Tireflys

I am a Kentuckian. In fact, I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. I therefore have a certain weakness for things like neon license plate holders, neon undercarriages, and any other glowing bling you can use to pimp your ride. But it’s also important to remember that some of the best gadgets don’t cost a lot of money. My fave gadget in terms of bang-for-the-buck are Tireflys. They replace the valve stems on your bicycle or car wheels. Whenever you and your posse start rolling, the force of the rotation causes bright LEDs to start blinking. I recommend the multicolor LEDs, which cascade through blue, red, and white. You can tell your signficant other that you’re putting them on your bike for safety reasons, but you and I will know the real reason: it starts with “B” and ends with “ling” (and bonus points if it looks like neon and blinks).

56 Responses to Tireflys (Leave a comment)

  1. Good morning Matt

    “I am a Kentuckian. In fact, I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. I therefore have a certain weakness for things like neon license plate holders, neon undercarriages, and any other glowing bling you can use to pimp your ride.”

    Oh man. I can imagine the streets out there in Kentucky. Neons all over the place and everything is blinking (for safety reasons) πŸ™‚

    Have a great day.

  2. Tell me about it. Some Kentuckians put neon on their subwoofers. And I support that. πŸ™‚

  3. Just take it easy on the Ale-8s while you are watching the spinning Tireflys, OK?

  4. At Critical Mass last Friday, this guy had a strip of LEDs stuck in between the spokes of his wheel. I think it was supposed to write messages when bicycling, but we never got going fast enough for it to work. He said with three of them it works better. Ah ha, some quick google’ing reveals Hokey Spokes (that is them).

  5. Matt! I’ve just checked the server logs and the last Googlebot to crawl through the site had neon glowy bits added to the user-agent! I suspect the Kentuckian influence!

  6. I’m from MA and we don’t do tireflys dude!

  7. Hi Matt,

    This is “slightly” off topic for this particular post but thought I’d ask anyway: have you seen this thingie yet – http://www.pseudomattcutts.be/blog/ ? While this particular case is nothing more than a harmless practical joke, what do you think the effect on the original site would be if this little joke was repeated in masses?

    Best regards,
    IrishWonder

  8. I suppose then you love the T-Mobile commercial with the “Poser Mobile” car. All that bling always cracked me up but as I typed this I realized I have neon in my PC case LOL!

  9. Don’t forget old-school bling like slamming, ground effects, Cherry Bomb tailpipes, and wind wings. And when the bill is tallied, you could have paid the same for a stock Benz or BMW as you just did for your pimped out Civic πŸ™‚

  10. >>In fact, I grew up in Eastern Kentucky.

    i’m sorry to hear such tragic news, matt. my condolences.

  11. Highschool called and wants its car accessories back. ;p

  12. You should have gone with the Skull Tireflys… Those are righteous.

  13. Dear God, I hope you’re kidding!

  14. Oh man that realy cool,

    but here in Germany it is possibly not allowed to tune up your car in this way. No neon lights on bottom, no horn with music no nothing at all. Therefore i like usa: it looks good, i place it on my car. No TÜV at all.

    But we in germany can go as fast as the car goes πŸ˜‰

  15. Being in Michigan, and wishing I were in Texas, I’m the opposite.

    I drive a Jeep, we raise it, add some spotlights, foglights, and a light bar, put a trailer hitch and some tow hooks on it, and get some nice big bumpers.

    And of course a couple of subs to let the Hank Jr play.

  16. Hokey Spokes! LOL! That’s priceless. I personally hate things like that and used to beat the kids that had them. We all had the lights in our shoes that blinked wen you walk, but in our teenage years we realized that gave us away when we were running from the cops. My rule is if it glows and it’s not your headlights, it’s corny. But I guess I can expect that from the people that brought you a Toys R Us look alike logo.

  17. If you haven’t heard it yet, you guys need to listen to Jeff Foxworthy’s comedic essays on rednecks and shiny stuff. He explains why rednecks (which I guess Kentuckians are a subclass of) like glittery bass boats, and why most UFO abductions are of rednecks and Kentuckians. UFOs are shiny, you see…

  18. There’s even a Neon, KY… but it’s kinda the opposite of blinged out.

    Scott
    Lexington

    A Kentucky Native, too!

  19. Matt — What kind of car do you drive?

  20. Matt,

    My family’s from Evarts, in Harlan Co. and I have more bling-bling in my modded computers than I have on my cars !

    Show me a purple blinkin’ cooling fan and RAM that has LED’s and I’m all over it !

    Go ‘Cats !

  21. Hi Matt,

    I know this is totally off topic, but I have no way of contacting your Adwords group to let them know that they have a problem with their BETA testing of the Adwords display at the bottom of the SERPS, so I’m relying on you to pass the word to them. I posted this on WMW, but there has been no response, so either I am just lucky, or word hasn’t gotten out yet. Here is a copy of my post at WMW:

    “If you can see Adwords at the bottom and top of your SERPS (not all browsers can yet), then mouse over the text in the blue area at the bottom, you can see that it should take you to the URL link shown directly at the left, but it takes you to the respective Adwords URL displayed at the top of the screen.

    Click on the URL link itself, and it is correct. The problem is only with the text in the blue area of the Adwords box.

    For example, Google “click fraud detection” and there are two (or three) Adwords at the top of SERPS, and two at the bottom of the page (in a blue shaded box). Mouse over the text to the right of the link at the bottom, and you will be taken to a site listed in the blue Adwords box at the top of the screen instead.

    I just checked my PC for spyware to make sure it wasn’t being hijacked, but it’s clean… ”

    I have seen this on two different PCs, and have other witnesses, so I know it’s not my wild imagination.

    You don’t have to publish this post, just get them to fix it, and the WMW world can call me crazy…

    P.S. I drive a Corvette (which I believe is made in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by the way) so I don’t think I need any more flash for my car. However, I may have to look into Tireflies for my bicycle. Sounds like they sure beat flapping baseball cards for turning heads…

  22. Another KY Redneck

    Speaking of neon (LOL) check out Matts security code block its Big Pimpin. Ok now back to the subject, I am from South Central Kentucky and know what Matt is talking about. I see everything around here has those little things on the wheels that make them look like bling bling. Also the guys with the big spoilers on their Hondas are everywhere to. Being near a lake I even see boat trailers with those dang things on them I mean give me a break. LMAO I agree with Matt Ale 8 is probably the best drink on the planet (alcohol not included, however alcohol and Ale 8 WOW). So Matt you make it back to the good ole bluegrass very often? Go Cats….

  23. haha…now we know you are the total hick πŸ˜‰

    (sorry, just had to say that)… πŸ˜‰

  24. Well, I’m from NYC and for some reason I’m a total hick too…haha πŸ˜‰

  25. Screw telling the GF they’re on there for safety reasons. I’d just tell her that “I like the blinking liiiiiiiiiights” in a drooly Homer Simpson voice. She’d be cool with it.

  26. Matt, just a quick heads up to let you know your page just took over 90 seconds to load in the browser. It hangs on Google Analytics. I use Opera 8.5 on XP SP2 from the UK.

  27. Hi Chris_Y ,

    “Matt, just a quick heads up to let you know your page just took over 90 seconds to load in the browser. It hangs on Google Analytics. I use Opera 8.5 on XP SP2 from the UK.”

    It seems, Matt’s blog and Google Analytics are optimized for Netscape 7.2 where you can download Matt’s blog within few seconds at present πŸ™‚

    Give Netscape 7.2 a test drive and see for yourself.

  28. Netscape doesn’t have their own engine anymore do they? Don’t they give you a choice of using Firefox’s (gecko) or IE’s engine?

    Anyways, it loads fine with Firefox 1.5.

    The problem might be because of all the heavy traffic Analytics gets at times. Sometimes it’s very hard to get a report shown :- (btw, thanks for giving us the heads up about Analytics when it became free. Was able to be one of the select few to be able to use it at the moment and it seems great so far, besides the problem mentioned above.)

  29. You want to see cool homies??? How about Personal Computing Environments?

    http://www.mypce.com/

    Wurd

  30. Adam Longfellow

    I have LED lights on my Christmas tree this year. Does that count towards anything? Well, at least I’m saving 90% on the electricity.

  31. Matt,

    What’s your take on spinner rims?

    Or how about some old box Chevy raised up sittin on 26″ rims. Oh, did I forget to mention the candy lime green paint with the Louis Vuitton interior.

    I can see you riding in that except with the familiar Google blue, red, yellow, blue, green, red paint job:)

  32. Matt:

    Well, it ain’t Bling, but I was poking around on the tirefly site, and went over to the linked bumper sticker site, and found a couple of magnets that you can stick on the gas tank of your car, and increase fuel economy by 15% for just $140!! The “Fuel Chips are charged with a proprietary blend of resonant frequencies” wow – really sounds impressive. Charged with resonant frequencies – huh. Could you get a couple stick them on and let us know how they work? πŸ˜‰

  33. I bet that within 5 years after Google makes Google Suggest Beta an option in the Tool Bar and Desktop and adds it to this line:

    WEB Suggest New! Images Groups News Froogle Local more Β» on the main page, Google’s home page will change to :

    WEB SearchOLD! Images Groups News Froogle Local more Β»

    Suggest_____________

    BET? what you want to bet? a pair rims, anyone?

    http://groups.google.com/group/google-labs-google-suggest

  34. John Skurka, resonant frequencies are cool ‘n’ all, but I don’t think this would glow? My interest wanes.. πŸ™‚

    Ben Pate, spinner rims are AWESOME!!! Anything that stays moving when my car is standing still is just *cool*.

  35. Good morning Matt

    “Anything that stays moving when my car is standing still is just *cool*”

    Lucky you not living where I live. The police would have issued you several small expensive notes a day πŸ™‚

    Have a great weekend.

  36. Blah… all you need is some playing cards on your bicycle wheel held on by a clothes peg.. makes a great motorcycle noise. Old skool pimpin’ !

  37. Hello Matt!

    If the time you leave a post up top is any indication of your priorities I’m thinking you really love those tireflys! More than Ale-8s?

    When you go into SE mode again I’m hoping you might address the difference between a filter and a penalty and what it means to have big changes in the number of URL listings in “site:website.com”. Also, if you are feeling *chatty*, the status of the new code to better handle 301 redirection.

    Thanks Matt!

  38. You know.. these are actually kinda cool. I may get some for my Audi.. right…

  39. Something like these would make great Google give-aways

    http://store.tireflysonline.com/keychains.html

  40. I currently live in PA, but I come from the land of neon lowriders. I had a friend a long time ago that was so in to neon and exterior lighting that he had a 1972 Dodge Duster with neon all over the place and actually had red led’s that went back and forth on his grill like KITT from Knight Rider.

    The early 90’s had some good times..:)

  41. Matt,spinner rims are AWESOME!!! Anything that stays moving when my car is standing still is just *cool*.

    Hey Matt, I would send you a set if you remove my hidden text penalty:) That brings up another question.

    How long does a hidden text penalty last?

  42. Ben Pate,

    I personally love those “pop off” spinners. (g)

  43. Good morning Inigo πŸ™‚

    I hope you have enjoyed your weekend.

    Very interested to hear any news (or possible weather report) about that test data center http://64.233.179.104/

    Have a great sunny day and a successful week.

  44. Pretty interesting that Matt now ranks #2 for the keyword “tireflys” on google search.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=tireflys&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

  45. Good eye, Keith Ort

  46. hey! are tyreflys availables for cars???

  47. I am from Southeastern Ky and my wife is from Eastern Ky and we now live in the Lexington area. We try to forget the neon accessories like that when we can πŸ™‚
    dj

  48. Yeah, my wife is also from eastern kentucky.

  49. Yea i would like to know aswell if a site gets penalised for something some one said hidden text how long do those penelties stay for, I have always been under the impression that its something permanent.

  50. Hope you enjoyed the weekend, Matt!

  51. Matt,

    Question, I have been looking all over for Red, Blue or red white and blue Tireflys. Nobody has them in stock. Called a couple of suppliers and they had no answer. Q, wondering if the maufacturer is making them anymore?

    Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  52. Yea Muddman the manufacturer is still making em.. u can call their office and order them @ wholesale rates.

    mark

  53. Matt now ranks #2 for the keyword β€œtireflys”

    http://www.hotel-discount.com

  54. Finally after 25 years I can “let go” of the self doubt driving that souped up Datsun B210 caused!!! It was something to behold with a Jaguar attached to the front of the hood and nice thick racing stripes running down the sides.

    I always wondered who ended up with that embarassment on wheels. It’s good to know it found a home down yonder in Kentucky!

    Thanks Matt. You saved me.

  55. Yes my brother is from Kentucky too great place to visit

  56. very good thank

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