Well...after reading this thread and getting pretty tired of being surprised what shows up next to me, especially the electric cars (I don't hear them at all!)...I opted for this one. I am not sure how well a mirror on my head would work while riding through traffic. At least now, I am hoping I can mount this thing somewhere to help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=366433

Electric cars? if you listen while riding you can hear the sound of the tires on the pavement, this is true with any car. Having said that, I'm in no way arguing against using a mirror, I use one, just saying people maybe need to pay more attention to their surroundings, it's amazing the stuff you can hear...assuming your hearing is not impaired of course.

Slight hearing loss, yeah, its kind of busy on the 4 lane roads, I can hear the tires, but just get surprised when they show up next to me. I usually glance around and assume the noise is from the 2nd lane and not on my ass. I need to assume less :)

I just never thought about throwing a mirror along with all the other stuff I have on. We'll see :) . I noticed in some reviews that the helmet mounts don't work too well when on a road bike. I am going to look around here and see if I spot someone using a helmet mirror.

I am also looking forward to seeing a drafter behind me. When I am on the bike trail, I get into that zone and can't stand when I go to avoid something in the road and hear "WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!" Well...get the hell off my ass man...I'll save that for another thread though :)

What mirror do you have?

I ride a road bike almost exclusively and use a helmet-mounted mirror. I just adjust it to be able to see from my normal position on the hoods. If I'm in the drops and looking ahead I can still usually see what's behind me.

With a bike-mounted mirror, you're only going to see what you can see in the mirror's field of view. With the mirror attached to your head in some way, you can scan around and see a much wider field of view behind you.

I have the Take A Look sunglass mounted mirror. Keep in mind mirrors have a small image area, I use it only to get an idea if something is behind me and if I need to I use my head to turn and look to get a better view. Even when I drive a car I don't rely on mirrors, I use the mirrors all the time, but I also turn my head to look out windows to make sure where things are...I simply carried on that same habit with the mirror on my glasses when I ride. It's just double checking stuff.

Good stuff, thanks guys! Looks like I am adding another mirror to my list :)

I use a Mountain Myrricle clamped under the brake hood. I can see behind me as far as the terrain allows. The blind spot is very small, almost non-existent. I do turn my head to check it but moving my head a few inches to one side does the trick also. Heck, If i move enough, I can see the opposite side of my handlebars. My mirror is way more effective than turning my head.

Mirror position is very important. The same mirror at the end of drop bars would be too close and low. On wide straight bars, it would be too far to the side.

I once saw a car coming behind so I went on the other side of construction cones. The car swerved at the last second and barely missed the cones. As the car passed, I saw a woman with a blackberry on her knees...

It's also useful to do my make-up at stop lights. Don't wan't lipstick all over my beard.

I use a mirror while riding my bike, I prefer a helmet mounted mirror. I use the Safe Zone mirror, mine is still rock solid and going strong after three years of nearly daily use. I really like this mirror because it is larger than all the other helmet mounted mirrors I've seen and so has a nice big field of view. It's also super adjustable, thanks to the design of the arm of it.

Maybe it's just because I use the Safe Zone mirror that has a big field of view, but mine kind of sits at the edge of my vision so I'm basically always getting input from it. If I know I want to change lanes and traffic isn't thick, two solid glances into it for maybe a second each, separated by a second or two, confirm that there isn't a car coming up behind me. I actually don't look over my shoulder very often anymore. Only once have I definitely had it save me from being run over, a large delivery truck was driving in the bike lane behind me and I was able to swerve over into a bus stop before he hit me. But the reason I wouldn't ride without one is how much easier it has made lane changes for me, especially multiple lane changes, like to get over to a left hand turn lane.

I ride with an eyeglasses-mount mirror. 6 years now. Wasn't happy with others (T-a-L, 3rdi) so I made my own,
pictured here. If this style mirror is your choice, please copy the design.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=366598

Interesting.... but keeping my cycling shorts tan line sharp is enough of a challenge for me. I don't need a new tan line.

Only because my neck doesn't operate to factory spec. .... I use a mirror attached to my cycling glasses. But the neck exercises really have helped. I had tried a few different bicycle mounted mirrors... but they seemed to get out of whack or be vibrating badly when needed.

I used to use take a look went to this https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stead...69220889783608 about 5 years ago. I clip it to the visa of my helmet.

I tried the same but I had mixed results. The one I tried didn't have a wide enough view angle and I couldn't get comfortable with it helmet mounted. But it did work when I attached it to my fairing (you'd have to see pictures to visualise it) because for some reason moving my head relative to the mirror mitigated that. Do you have a more wide angle one?

The chance that an upcoming car is coming to hit you, as you approach an obstacle is much much less than the chance that you are approaching an obstacle, and have no idea what’s coming up from behind, especially on a heavily traveled, perhaps narrow road. Without a mirror one can:

1. depend their hearing, which may not well discriminate the position of an upcoming car with a lot of background noise, and still keep their eye on the obstacle
   
   
2. turn your head as quickly as possible to minimize losing sight of the obstacle, and hope your quick glance with mostly peripheral vision adequately assesses your behind, and does not cause you to drift leftwards as you rotate your torso

With a mirror one can listen, glance behind without rotation, keep control of the forward direction, keep the head looking forward toward the obstacle, and only require a shift of the eyes.

Furthermore, I'm usually monitoring traffic behind me to minimize surprises.

You should be scared and it's going to help keep you from serious injury. Removing the mirror only masks the danger and does not make it safer. What should make you scared is the sound of fast moving engine right behind you and not having a clue as to what the driver is doing. That scares me alot more.

Jim, I think we're mostly in agreement on +/-'s of using mirrors. My point was to admit that I find the mirror's information limited and distracting. YMMV, of course.
If there was a digital camera showing me a full and complete view of what's behind me on a handlebar monitor, I believe I would not use it for the same reason.

(BTW: I, like you, was hit from behind and did see it in my mirror. Luckily, I was not hurt badly. Your point about PTSD, may explain my wanting to remove that mirror. :()

Thanks for your reply, but IMO using a mirror is a ++++/-0.001 situation (-0.001 = the risk of eye injury in a fall, with an eyeglass mounted mirror).

It may well be that I find the use of a rearview mirror to be second nature with a totally adequate field of view. Occasionally subscribers post to mirror threads that they can't get the hang of it. If you do have to concentrate on using a mirror, indeed that may be distracting, but I would recommend practicing under otherwise safe conditions.

And another thing...one advantage of helmet and eyeglass mirrors over handebar and frame-mounted ones is to allow you to change riding position, like standing on the pedals, without losing rearward vision.

What are your opinions on rear-facing cameras? Ever tried one?

These http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=366618 give an adequate view with the right glasses, after you get used to them. I can't get used to the blocked spot in peripheral vision though. I'll bet that the normal helmet mounted mirrors have the same issue.

I'm going to give this a shot. http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=366619 No risk of eye injury, no blocking of vision!

As a matter of fact, I did one time set up a regular backup camera with the display mounted on the handlebars. The image was OK for using it instead of a mirror (if your eyes are good enough), but both the camera and display had other issues that pretty much rendered it useless. Higher quality equipment might overcome the issues but then you'd be talking about real money.

No opinion, never considered one, and I think that would be more distracting than useful. A forward facing camera would be fun, though.

I have seen threads about using a camera to record incidents, and it seems they don't always capture the incident, or identifying characteristics of the offender reliably. FWIW.

Being scared doesn't help. If a driver is really going to hit me, I have no time to react - especially the way people drive in my city - 90% of them swerve at the last moment.

Yesterday, after sending a couple posts to this thread about mirrors, I was riding my bike home on a Saturday afternoon going into twilight, with the usual auto traffic and had this further thought. While riding a narrow, moderately busy road, I glanced at my mirror and saw no traffic behind me for a stretch of several hundred yards. I suddenly realized that I had a temporary respite from traffic and my level of bliss while cycling was transiently tweaked to a higher-level with that reassurance.

I think that likely in every cyclist’s mind while riding on the road there is that subtle, perhaps unconscious apprehension that a car can impact from behind, particularly with the newest added danger of texting. So knowing that everything is free and clear behind you allows you to enjoy the ride more.

In the mid 70’s I worked nights in downtown Milwaukee, 5 pm to 12:45 am. I wore a glasses mounted mirror, as I was riding home at 1 in the morning I noticed a pickup coming off a side street and it started following me. As it got closer it started getting closer to the side of the road nearer to me. I noticed a spot up ahead where I could pull in between parked cars and pulled in as it passed me.

When it went by a guy was leaning out the window hanging onto the side mirror with a baseball bat in his hand. Luckily they just kept going.

I will never ride without a mirror.

This is one thing the non-mirror users don't experience. You see a lot of them riding in the door zone hoping they won't get hit. Someone posted a study months ago how a significant number of serious injuries came from motorist coming from behind.

Of all the "mirror stories" that I've read, which is quite a few, this one will definitely stick with me. Thanks curly666.