KD5NRH

There are plenty of companies that make "athletic" clothing. You know, the kind of stuff that people wear to jog or ride bikes on roadways. Most of them seem to have two choices; hi-vis without reflectives or asphalt gray with 1/2 square inch of Scotchlite in a logo on the chest. (Apparently nobody jogs or cycles in the morning or evening, and everybody likes having separate day and night gear.)

Bulk Scotchlite heat transfer is about $0.90/m for 1" widths. (Anybody else find it amusing that the width is in inches and the length in meters? This price assumes 100m rolls, which are a bit impractical for an individual, but on the small side for a manufacturer.) A full stripe around a shirt or double cuff stripes on pants would take about 1m per shirt. Let's assume their sweatshop labor expense to iron it on is $0.10/item. For a dollar an item, they could make their customers a lot safer. I, for one, would gladly pay $2-3 extra on a shirt, pants, jacket or gloves that had a meaningful amount of reflective area.

I was looking for some reflective cycling gloves last week, and of course, Glo-Glov is sold out again. The others I found were cheap $6-7 cycling gloves assembled with about 4" of reflective piping ($0.65/ft) per glove, and going for $15-20.

What will it take to get decent reflective and combination hi-vis/reflective clothing? I just ordered some 5' white and yellow Scotchlite transfer for about $4/piece, and some orange piping (though of course, that requires disassembly to add properly - might be worth doing my company jacket and winter cycling gloves over the summer when I won't need it for a while) but it seems a bit stupid to have to add the reflective material myself to shirts and gloves designed for outdoor activities that often take place in the dark along roads.

1nterceptor

https://www.awdirect.com/ansi-class-3...42xl/t-shirts/

https://www.awdirect.com/luminator-re...-large/gloves/

daredevil

just get a dinotte...

KD5NRH

At $25 for a t-shirt, having enough to not do laundry daily gets a bit pricey.

Now these have some potential. I'd have to chop the fingers off to have any chance at making them manageable for Texas summers, but they are half the price of Glo-Glov Sport.

Already have a Radbot 1000 and a Bell Radian back there, plus the MagicShine clone, a 200lm flashlight and the Radian set's headlight up front, but Scotchlite doesn't suffer from battery failure. One of the drawbacks of high efficiency lighting is that battery changes/charges become infrequent enough to be easily forgotten. Besides, sometimes I'd just like a jacket to walk to the convenience store (across a 5 lane highway, and the closest marked crosswalk is a half mile farther down the road) at night in that doesn't look quite as dorky for shopping as a high-vis/reflective vest. A couple of reflective logos or the Scotchlite piping on the sleeve seams could be very subtle in normal lighting but highly visible in headlights.

1nterceptor

https://illuminite.com/

dynaryder

https://alertshirt.com/higvisshirfo.html

KD5NRH

At the sale price, I'd have to say the ANSI Class 2 T shirt is a winner for general commutes and long rides. If Illuminite would get some shirts in stock, they might be perfect for grocery trips and such where I'll be spending as much time off the bike as on it.

JoeyBike

Reflective clothing is worthless unless a car is shining the headlights directly at you. You are totally invisible to cars leaving parallel parking spaces, driveways, and cross streets. Lights baby, lights - day and night. Wear whatever you want otherwise.

I-Like-To-Bike

Exactly right; the OP is making too much fuss over nothing. Get some lights and settle down.

genec

Maybe the OP is looking to add to his visibility, beyond lights. I have loads of lights on my bike, and still desire to have reflective clothing, reflective pedals/shoes, reflective panniers... and I mean more than a pin stripe worth. I want big wide stripes or areas of reflection... so that if a driver fails to notice the lights I have, the retro reflection from their headlights hitting my stuff should be enough to "blind" a driver.

I also wear brightly colored clothing... yellows and oranges.

Between lights, blinkies, reflective clothing and stuff, I don't ever want someone to get away with the excuse "I didn't see the cyclist."

I-Like-To-Bike

And he can do so; without the crybaby act that clothing companies are somehow failing their duty to deliver the products that the OP wants, when he wants them, at a price he feels like paying.

I want to be served free beer and pizza wherever I go; doesn't happen. Everybody else must suck, eh?

rydabent

The OP does have a point tho. Clothes for different sports tend to be over priced. When ever a name brand logo is put on any piece of clothing it seem to double the price.

wsbob

Not true. Reflective tape can pick up light originating at an angle...I'd guess maybe 15 degrees from the point a car's headlights are focused, and reflect it back to the person driving. Reflective material also can pick up and reflect light from other sources along the road, like street lights, and so on. Light falling on reflective material and reflected back to road users can be brighter, and certainly originate from a larger area than most lights people biking use. Reflective material basically borrows light other people provide to help the user of reflective material to enable greater visibility of themselves, possibly raising their level of safety when traveling amongst motor vehicles.

Reflective tape can certainly be had in lengths shorter than 100 meters. It's online from a bunch of sources, different lengths and widths...25' I think, last time I checked. If worse comes to worse, some of the cheap Harbor Freight safety vests for $6-$10, maybe $15, have got up 6' of the reflective tape on them. Use the vest as a donor, or, just wear the vest.

no motor?

This is a great idea, but it's not as reflective as it looks.

genec

Uh, you're not getting the free pizza and beer? Wow, somehow you must have been left off the list...

genec

Buy gear for the marine environment... as in sailing... they quadruple the price.

I-Like-To-Bike

Yeah, I've been reading some BF poster's complaints that I'm not getting the thanks as well as the taxpayer handouts to which I am entitled to for saving the world by riding a bike.

rumrunn6

add reflective tape to existing gloves

KD5NRH

Tape won't stay on pretty much any fabric. I'm experimenting with the heat transfer Scotchlite on some Bell gloves now. Visibility is great, but I'm not sure how long it will stay on the lycra-like fabric on the back of the gloves.

rumrunn6

I don't know about that, I bought some very sticky stuff years ago and it's still on the clothing I added it too. it was marine grade or coast guard certified or something like that.

FenderTL5

$12 at Home Depot:




As for the OP, I can understand the frustration. I've had better luck at hardware stores, and other construction oriented websites than in sporting goods/athletic wear. If I wanted to go allblacked-out ninja, I could get anything i wanted easily.

Ferrous Bueller

It may surprise you to hear that in most instances where people have been run over by vehicles, the victim was in front of the vehicle.
Reflective clothing is useful.

Myosmith

+1 on looking for places that sell construction safety gear. We have Fleet Farm in this area and I can get Gildan 50% cotton / 50% polyester t-shirts with ANSI Class II visibility for $5.99 each up to XL on sale or $9.99 regular. They come in bright orange or safety yellow with an about 1" wide reflective stripe around the chest and over the shoulders like suspenders. A little suspender style reflective, well I guess you would call it a vest, from a local running store goes for $29.

Another option is just to purchase 1/2" or 1" 3M retroreflective tape. You can iron it on initially, but it won't last through very many washings unless you stitch it in place. Check with places that sell uniforms for fire, police and EMS. They often offer the addition of reflective striping as part of their alterations service. One of my co-workers got this done to the cuffs of his jacket and pants for around $20. I'm thinking of having reflective armbands added to my hi-viz windbreaker but haven't got around to getting a price estimate.

Also +1 that reflective and/or hi-viz clothing alone isn't enough for night riding or riding in poor visibility, like fog. A good LED light on the back, visible from 180 degrees, and a decently bright headlight go a long way to improve your visibility to drivers.

I want to add that your #1 piece of safety equipment is between your ears. Assume that drivers don't see you or don't care and ride accordingly.

Scut.Farkus

You know what works best? A comprehensive system of lights and reflective clothing.

Rather than futzing around with iron on decals, purchase a decent safety vest, the type used by construction and emergency service personnel. Now you have something you can wear over a sweatshirt or jacket and doesn't require continual washing.

Scut.Farkus

As would a decent taillight.