It has to be easily operable in terms of both its interface and positioning. It needs to work with various bag configurations and cables, and 3. Its tone must be perfect (in many cases bells are either unpleasant, too quiet, too high pitched, or too deep) 2. After trying each, both on the bikeway and bikepacking, I realized my criteria for finding the best bike bell is threefold: 1. So I decided that the bikeway would be the perfect bike bell proving ground.Īfter doing a little preliminary homework, we selected five different bells to test - all of which had ringing reviews. That rarely works, so I’m forced to politely say “excuse me” a few times before they take notice. In an effort to avoid actually speaking to someone, I’ve tried to get their attention via a solid shift ‘clunk’ or by backspinning my I9 freehub. On many occasions I’ve been stuck behind an older couple for what seemed like an eternity. I’ll encounter a couple of joggers, ‘slow-walkers’, or spandex-clad headphone addicts who seem to opt for the absolute center of the narrow gravel path. Even though it’s technically a ‘bikeway’, I usually have to negotiate a few human obstacles en route to forest trail ksolace. I live right on a bike path that gains access to singletrack after just a mile and a half. Recently, the bike bell has also become a necessity for my everyday afternoon mountain bike rides. Kids seem to get an especially big kick out of such melodic salutations.

What’s more, a pleasant ring is just a nice way of acknowledging someone. So in a sense, bells help keep peace between trail user groups. It also spares the unaware pedestrian the potential heart-pounding terror experienced by some humans when they are surprised. A little advanced warning goes a long way towards avoiding collisions. Ringing a bell is a polite way of letting people know that you are approaching. However, these days I love a good bike bell, so why not? For bikepacking - especially that of the dirt-touring variety - a bell is a key piece of equipment in my book. To set the record straight, if someone told me a couple years back I’d be writing about bike bells, I’d have shuddered in disbelief.

Bike bird bell