Aussie brand Knog are known for their rather quirky take on bike lights, and out there styling. Their latest incarnation of the classic Blinder 4V light – still a very good light in its own right – is the Blinder Road R70, a higher powered version of the 4V with a 70 lumen out put and a degree of side visibility added into the package.
Knog’s range hierarchy seems a little, well, anarchic in all honesty, as there are multiple versions of the Blinder rear light. This Blinder Road R70 is described as being particularly designed for roadies, and one part of that is its compatibility with aero seatposts. Aero posts are a particular challenge for rear lights because their sharp trailing edge makes it hard to mount anything that doesn’t have a similarly skinny mounting area. The tricky bit comes in finding something that’ll work with both aero and conventional posts as the differences between the two are stark enough that finding something to fit both is a challenge. Knog have found a way round this by effectively adding an additional little channel into the mount of the Blinder Road R70, which fits against the edge of aero posts, as well as a longer rubber mount to fit around the larger profile.
All that means the Blinder Road R70 is a pretty versatile light when it comes to mounting. Despite using a rubber strap with a plastic fastener (yep, it’s plastic despite the metal look), hold is secure, even on thinner tubes, although Knog don’t recommend it anything with a diameter less than 22mm. That plastic faster is removable so you can change it easily between bands when you want to mount the light on a different sized post. I don’t have anything with a 22mm diameter post to test that out, but it worked well on a standard 27.2mm post as well as the aero profiled seatpost on my Cipollini.
The reason it fits so well on such a wide range of sizes is that you get three rubber bands in the box. It’s not a conventional rubber band attachment though, it’s much smarter and together with the plastic fastener makes for a very secure fitting. The only worry would be if the other side onto which the strap hooks were to get damage, but given that it doubles up as the USB charger, the light’s pretty much done for should that happen.
