Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
I have a Blackburn bar end mirror on one of my bikes and it is never in quite the right position to see what I want to see. I have learned to instinctiely roll my handgrip forward or backward to get the right angle. There is just enough squish in the handgrip and mirror mount to fine tune the view to perfection.
That sounds to me like the Blackburn mirror isn't stable enough. That's a huge advantage of the German mirror; it's easy to adjust and stays where I put it. I've used it on century rides and it stays aligned the whole time.
Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
I don't think the hand mirror would replace a helmet mirror but it could. For one thing, even with your hands on the bars the mirror would be closer to your eyepoint than a mirror 4" below handlebar level. Enough to matter. Next you can easily take your hand off the bar or twist your wrist this way and that.
So long as you have a primary mirror (like your helmet mirror) then maybe the hand mirror could supplement that. It just seems to be a bad idea to have to compromise my hand positioning every time I need to look in the mirror.
Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
You, like many on this forum, consider a mirror to be a passive warning device that is constantly monitoring your rear end and ready to warn you of imminent danger. I disagree. A mirror is useless until it is looked at. Whether you look at it as part of a regular 360* scan or as a status check before an offensive maneuver like a lane change or overtake, the mirror cannot provide any useful information until your attention is focused on it.
I'm not sure where you made this assumption! My mirror is part of my constant scan. My scan was developed as a cockpit scan from when I flew jets for the Air Force, and as a motorcyclist I practice a very active scan.
Perhaps that's why I like the German mirror; it's big and in a similar location to a motorcycle mirror. I also change my front brake to be operated by the right lever, just like on my motorcycle. Consistent muscle memory is important!
Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
I consider myself reasonably acronym proficient. What is ATMO pray tell, I need to add that one to my lexicon. If you get from this that I think the snowmobile mirror is an underrated method of checking behind you would be correct. And, FWIW, the price in that link is especially attractive. I have seen them for twice that price plus shipping.
H
ATMO is an acronym coined by the master frame builder, Richard Sachs. It stands for According To My Opinion. It's basically the same thing as IMHO, but makes no assumption that the speaker is actually humble (Sachs definitely isn't!). Just a more bike-geek oriented acronym.
Cheers,
Tim