Maybe this is an idea "whose time has come," since it's so hard for motorists to see us and recognize us. I had this exact idea only a week ago. Any ideas for how to do this reliably and moderately inexpensively?

Okay, you guys have convinced me to add a light up high on the helmet. I am leaning towards a second Danger Zone, since I think I could zip-tie the base to the helmet and just remove the front piece to change batteries. The fact that it uses AAA rechargeables is important to me. I keep a battery charger at my desk that charges AA's and AAA's, and I'm continually rotating batteries, keeping a log sheet, and generally geeking out on that stuff. I thought I would ask though, any other taillights that use AAA's that would be easy to ziptie to helmet and still be not difficult for changing batteries? I'm open to whatever works best for that application.

Also, agent pombero - that is a good idea with the Reflexite tape on the pannier sides. I should do that with my Ortlieb's. Does the tape hold up reasonably well to wear and tear? I'm not concerned with looks so much as safety. Any tips are useful, thanks.

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen something like this... done with a white light mounted on the very end of a rear rack and pointing forward and toward the back of the cyclist... so that is one way to do it.

Probably wouldn't hurt to put a bit of a stick there to raise the light (keep it out of the way of anything you are carrying on the rack), and you could mount a reflector and a blinkie aimed aft at the same time.

I use one light mounted on the rack, and I have a Blackburn flea, set to steady, that I mount higher, usually on the upper part of my Camelbak when I am using one, otherwise hanging off the seat. The times I have commuted in heavy traffic, I've added another blinky on top of my rack trunk.

400 lumen Cygolite up front and a 200 lumen on the helmet when commuting.

For side visibility, I have a flashing light on the fork, which lights up the spokes, and some of the high visibility yellow trouser bands wrapped in a few spots around my frame. A few other assorted bits of reflective bits as well.

I have two front lights, one blinking, one steady. Both on the handle bars. Since I ride a lot in urban traffic, with a lot of light from store fronts and street lamps, I found that a bright light is necessary to break through the light pollution.

What I have recently started is, pointing the steady light at me (and my reflective jacket). So far, I have gotten positive feed back. It changes how traffic sees me, not just two bright lights coming at you, but a clearly visible guy on a bike with a bright, reflective jacket.

Helium balloon? Then we'd really look like UFO's!

I think even a Puglsy with Helium filled tires, is still heavier than Air.

Yup, I like the idea above to use the rear rack light for illuminating cyclists back. Perhaps a light with two leds, one pointing forwards and another one towards the rear? For the front perhaps it makes sense to play a bit with a helmet or baseball cap visor.. Not sure.

I commute in particularly dark area where any light is better than no light. Damn, I have to try it. Cold white LED will give quite a ghosty appearance..

For the critical mass ride I may use examples from the wildlife....



Actually i like the OP's idea about vertical lights too, another day I met a couple of cyclists who had handlebar lights mounted over the fork mounted dynamo light. Simultaneous wobbling of the lights has definitely drawn my attention

+1. I've also noticed that two blinkies, one low and one high are most noticeable in urban traffic. I once followed a bicyclist who had a single blinkie on the back of his helmet. It was helpful, but I didn't notice it right away because my attention was lower, at car tail-light level. So I'd say having one at seatpost level is the most helpful position, followed by helmet, then all the rest of the possibilities for true UFO styling.

My three blinkies (two on rack, one on seatpost) are too close together. Time to get one on my helmet.

If you can do that and not go blind, or kill yourself by running into the back of a taxi because your pupils are the size of pinheads YOUR LIGHT ISN'T ******* BRIGHT ENOUGH!!! Stop the foolishness, buy two MagicShines, aim them the proper way, forwards, and call it good. You don't need to light up your reflective jacket, that's what the other guys headlights do. Trust me, they do a better job of it than your (obviously) underpowered 3AAA cheapo trashlight. And if he is playing bad boy and running lights out, he can't mistake two MagicShines for something he doesn't need to avoid if he is coming toward you, and if you have one or two decent flashers on your six, he won't have to run you over from behind either. No need to over-think nightime safety.

H

Yeah, +1, and don't forget to set one of those MS to a blinky mode and wait until you meet an epileptic driver...

Personally I haven't met an AA/AAA powered light that comes even close to matching the Li-ion powered ones for brightness or duration. I have 8 liion cells for my 3 lights. Two are single cell and the main light runs on 3 in parellel. It will run on one but if you get more than an hour on full output (700-900 lumen) you are lucky. However, if you run with 3 and set it to run at half power they last a loonnnggg time.

Reflective clothing?
Retroreflective tape on helmet?
I like passive solutions cause they don't put you completely at the mercy of batteries when touring. And if that stuff works good enough to keep motorists from hitting guardrails and construction barriers - its probably pretty visible.

Not a replacement for a headlight or tail-light but certainly will define a vertical shape.

I think the idea of shining a light on the rider's front has some merit, for at least one specific case (if not more) - for night riding when you are on the more major street with no STOP signs, and a motorist pulls up to a STOP sign on the minor street to your right and is considering pulling out. If it is just you, and there are no cars on your street, he has to see you by just your lights, because his headlights are pointing straight ahead across your road, not toward you. Retroreflective gear on you and the bike won't help much in that case because retroreflective gear reflects straight back at the light source, but his lights are not shining on you. I had a guy pull out in such a situation one night, and if I hadn't been wary and ready to brake, it could have been a crash. Yes, motorists should see you by just your lights (if any), but motorists make mistakes, and anything we can do to cut down on their mistakes is potentially helpful.

Honestly, one very bright front or very bright rear >>> multiple weak lights in an array. You just need one powerful rear like a Magicshine or a Dinotte, and you're impossible to miss at night by anyone actually even remotely looking at the road. (Still can get hit by a texter.)

If a motorist can't see you coming - then quite simply - your bike headlights are inadequate (to be polite) and aren't much good at lighting the road up for you either. Seriously - to oncoming traffic there's very little difference between a 3W unshielded LED and a 10W unshielded LED. But 3Ws doesn't light up much road.

Anyone driving with less than that has decorations - not lights.

I've too have done that for a few years. I use a Phillips Saferide on the bar, and a Cygolite Mitycross 480 on the helmet, along with a Serfas Thunderbolt headlight on flash mounted on the reflector stud. These are all in a straight vertical line.

Then on the rear I use Soma Road Flares in my bar ends, a Cygolite ExpiliOn 450 that I converted to a tail light by covering the lens with 3 layers of red tail light tape and it's fastened to the seat post (this makes one heck of a bright tail light), and a Cateye LD 600 on the helmet. The rear is forms a vertical line except the bar end lights spreads out horizontally as well, this I do in the hopes that the motorist will see that the object their approaching will appear a bit wider and thus maybe they will move over more.

A side note, on the rear I have the Soma Road Flares and the Cateye on flash mode but I put the Cygolite ExpiliOn on steady. I do this because a German study showed that a rear red steady light on a bike was safer, but USA study showed that a red flashing was safer, so I thought what the heck I'll do both! I have no evidence that proves that what I'm doing works better, but it just seems logical that it should work better due to the steady light allowing motorists to get a fix and a distance mental picture, while the flashing will attract their attention. Note too that I use a flasher on the front, again to attract attention.

Just to clarify, I am not pointing it into my eyes, but I am pointing it at my torso. The light I'm using has about 400 Lumens.

I night-ride in suburban/rural conditions. In town, traffic is held to 30mph in places, 45mph in others, in the unincorporated area between the three towns in my commute, traffic can hit 55 mph (and more). At any speed I might manage... even on my downhill runs, I am essentially stationary to an overtaking car. Any car that picks up my rear flasher will treat me exactly like he would treat a pedestrian walking in the shoulder. Pull over into the passing lane, or make no alteration to his path and blast by at speed if s/he is an *******. In any case s/he has seen me. That's what I wanted. Solid red vs flashing... give me flashing, thank you. Your batteries last much longer and the dazzle cannot be ignored by a driver the way a solid red can. Cars and even motorcycles can get away with solid red rear lights because there is so much more lit surface sending photons out than one tiny flasher can manage. Some motorcycle tailights go into a momentary flash mode when the rider applies the brakes. This acknowledges that the people who design and manufacture tail-lights know that flashing lights get attention. I was riding behind a cyclist whose flasher had such a slow period that he was invisible for whole seconds between light pulses. My PlanetBike strobes so quickly its never completely dark. IMO it has the best of both worlds. Steady and flashing at the same time if you can picture that. Still, I think the steady thing is over-rated, a driver doesn't need to know or care how fast you are travelling as a cyclist. You are essentially stationary as far as s/he is concerned. Works for me.

H

It wouldn't matter where I pointed my MagicShine. I could aim it at my feet, there is no way I could do with it what you are able to do with your trashlight. 400 lumens really isn't much light. For one thing ALL lights, even the "reputable" ones are generously over-rated by their manufacturers. I don't think I am too far off if I speculate that your light is actually only around 200 lumens. But lumens is just a number, the bottom line is: being anywhere on the business end of my light will result in vision loss. That's bright, that's what you want when you are tootling about in the dark.

I have just made a change in lighting as a result of some Christmas presents from my Sweets who apparently wants me to keep coming home alive after my night rides. I'm probably going to make an original thread about it but since we are on the subject: the single, most useful thing you could do with your headlight (besides buying a much brighter one) is to helmet mount it. I've completely ditched the 4AAA back-up light I used to run in flash mode and put two (2) second generation MagicShine's with the Cree emitters (1000 lumens) on the bars. I only run them both when I am between cities in the boonies. The old first generation Magic'Shine (900 lumens) I've moved to the helmet mount that was ordered with the new lights. Having a light that goes wherever you LOOK is amazing. It should be required, the way helmets themselves are, to have mountings for headlights built into them. I actually use the increased control I have over the beam to keep the light OUT of drivers' eyes! But if you want to get their attention, just passing the beam quickly over a drivers face will do more to alert him or her to your presence than any attempts you might make with reflective clothing. Not that I don't wear reflective clothing. I do. But I don't make any attempt to illuminate it.

H

I have a Cygolite Expillion 700.
Like I said, I don't ride in the dark, but on an urban street at night with lots of lights (head lights, street lights, lights from shops etc).
My theory was that adding just two lights to the mix, don't actually give you the maximum visibility. You want people to see you, not just your lights. It's something I am trying, let's see how it works. So far so good.

From the front facing back at you or from behind?
My biggest concern is being visible by overtaking traffic on the higher speed (45mph), one lane, no shoulder, no bike lane road that i'm first thing in the morning (now dark) and last thing in the afternoon/evening (again this time of year it's dark).
I've thought about doing the same except positioning the light on the rear rack, facing forward and up to shine on my back/helmet. Kind of a rear "uplight".
I don't know if it would prove worthwhile or not but I have considered it.

On the original topic, I already run a blinkie on my helmet, a blinking tailight on the rear rack and usually I run the tailight on the fender on steady.

From the front facing back (at front torso).

But I like your idea of the rear uplight.

But unlike you I am dealing with slow moving traffic and just want to avoid being left hooked or missed if somebody comes from a side street turning onto my street.

Dionote has been spot on recently about their #s according to testing on MBTR.

400 lumens is plenty for the vast majority of night riding, even going 20mph. (Probably not a 25mph descent, though.)

I love superlumens as much as the next guy, but after about 500 lumens, it's as bad as a car high beam for oncoming traffic since there's no cutoff filter. Not as big a deal if you're a lone rider in low-traffic area, but if you start seeing even a few people with superlumens on a trafficked street, it gets downright obnoxious.

I'd say that 200 lumens (Fenix L2d flashlight) is probably the minimal you can use for respectable night time riding. You can do it on less, but it's a lot more dicey. At 200 lumens, you can at least see a short distance ahead.