusty piece of black plastic to a 300-dollar seatpost. - RC

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Ergon GA1 Evo Grips

Ergon’s GA1 Evo grips are intended for gravity and aggressive trail riding. Ergon is best known for its line of ergonomically profiled grips that look more like exotic golf clubs than cycling gear. Jokes aside, Ergon grips are proven science and are quite popular among elite-level endurance racers. Many riders who were forced off the bike because of recurrent hand and wrist pain have been able to return the sport after switching to Ergon’s grips. By contrast, GA1 Evo grips are almost normal looking. Their diameter is about the same as many lock-on grips, but the Ergons are tapered larger towards the outer ends, and they use special grooves and patterns to control grip and comfort - and the profiling is right and left specific. Soft grip material is installed over a hard plastic sleeve that incorporates a single locking collar on the outboard end. The clamp is molded into a ‘hook’ shape that can be positioned to secure the hand from sliding outward. Ergon offers its 110-millimeter-long GA1 Evo grips in green, black, red, white and blue colors, and a pair retails for $24.95 USD.
Ergon

Ergon's GA1 Evo grips are intended for freeride, DH and aggressive trail riders. The inside faces are embossed with radial indicators to help riders line the grips' comfort zone with their hand positions.

Ergon's GA1 Evo grips look similar to most clamp-on types, but they feel very different. The outward taper and subtle profiling feels foreign for a while, but after time, the hands gravitate to the grip's sweet spot and all is forgotten. Install the GA1 grips carefully - if the clamp area overhangs the end of the bar, or if the end of the bar has been rounded, the grip can (and did) work its way loose. We tried the same grips on two different handlebars and discovered that the sweep-back angle is a significant contributing factor to comfort. The grips cause the bars to feel as if they were angled slightly upwards, with less sweep-back angle, and this sense was exaggerated for wider handlebars. Nine-degree bars at about 760 millimeters wide felt good for me, less sweep than that and I was never able to find a sweet spot. Of the handful of riders who rode the grips, two had difficulties adapting, one loved them and the fourth didn't notice that he was riding ergonomic grips at all. The durability was very good and the grips were comfortable without gloves. The bottom line with any ergonomically shaped cockpit item, however, is to try before you buy, but the 25-dollar risk would be a bargain if the GA1 grips eliminated a nagging discomfort of the hand or wrist. - RC