RecumBum

The Bell Night Shield is an inexpensive, but surprisingly good, bicycle tail light. I think I paid around $8 for it at Wal-Mart, and I’ve seen it advertised for even less. I’ve been using it for about six months, and it’s been quite reliable.

It features five super-bright red LEDs that function in six modes: all on solid, all flash fast, all flash slow, and three modes that flash the LEDs in various patterns and speeds. I generally use the “flash fast” or “flash slow” modes.

The LEDs are quite bright and visible in both darkness and on overcast days. They tend to wash out in direct sunlight, but that’s a problem with most small LED lights.

Battery usage has been quite good. It used two AAA batteries, and I’m still on the first set of batteries. Ruggedness has also been excellent. The light has fallen off my bike twice at speed (through no fault of the light itself), and still works perfectly.

Mounting the light onto my bike has been the main problem I’ve experienced (click on the pictures on the right for close-up views). Initially, I mounted the light (using the included clamp) onto my seatback, and this worked with no problem for a number of months. Then I changed to a new rack bag, and had to move the light.

In my first attempt, I used an existing mounting bracket on the rack, which had been designed to hold a rear reflector. I bent the bracket and twisted it 90 degrees to mount the Bell tail light. The first time I rode with this configuration, the light rattled in its clip and made a good deal of noise. I quieted it by inserting a piece of rubber inner tube under the clip. This worked fine for about a month, until I passed over a railroad track and heard a clatter behind me, and looked back to find the light on the road. The metal of the bracket had apparently been stressed by the bend and twist, and had ultimately failed.

For my next attempt, I removed the broken metal bracket, screwed a wooden dowel to the top of the rack, and attached the light to the rack using its clamp (as if the dowel were a seatpost). This appeared to be functional and rugged, and worked fine for about a week. Then once again I heard a racket behind me and found that the light had again ended up on the road in pieces. The clamp had slipped off the top of the dowel.

One final tweak – I drilled two small holes in the top of the rack, on either side of the dowel, then passed a tie-wrap through the holes and over the light clamp. This should keep the clamp from lifting off top of the dowel.

Will this hold? It certainly looks like it should. With two batteries in the light, and the light hanging off the back of the rack, there’s apparently a fair amount of mass bouncing up and down every time I hit a bump. So eventually something will have to give. Either the tie-wrap will break, or the plastic clamp, or the plastic clip on the back of the light will give. But it’s cheap enough to replace when it does.

(And yes, I know that I have the light mounted upside-down, but I wanted the switch to be on my left-hand side, and besides, I don’t really see that it makes any difference in functionality.)

Bottom line: I recommend the Bell Night Shield as a good-quality tail light at a very reasonable price. I’m sure there are better lights, and there may even be cheaper lights, but the Night Shield is readily available and certainly a decent choice.