LaneSaber

LaneSaber is a safety flag system that mounts to your bike and marks your legal passing space.

Many drivers don't know the three-foot passing law. Even more can't judge their own car's width. When they realize mid-pass there isn't enough room, often they will make a split-second choice that puts your life at risk.

LaneSaber stops that moment before it happens. built with a bracket mounts to your bike that holds an illuminated flag pole on a spring-loaded hinge. Easily deployable while you ride, no stopping required. Lower it when you need your space marked. Raise it when you don't. The whole system stays out of your way until the moment you need it.

Extended, the flag marks your space in a language drivers already understand, stay back, give room, this lane is occupied. It works without gesturing, shouting, or taking your eyes off the road.

It's dangerous out there. Ride with LaneSaber and own your space.

Ride safer with LaneSaber!

Tools Needed: Vice, Hammer, Drill, Drill bits, Heat Gun, Screw Driver, and Hack Saw

Materials Needed: 4' x 1/4" SOLID fiberglass pole, LED COB Light strip of about 6-8ft, 4' of 3/4" clear heat shrink tubing, Electrical Tape, and 2-3 1" hose clamps

The first step is to modify the kickstand to fit your needs. Depending on if you are biking on the right or left side of the road you will want the flag to click into place with a slight rise above flat when horizontal. If you look at this specific kick stand called the WALD 16" (found online and at bike shops) you will see a small difference in the angles built into this kickstand.

To start put the kick stand into the vice and compress the spring a bit. This will allow you to pull out the pin easily. See attached photo.

The kickstand is well built for holding up bikes. We need it to be less strong so folding the flag up and down isn't too hard while riding.

I have found that the perfect amount of spring to remove is one revolution of the coil. clamp that spring in the vice and cut it with your hack saw. The key thing with hack saws is that they only cut in one direction. Be careful not to damage the teeth when pushing or pulling!

Next lets bend the plate!

Now that the spring is modified lets get the vice and hammer.

This angle will dictate how it mounts to your bike. Some people like the angle going forward some like it going backwards. Its important to consider mounting to your bike when making this decision.

In this example I made it so the angle points to the back of the bike with the spring pointing forward. This will be an easier bend for a lot of people.

Using the vice to clamp where you want the bend, use your hammer to bend it to 90 degrees. Pay attention to the asymmetry of the angles the kick stand will indicate. Your horizontal position should be direction with the slight positive angle above horizontal.

If you like you can use a hammer or a vice to flatten the bend in the kickstand leg. I usually do this but it is not shown in this photo.

Using the vice to compress the components you can more easily get the pins back in place. Take note of the orientation of the washers. The last one acts as a cup to keep the pin in place so it does not fall apart.

Start by measuring how much of the flag pole you need to clamp in the kick stand leg. Put a small mark on the pole.

Start by wrapping the COB LED lighting around in a tight pattern. After a few wraps I like to add some electrical to keep the lights from unwrapping.

Work you way up to the top of your flag. Leave about a 1/2" of space at the top before the flag part.

Slide some clear heat shrink tube over your led system and use the heat gun to tighten it down. This is the waterproofing step.

Now use some electrical tape to seal each end and give the plug some strength.

Using two hose clamps and a bit of electrical tape or tubing to give the gap a bit of filler, you can clamp the two parts together. I like to have the power cord come out in that slot shown.

I usually wrap it up in electrical tape afterwards giving it a cleaner look.

One issue I had early on was that it would rotate on the bike. I fixed that with a small extra screw to prevent rotation. You can see this in the photos.

When mounting it to the rack I like to test it out to see if its where I'd like it to be. make sure you can reach it!

This project has always been about cyclist safety.

I made the plans as simple as I could with as few tools as possible. I want people to build, design, and iterate this concept. As we share it with the world cyclists will be safer and we will save lives.

If you do not have the tools to build this or are interested in having someone build it for you please reach out to me on Etsy. I have a store under the name LaneSaberLab and I am happy to build one for you.

Happy and safe riding to everyone!