The Granite Cricket Bell Review

The Granite Cricket Bell Review. Is this the best bike bell on the market?

In this Granite Cricket Bell Review, we take a look at the bike bell that has a classic clapper bell appearance but has some clever additional design features that not only let you mount the bell in multiple positions on your handlebars but also have a single-strike and cowbell mode, providing two sound options to ensure that others around you are always aware of you. No more nasty surprises, issues with walkers without spoiling the aesthetics of your bike.

We will go into detail on the granite cricket bicycle bell and see if this really is the best bicycle bell on the market.

To skip to read the MTB Bell review click here: Granite Cricket Bell Review

The Granite Cricket Bell

The Granite Cricket Bell features the most ideal two modes of sounding – single-strike mode and cowbell mode. The single-strike mode has a crystal-clear tone and impressively loud volume to make your presence known.

When pulling down the dome to cowbell mode, the motion of the bike activates the sound, and it really does a great job audibly communicating to other trail users.

The Granite Bell Features

• Two different modes for multi-purpose and a wide range of bikes.
• Characteristic “ding ding” sound and loud volume while triggering.
• Tighten down the only screw then you get on the go.
• Constructed from robust machined parts that exhibit promising durability
• Classic but modern bit of kit in a harmonious, balanced way
• Price – £19.95 GBP

Cricket Bell Dimensions

Granite Cricket Bell Review

The Cricket bicycle bell from Granite Design is a small form factor bell that allows you to mount it anywhere on your bars using the varied sizes of adapters that are shipped with the product and can simply be secured in place by tightening the single Allen bolt.

The Cricket bell is priced at £19.95 here in the UK which is certainly on the high side for a bicycle bell, but, this is no standard bike bell. The Cricket offers two modes, a simple single-fire ding that can be triggered using the lever on the bell or you can enable cowbell mode by simply pulling the bell body down which frees the dinger mechanism allowing it to strike the bell body as the bike moves around over rough terrain.

To determine if this is the best bike bell on the market we took it out onto our favourite trails where we knew there would be other mountain bikers as well as ramblers to see if the bell made a difference when alerting others of our presence.

I initially started off with cowbell mode which I enabled at the top of the trail meaning I would not need to interact with the bell to alert others to my impending rapid approach. It worked very well. The bell made noise down the entire trail with a load dinging sound that probably alerted every person and animal in a large area of my presence. For me, this was a bit much as I quite like to enjoy the peaceful tranquility of being out in nature which the bell certainly affected but when coming across other riders and walkers you can see the benefits as they all knew I was coming and there were no nasty surprises.

The next mode I tested was the manual single-fire mode which requires me to interact with the bell each time I want to make the Ding sound. I found this useful to alert walkers of my presence when I was approaching from behind. One note here though is that it’s probably best to ding a few times from further away rather than when getting close as the bell noise probably startled the walkers more than if I had just ridden past.

So in summary this bell works really well. Other trail users, animals, and the public were alerted of my presence effectively. The bell takes up little space on the cockpit and looks pretty nice too (for a bike bell). The Cricket bell is on the pricey side but it is the best bike bell on the market that we have come across.

Having a bell on your bike is probably a sensible idea especially when riding in busy areas or through towns etc.

So what do you think about the Granite Cricket Bell? Would you use this or any other bell on your mountain bike? Do you think having a bell is a good idea or do you think having a bell on your bike is so un-cool that it outweighs the benefits?

So is this the best bike bell? It’s hard to say outright if this is the best bicycle bell but it’s certainly up there. We previously reviewed the Timber! Bicycle bell and thought that product was great but could do with some refinements which I believe the Cricket has. The Cricket has all the features of the Timber! but in a smaller form factor which is also more ergonomic and still plenty loud enough.

Let us know what you think of the Cricket mountain bike bell in the comments below.

You can learn more about the Granite Cricket here: https://granite-design.com/products/cricket-bell

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