New push-button switchgear

Lots of custom bike builders want push-button switchgear, but at £75-£100 a side for Motone or Motogadget stuff it’s not cheap. To add insult to injury you have to connect the cables to the switches yourself, which is a total and utter pain in the neck. And of course you need special relays (or the dreaded M Unit) to make them operate the indicators, headlight and often the kill switch too.

No more. These £35 (a pair) eBay push-button switches have latching buttons. That means they make one connection when you push them once, then make a second connection (or break it) when you push them again. That sorts the headlight and indicators. No need for any special electronics, and a substantial saving to boot. Needless to say they come with cables which are claimed to carry 10 amps safely. That’s enough for a headlight and LED tail light, which is the biggest load they need to cope with.

They feature on a re-engineered Brit bike which will be in a future issue of Classic Bike magazine. So for now I’m not allowed to say any more about it. But I rode the bike and they work: headlight hi/lo, left and right indicators, start button, flash. I think they’re a big step forward.

You have to order them from China, so they take a while to arrive, but what project bike is in that much of a hurry?