If you’re looking for something that’ll make absolutely certain other road users see you when you’re cycling, then Redshift Sports may well have the perfect tool for the job: their new Arclight pedals.

Wearing bright colors with reflective detailing on you and your bike is a great way to make sure you’re seen (and avoided). Powerful lights front and rear take that to the next level and are essential to have on your bike at night, keeping you safe in dark and gloomy conditions. Redshift have now taken the concept of bike lights even further by adding bio-movement (motion associated with the human body). And, having spent many a happy hour on the sofa watching wildlife documentaries, I know that a moving object is much more easily seen than a stationary one. For your average antelope hoping to avoid being spotted by a hungry lioness with three starving cubs to feed, movement is something to be avoided at all costs. For cyclists the complete opposite is true. Though hopefully there’ll be fewer big cats prowling around the streets on your regular commuting route.

Arclight are a set of flat aluminum pedals that screw onto your cranks in place of your existing pedals. This is an easy 10-minute task to do and only requires an open-ended wrench to take the old pedals off and fit the new Arclight ones. Once the new pedals are fitted you can slot in the special light modules. There are a pair for each pedal, which slide in a dedicated slot and are secured in position with magnets. Then, just hop on and start riding. Once you get moving, the lights will automatically illuminate…and here’s the clever bit: no matter which way up the pedal, the front light will turn white and the rear light will turn red. You are likely to spend quite a lot of time spinning the pedals and showing this trick to friends and family.

Charging is simple – just slide out the lighting modules and connect them up to a power supply. Each module has an integrated USB plug, so you can charge directly, or you can use the included hub to charge all four together with a USB cable. A full charge takes around 2 hours and this will give you enough juice to light your path for 3 hours on steady light, 11 hours flashing or 36 hours in “eco flash” mode.

Redshift launched the Arclight pedals with a Kickstarter campaign which is demonstrating the level of excitement for these – their original $20k goal was achieved in under 24 hours and, at the time of writing, the 2000+ backers have pledged over 10x that sum. All the signs are that the Arclight pedals are going to be very popular indeed.

And the team at Redshift certainly know how to create great bike products. They’re a team of (mainly) engineers, who also cycle, and like to take bike kit apart and re-imagine it. I recently tested out their Shockstop suspension seatpost and was blown away by how good it was Read more+