Not everyone has your options. For example,some people live in areas infested by goatheads. Other people have to live farther from work because they can't afford a place near their job. Not everyone has the option to pick a perfect storm of equipment,roads,distance,and transit options.

BTW,I'm pretty sure I'm not putting words in your mouth. Unless something in the bolded section got lost in translation,you're saying it's people's own fault if they get flats because they live in the wrong place. I'm fairly certain that ease of bike commuting isn't the only thing that factors into where people live.

That would've looked awesome on my desk at work. :D

I fully agree with your statement about that not being "etiquette", but I don't think EVERYONE on this side of the pond thinks that is OK.

I for one am very against the ideal of a 1000 lumen helmet mounted light for commuting. I do agree with many valuable aspects for having a helmet mounted light, but mine is MUCH less powerful then that 250 on high and I think 125 on low - I almost always have it on low but the optics on it are really good). I try to avoid shinning it in a drivers face, but sometimes shining it at their car can get them to look in your direction when they don't see you. This has probably prevented some driver from rolling through a 4 way stop right into me a couple of times.

In general, I don't think 1000+ lumen lights, used on high at least, are really very good etiquette at all if you are near other people. I use my light on low and medium more then half the time and it is plenty bright for people to see me and me to see in most situations (at 700 lumens on high)

I'd agree with BF that more lighting is better, for two reasons. I wear goggles during the Winter, which have a slight tint that reduces the effectiveness of my bike light. I also wear goggles in the rain, and in the rain at night, visibility is obviously worse. The second reason is that I want to be irritating to DRUNK or IMPAIRED drivers. For example, someone who is texting might only look up from their cell phone occasionally for one second. If I'm obnoxiously bright, I can grab their attention from a distance. Instead of when they're driving up next to me then suddenly look up and THEN see me. I can come up with all kinds of scenarios, but hopefully everyone gets the gist of it.. The purpose of lighting in my opinion is to defend against drunk/impaired drivers, extreme weather conditions that make you less visible, etc.

Don't really get many drunk drivers this way. Riding a bike drunk is also a punishable offence here.

"Etiquette" does little good when you are run over by a car. BTW my 1000 lumens are on the bar. It is hard to describe the arrogant, self important and down right dangerous attitude held by Ma$$hole drivers. ( That's drivers from the state of MA) My helmet light has saved me many times. I'm not fortunate to pedal in a utopian bike friendly area. Passed on blind corners in a 20mph, on the left, on the right, at stop signs, next to stopped school buses and on sidewalks. You name it, nothing surprises me any more. Don't get me started on ipod zombies on the bike path or taxi drivers. My safety comes first.

I know M*******s, I grew up in Maine.

Ah England, that "clean and pleasant land", where there are no drunk drivers:rolleyes: Except the roughly 83,000 (out of a population of 59 million) who are arrested and convicted yearly. But at least it's not the bad ol' US is it?

By the way, riding a bicycle under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a punishable offense in all 50 states of the US as well.

I don't know if you really believe the stuff you post or if you are just a naive newbie or some kind of troll but your posts are just full of silliness.

1. I'm glad you can live within walking distance of your work. Do you live within walking distance of everywhere you ride? Never ride outside of that 10km radius? That's rather limiting.

2. Did you choose your route based on always having a fully lighted cycle path/cycle land for your commuting route? Or did you just luck into it? Should I, and others, not ride a bike to work until bike paths and bike lanes have been fully implemented, lighted and swept to clean room standards? That could be a very long wait.

Bike paths (which I avoid at night for reasons already posted) here in the US tend to be along greenspaces. Fully lighting them plays havoc with wild life that need the dark to live which is yet another reason that I avoid bike paths at night. They are wild life corridors.

3. Why not ride a unicycle? That's about as minimal as you can get. On the other hand, stuff happens. The world is full of hazards and equipment can fail without notice.

4. Who said that my bikes aren't in good working order? I know more about bicycles and how to keep them running than many paid bicycle mechanics. I've even taught someone who is now a paid mechanic...and a good one. But that doesn't keep things from happening that I may not have control over. For example, years ago a chain manufacturer had problems with their quality control which lead to very frequent chain breakage. Until the problem became known, many people used the chains and had them break. They had no control over the problem and just had to live with the consequences.

Flats are a similar problem over which people have little or no control. You can use the best tire on the planet, you can keep them inflated, you can avoid road debris as much as possible, and you can ride as short a distance as possible but you will experience a random flat event at some point in your life. You can't avoid it. It has nothing to do with distance or choices or the weather or the alignment of the stars. Just because you have gone 5000km (a relatively short distance) without a flat has no bearing on when or whether you'll get a flat. I've gone for thousands of miles without a flat. And I've gone for hundreds of feet between flats. They are completely random and totally unpredictable.

And, as dynarider pointed out, if you live where plants have sharp points, your likelihood of a flat is much, much higher. I suppose I could wait until the problem of plants with sharp points has been eliminated but, again, that a long time to wait.

A fixed gear...single speed is kind of redundant:rolleyes:...isn't perfect, either. Fixing the gear puts a lot of stress on chains, chain wheels, cogs and wheels.

5. Really? You've never in your life dropped something. Never gotten into a bag to pull out an item and something else came with it? Is everything on the inside of your backpack on lanyards?

Bikelot is a wonderful place where there are no drunk drivers, no distracted drivers, with well lit bike paths leading everywhere you need to go, swept clean by elves, having many friendly places to fix your bike in the unlikely event of a breakdown, and alternate transportation readily available.

Actually, in bikelot, we pay chronic alcoholics in beer to clean the streets. It's cost effective.

We think that rest of the world should abandon its political correctness and adopt the same approach.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25548061

edit: I like the German response to the program (Das ist nicht so gut!): http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-934916.html

1. This is a commuting forum.

2. Yes, when you move as much as I do, you learn what you like.

3. Too slow.

4. FGSS isn't redundant; the bike has a flip-flop rear hub.

5. No. My SO dropped my dSLR in Tuscany and once in Latvia. Otherwise, I've never dropped anything. No, I'm very careful about stuff going inside/outside of my backpack.

Two other reasons to wear a light on your head. One of them involves etiquette.

Picture this: I'm riding on a very dark MUP, and an approaching cyclist or pedestrian is holding his hand up trying to block the light. I can simple cover my bar light and look down, and have plenty of light for the time it takes to get past them. Or ideally, before I blind them.

Secondly, it's twice the light on the deserted dark path.

OK, perhaps I'm not acclimated to NA infrastructure.

I don't remember the last time I rode on an non-illuminated cyclepath. Even the XC ski paths in Stockholm had "street lighting."

With a dynamo based light and cutoff is should be a hassle.

However, I do accept that being able to turn the head away is good etiquette, thanks for pointing that out.

:thumb:

One other benefit to helmet+ bar light, depth perception. 2 lights are much better for seeing rocks and pothole type stuff. More suitable for off road as well.

Ok, at $17 and change plus free prime shipping I decided to order one. Of course a day later I look again and the price is down to $16.50!!

I figure worse case this is a light for my beater bike I sometimes ride around town and lock up.

I also ordered one of those wide angle adaptors that many reviewers seem to rave about and I wonder how many people use them for these lights.

Relevant to the OP question, it seems that a combo of a wide angle and a more of a spot light could be a very effective combo. It also seems like projecting the light wide but not high would be very useful as if angled down slightly it will light up a wise section of the road in front of you without throwing two much light in others faces. This could then be supplemented with a narrower, focused beam pointing further ahead (bar or helmet mounted).

Anyone use such a setup? Thoughts?

I wound up getting a Niterider Lumina 650 for the handlebar (discounted at REI, but with no helmet mount). My plan is to get a helmet mount for the Lumina 500 and try that combo. The extra lumens of the 650 have made a difference already. Most of the other cyclists I see on MUP's have pretty bright lights and don't make efforts to shield them. Though, I'm doing a "reverse" commute, so most cyclists are coming toward me on my ride home. On a couple small paths next to roads, I do worry a bit that my lights might be distracting for drivers coming toward me. I've been trying to angle the light aways a bit from oncoming traffic. That is easier than shielding it with my hand or trying to change light settings while riding.

I am increasingly annoyed by pedestrians out on paths at night with no lights, no reflective clothing, often jogging with earphones in... Sometimes, they are even in the bike lane on the street, on curvy roads... I can only conclude that they are looking for "suicide by bike." I'm spending a lot of money and time on my light set up to try and not hit them, seems like they could at least put a couple reflective stickers on their jacket or something.

The Light & Motion Vis 360 seems like a great helmet option, though it seems like a hassle to mount the light and a bulky battery pack onto a helmet. The Niteriders take about six hours to charge via USB at night, but I like the fact that there is no battery pack. The wide angle lens looks interesting too. I'm using a carbon fiber road bike for commuting right now and the dynamo system isn't going on that. When I win the lottery and have a big stable of bikes to choose from and a place to store them all... I will have a dedicated commuter with a dynamo set up.

Actually, it's not, unfortunately. Here in Washington state, for example, bicyclists are specifically exempt from DUI laws. A law enforcement officer may offer a drunk cyclist a ride, with their bike, to a safe location. If the officer believes safety requires impounding the bike, the rider can get it back, when sober, at no fee.

There are at least five states with bicycle exemptions to drunk driving laws. The idea, in part, was to make bicycling an attractive alternative to driving drunk. Drunk cyclists are mostly a danger to themselves, at least compared to drunk motorists.

Washington's version says:

"(1) A law enforcement officer may offer to transport a bicycle rider who appears to be under the influence of alcohol or any drug and who is walking or moving along or within the right-of-way of a public roadway, unless the bicycle rider is to be taken into protective custody under RCW 70.96A.120. The law enforcement officer offering to transport an intoxicated bicycle rider under this section shall:
(a) Transport the intoxicated bicycle rider to a safe place; or
(b) Release the intoxicated bicycle rider to a competent person. (2) The law enforcement officer shall not provide the assistance offered if the bicycle rider refuses to accept it. No suit or action may be commenced or prosecuted against the law enforcement officer, law enforcement agency, the state of Washington, or any political subdivision of the state for any act resulting from the refusal of the bicycle rider to accept this assistance.
(3) The law enforcement officer may impound the bicycle operated by an intoxicated bicycle rider if the officer determines that impoundment is necessary to reduce a threat to public safety, and there are no reasonable alternatives to impoundment. The bicyclist will be given a written notice of when and where the impounded bicycle may be reclaimed. The bicycle may be reclaimed by the bicycle rider when the bicycle rider no longer appears to be intoxicated, or by an individual who can establish ownership of the bicycle. The bicycle must be returned without payment of a fee. If the bicycle is not reclaimed within thirty days, it will be subject to sale or disposal consistent with agency procedures.”

Niterider Luminas seem like really good lights. I have a Lumina 700 which works really well at night (not sure why they offer a 700 and 650 unless there are other differences between them).

I agree about the ninja pedestrians on bike paths. I also have almost run into a jogger on a bike lane on a very busy road on my commute. He was running against traffic of the bike lane. Ironically there is a very wide sidewalk right next to that he could run on, but it can get crowded so I guess he decided more fun to dodge oncoming bikes then other peds on the sidewalk.

One consideration of L&M Vis 360 for commuting vs something like your lumina is that it is a headlight AND rear tail light. the battery pack is the tail light and the total packages is comparable in weight to other options, but spread out more evenly on the helmet. I don't even notice it is there on my head. Rear light up high is great to get drivers attention, and can be turned off if you are somewhere that you don't want that (trails, etc).

LEOs in Washington can also hold an intoxicated person in protective custody for up to 8 hours under that state's public intoxication laws.

I have a feeling, though, that getting drunk and trying to ride a bicycle is a mostly self policing act the world over.