Night Riding: New scotchlite strip for 2011

UPDATE! New for 2011:

All TCB's now come with a 3M Scotchlite grosgrain strip down the center orange pocket, courtesy of my fabric supplier, Outdoor Wilderness Fabrics.  Now you can combine it with your blinky light + optional Lightweights reflectors and you're ready for the darkest night ...

Caroline Fu and I prepare to execute another run of TCB's, this time with the new reflective strip.
The orange pockets have to be just a leeeeetle wider to accommodate the 3/4" scothchlite strip.
The view from Caroline's shared workroom, her trusty industrial Juki sewing machine close at hand

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A little note from Clay and Rob in the tech dept at 3M: 

"Highway standard ANSI 107 requires a minium RA of 330 (level 2) for their safety garments. If you are using the reflective material as a safety item, I would recommend keep the brightness above that value." 

I asked them to geek on a bit more: 

We take a brightness reading per ASTM standards.  Our silver (ie. what is seen on highway workers vests) has a typical brightness values of 500 ... 
The stripe I use as an RA of 500. 

The new bags will retail for $55 and $65, an increase of $5 to cover the cost of materials, Caroline's time and so forth. Yes, it's a little pricey to be making things in 'merica, but I thank you for supporting local talent, labor and materials. We'll get out of this mess yet!

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Some non-3M tape sold in the NYC Garment District. I've been experimenting with these too. 

Up until now, I've been selling a starter sheet of the Lightweights reflectors that you can iron on yourself. They work nicely and last at least a few years, at which time you can put new ones over the old. Read about Lightweights here:
http://trafficconebag.blogspot.com/2010/07/stayin-alive-stayin-alive-lightweights.html


They also work great applied to your helmet, spokes etc:


Of course, as you can see above, you should hang a good blinky light off the provided elastic loop for even more visibility.
Thanks!

Comments

  1. Hi Lynette,
    I think that your bag would hang beautifully off the seat of any bent,don't you?

    Wanna hang one from my seat and take some photo's?

    call me

    Shelly
    Urban Mobility Project
    http://urbanmobilityproject.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
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