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.

+10; thanks for that story. As much as I post advocating a mirror, I’ve never suggested that rationale. I have on occasion imagined the satisfaction, if someone was buzzing me, to avoid their pass and perhaps they would crash as I suddenly stopped; like the skateboard scene in Back to the Future.

I think that the malicious/psychotic fraction of motorists is really small, and likely correlates with location and/time of day. But under the circumstances described, I’m sure a rearview mirror affords an element of surprise unsuspected by an assailant. Otherwise we are pretty vulnerable.

FWIW, my door zone rule is, "Like a gun, assume every stopped car (parked or at a traffic stop) is loaded, with an occupant ready to open the door." A rearview mirror promotes taking the lane.

I used the mirrycle until it broke off my shifter. Looking at that arm mirror. For now I have a bar end mirror on my drop bars.

First commute with it and I LOVE IT! What was I thinking???? I put it on my drops (bar end) and would glance down to watch any movement behind me. Great stuff!