Bike Light Poker Upper

12 Sep 2026

I wore gloves to cycle to work today, for the first time since spring. It’s not so cold that I can see my breath yet - to be honest it’s really not cold at all, but I am not a cold-resilient person. The astronomical driving force of the season change is also shortening the days in Cambridge, so the faff of bike lights is coming back into play.

I’ve made an invention related to this. Finn recently spent all his money on a 3D printer (Bambu A1 mini), so I’ve printed out my invention. It’s called a Bike Light Poker Upper™️ and it’s a very oddly-shaped piece of plastic that solves compatibility between one type of bike light and one type of pannier. So it’s not going to make me rich, but it is making me happy. It stops my red rear light flopping down and provides a little platform for it to sit on when attached to the pannier. It has to have strength, curviness in just the right places and a weird shape to get its job done. At Finn’s request, I added some holes where strength is unnecessary to save 2g of filament.

The design is unlikely to win awards for aesthetics, although I am proud of its Bézier curves. And I know that everyone who gets a 3D printer prints out little pieces of plastic to solve three problems in their life, before resorting to printing out fiddle toys for eternity. Finn is already there. But I have had a lot of satisfaction from learning about different 3D CAD software (only free, browser-based ones to begin with). My favourite things to do so far - as may be evident from the design of Bike Light Poker Upper™️ - are project, fillet and boolean intersection.

Bike Light Poker Upper on SketchFab.

Tags: geeky, 3dprinting