Road Cycling - annoying glasses mirror

Okay,

For some reason the other day I decided to try a mirror, the kind on the glasses made the most sense to me but I cant for the life of me make it work right.

Eitehr I see my shoulder, or I see way off in the sky. how does one:

a) adjust the darn thing so it works (i/e do you stand there and line it up how exatly)
b) use it to see what is behind them (do you have to sit up, be in the drops, use one consistent head position, turn the head to the left, what)

I eagerly await your guidance :)

take care,

Jester

Imagine the rear-view mirror on your driver-side car door, assuming you drive.

To use it, you must (a) turn your head to look at a known point in space (where the mirror is) and (b) have adjusted the angle of the mirror so that when you look at it you achieve the desired view.

Using a glasses mirror is exactly the same, except that the mirror won't be at that point in space until you've moved your head the correct amount.

So it takes a little practice and tweaking. Try this:

Stop at a curb, put out your foot so that you remain vertical, and put yourself in your most-used riding position (on the hoods, usually).

Look straight ahead as you normally do.

Now turn your head about 45 degrees towards the mirror, and look at the mirror.

Adjust the mirror vertically until you can see the road behind you.

You may have to try 30 degrees, or 55 degrees, or whatever, so that you can see behind you without your shoulder blocking the view.

Once you've found the amount of head-turn and have the vertical adjustment, just practice for awhile. There's a point as you turn your head where your line of vision and the mirror converge to give you the desired view. It will become second nature to snap your head to that point.

Later, with even more practice, you'll find that you can not only snap to that view, but also then proceed to scan behind you with small head movements without thinking about it. You'll also find that you can find the rear view even if your riding on the tops or the drops.

Which mirror did you get?

RichC

Everything Rich said, but you'll also find that you can not only scan behind you, but the lanes on both your right and left if you're in a situation where traffic is on both sides, such as a through lane with a turning lane beside you. Just takes a little practice!

hey Jester, Rich is right ; once you get use to it you will never know how you got along without it....I would never have known how much it matters to see behind me. Have one and feels weird now to ride without it.