Hey, 'bout them blinkin' (extremely bright) front lights. I've been seeing quite a few of these recently, which prompted this post ...

Maybe there's a place for these on the road, but I see no reason for anyone to use them on the bike path.

1) They make it hard to ride in your direction on the bike path. I can see you just fine with a regular headlight. No reason to blind me.

2) They make it hard to identify your position. It's easy to track a solid moving light, hard to track a moving light that is flashing.

3) They are not visible between flashes. Not a problem on the straightaway, but when I'm going into a sharp turn, I may only have a moment to take my eyes off the path and check who is coming round the corner, and if I look during the moment your light isn't flashing, I can't see you. More than once I've come around a sharp corner, having checked for oncoming traffic, only to have someone's light suddenly flash at me. Very disconcerting.

But, in the spirit of openmindedness, and willingness to admit that I might be wrong, and figuring that if your really bright, blinking headlights actually do make you safer, then an even brighter, blinking headlight would make me even safer still, I've been thinking of buying a clear version of http://tinyurl.com/32xflc. I couldn't find anything brighter than a million candlepower. From what I hear, it only blinds oncomers temporarily :-)