Originally Posted by
AzTallRider
I'm a minimalist when it comes to lighting night time activities. There is so much ambient light in the cities, that I try to rely on that as much as possible for seeing, and use my bike lights to make sure I am being seen. I generally have my headlight set to blinking for that reason. I take the same approach hiking, and even scuba diving, at night. If there is ambient light, either natural or created by all the heavily lighted people around me, I do my best to use that light, and to allow my eyes to adjust as fully as possible.
With all due respect, this seems dangerous to me. My commute is one-half on unlit roads (truly and completely dark) and one-half "city" conditions. When I am in the "city" part of my commute I see lots of cyclists using "be seen" headlights and they are very hard to spot. The problem is that there is a lot of other lighting in these conditions - car headlights, store signs, etc. The cyclists with little blinkies on just blend right in. I think you're very exposed to cars doing "left hooks" in front of you w/out really great lighting in city conditions.