The Glove Light
By Terminal X
This article is a guest post from Terminal X, a michigan based rider who wanted to share his way of using ShredLights with the Flatland 3-D ESK8 Glove.
When riding electric skateboards at night, it's important to be well illuminated and see the path ahead clearly with lights of your own. Shredlights offers various light mounting solutions such as helmet mounts and skateboard lighting options. However, I have found a unique wrist-mounted adaptation of existing Shredlights products and my Flatland3D Fingerless Pro E-Skate gloves. By mounting my Shredlights to my gloves, I can create a dynamic lighting situation that offers me maximum visibility, flexibility and safety for my night rides.
Why Use the Glove Light?
It Keeps Your Hands Free
Your hands are now free to hold your remote, camera, or other objects while riding. Instead of holding a flashlight (and potentially dropping it while riding), you have a powerful light attached to you. This makes it easy to adjust settings on your electric vehicle or do maintenance at night without having to choose between holding your light and holding your flashlight. With the Shredlights and Flatland3D wrist-mounted light, you can easily see the repairs you’re performing in the dark!
You Can Point it Anywhere
With a Shredlight attached to your wrist, you can be omnidirectional and use your light as necessary for your night riding adventure. Whether you’re pointing out potholes and obstacles to your riding buddies, or looking for road signs in the dark, your lighting will be multi-purpose, easy to use, and doesn’t get in your way!
It Makes Night Rides Safer
Finally, having a wrist-mounted light allows you to be safe. You can see and be seen by others with lights hovering over your hands. In addition, Flatland3D’s Fingerless Pro E-Skate gloves offer maximum protection for your palms and wrists should a spill occur. The Knox sliders on the palm allow you to slide your hands and prevent skin damage, as well as keep your wrists from locking and facturing upon impact. The wrist plate is unidirectional, allowing you to flex your wrist in the forward direction for comfort while being rigid in the opposing direction to prevent hyperextension.
Everything You Need for the Glove Light Setup
1. Flatland-3D Gloves
First, you’ll want to purchase the Flatland3D Fingerless Pro E-Skate Glove. The glove offers multiple advantages to riders, including Knox’s Scaphoid Protection System for sliding pads and a flexible wrist plate, which is vital for this wrist-mounted light setup. The fingerless aspect also allows for improved dexterity when using a remote, camera, or lights while riding (please be safe and don’t be distracted while using an electric skateboard).
2. ShredLights
Personally, I use an SL-1000 on my left wrist as my main light guide, because I keep my remote in my right hand. This gives me the freedom to point a powerful light source at the ground, obstacles, and others (with respect, don’t blind people). Sometimes I mount an SL-300 light on my right wrist in the burst mode to point behind me, allowing myself to be more visible and obvious to others. The SL-R1 offers visibility protection with a soft red light to be seen by cars on the road. In some states (such as Michigan, my home) it is legally required to operate an electric skateboard after dusk.
3. Action Clip
The final piece of the wrist-mounted light puzzle is the Shredlights Action Clip. This allows you to clamp your Shredlight of choice to things like backpacks. However, it works amazingly with the Flatland3D Fingerless Pro E-Skate glove.
How to Set Up the Glove Light
1. Install the ShredLight
First, slide your Shredlight into the light mount of the action clip with their easy “S-Lock” system. It’s easy and snaps right into place. Your light is now ready to mount to the glove.
2. Put on your Flatland-3D Gloves
Next, put on your Flatland3D Gloves. While putting them on, you’ll notice that there’s a small slot just above the space where you insert your hands and wrists. That’s where your wrist plate is located, and it’s what makes this entire wrist-mounted Shredlights setup possible.
3. Clamp the Action Mount in place
Now, take the clamp part of the action clip and open the jaws. You’re going to open up that small wrist plate slot and insert the bottom jaw of the clamp. Because the action clip’s clamp has gripping teeth, you may need to do an extra tug or two to adjust and make sure that the clamp has fed fully into the wrist plate slot of the glove.
When it’s all done, you should have the top jaw of the action mount clamp overtop of the glove, touching the “3D” part of the Flatland3D logo. The bottom jaw of the clamp should be snug inside that wrist plate slot (this also prevents the clamp from touching your skin and is more comfortable in my opinion).
Now you can power on your Shredlight, set it to the brightness and burst mode of your choosing, and beam away!
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for an easy and flexible solution to having lights while riding electric skateboards, you should really consider the Shredlights and Flatland3D combo. You’ll love the safety and visibility of the lights, and you’ll enjoy how your hands are still free to use your riding gear and tools on the go throughout the night.
