Originally Posted by
TimothyH
I'm very pleased with the lights on my bike as well as my cycling clothing in terms of visibility.
I wear Nathan reflective ankle bands when I ride at night and believe that they make a difference.
Bikes are standard road bikes. Riding is mostly suburban to rural, sunset toabout 10 PM.
What is the next step with regard to visibility at night? Would love to hear your reasonable suggestions.
Originally Posted by
Archwhorides
Great thread- lots of food for thought here, props all around! I particularly find comments regarding side visibility useful for improvement of my own setup.
+ 1 dittoes. I’m a decades long commuter through Metro Boston. Some additional comments I might add after skimming the thread:
One of my safety aphorisms is “Make yourself as visible as possible visible and assume nobody sees you.” Another one is “When riding at night, look for cars, not just headlights.” As a corollary to that, active illumination IMO is preferable to reflective gear. Indeed, I think the driver without headlights on is more likely a distracted driver.
Regarding overkill, the few instances I have encountered have been on MUPS with oncoming cyclists with blazing, blinding headlights. I often think that they believe a cone of light is a force-field that will protect them, even from oncoming cars, so the more the better. Here in Boston, most of my route is visible even with just ambient street illumination.
One other lighting feature I’ve looked for and even tried to fashion myself are illuminated ankle bands that would present a rotating lit motion low down to signal me as a cyclist. My attempt was to clip small lights onto an ankle band, but they fell off. Currently is a thread on the General Cycling Forum about those strap on C-cell battery-lights from the1970’s (see photos below).
Once while riding a switchback highway in Colorado in 1977, we came upon a snowshed at the beginning of the curve, a covering over a highway to divert avalanches. The interior was dark, so my wife insisted we stop and put on our anklelights. As we entered and followed the road curve, we saw that the shed was only about 100 feet long 
.
Finally, I recently bought a rear tail light with a laser guided bike lane. The rearward light is significantly brighter then the Planet Bike Flash I had, but the lateral laser lines are likely not readily visible to cars, and it was uniformly panned on that thread.
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 11-11-16 at 09:16 AM.