I have the same problem as Alanknm in that Im legally blind in my left eye and it doesn't correct very well. helmet and glasses mounted mirrors are not going to work for me. I use one of those small mirrors that mount into the end of the bar on my Tarmac, and like it a lot.

The end of the handlebar route sounds like the right way to go for me.

The glasses or helmet mount sounds like a non-starter. I also have this vision of swatting the whole works off my head when the bugs are out in the summer. :lol:

I lost a pair of prescription sunglasses in the lake once when I was fishing. My wife hauled in a pike that was flopping like crazy. The fish smacked me in the face, 3 treble barbed hooks on the plug whistled past my ear and plunk ! There go my glasses ! :notamused:

I've kept my glasses on a chain or a string around my neck ever since then.

Another vote for the Take-A-Look. Both my wife and I use them, except we mount them to the helmet rather than glasses.

Of course, pro cyclists have to be careful where they spit or launch snot rockets, for fear of someone collecting it and sending it to a testing lab.[/QUOTE]


:roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2:

Sounds like an episode of CSI.

I agree with the Italian Road Bike Mirror, Have it on both my roadies, tried lots of others, settled on it because it performed the best for me.

Just so the OP knows, there are some of us out there who are perfectly comfortable using our hearing and ability to look behind ourselves to know what is overtaking us. I know that the day will come when I will either lose enough hearing or get significantly less flexible and then I will join the ranks of the mirror users.

I do wonder why so many of the people who have mirrors on their bikes/helmets/glasses don't seem to look in them. I regularly overtake people who are surprised by my presence and I wonder why they didn't see me. Maybe mirrors don't work so well for seeing cyclist-sized objects?

I've had good luck with the Third Eye Bar End Mirror. http://www.3rd-eye.com/%2809%29.htm. They're a bit larger than the aero type mirrors. They afford me a fairly wide view of the road.

I don't really look in my mirror a lot when I'm riding unless I am planning to move in some direction other than straight ahead. I'll occasionally glance at it on long straights to see if someone is coming up behind me but not often.

My main reason for using the mirror instead of turning my head is that, around here anyway, a glance to the left seems to signal to drivers that I'm about to jump out in front of them. They will often change speeds or lanes to avoid me (even though I've made no move yet). Instead, I use the mirror until I see the break I need then I do a quick head check to make sure I didn't miss anything and go. Much easier for me to time things without freaking out drivers coming up behind me especially when I'm needing to cross 4 lanes of 50 MPH traffic to get to a turn lane.

Wow, that's awesome that the motorists are so attentive and courteous where you live. I sometimes think my class 3 flagger jacket is really an invisibility cloak. (Someone else wrote a letter to the editor here last year with the same observation.)

I have tried several times to use my Take a Look, mirror, I just can't use it. I have bar end mirrors on my road bikes, and would hate to have to give them up.

That's pretty much the way I use a mirror too.

A Motorcycle Safety Foundation instructor here described a mirror as having a one word vocabulary. It can only say "No". If the road behind looks clear in the mirror, you still need to turn your head and do a visual check before changing lanes.

My choice also. DO Not waste your $ on the $6 Topeak bar end mirror at Wally World. Junk, the mirror adhesive is crap and you will loose your mirror to the road.

Thanks everyone! Great ideas. I didn't realize they made ones for the end of the handlebars.

When I was a MSF Instructor we used to call it "the look that saves." You take that look because there are blind spots in mirrors not to replace mirrors. Thanks to a "career" of HS and college football neck injuries exacerbated by a motorcycle crash in 2001, I have no choice but to use a mirror on my road bike. I also do my best to use "the look that saves."

It's apples and oranges. You need to "take the look that saves" on a motorcycle (and in cars) because the mirrors are fixed and give limited fields of view. With an eyeglass or helmet mounted mirror, the fov is wide (the angle subtended by the mirror with it being so close to the eye is large) and you can easily scan the view by rotating your head , so there are no blind spots. And the image is one-to-one, not demagnified as with the typical convex motorcycle mirrors. I'm a very experienced motorcycle rider...even rode a Harley once or twice ;-).

That's pretty much the line in the UK too for motorcycles ... I do use a Take-A-Look on occasions, but never forget to actually look behind. A mirror is only a guide.

If you have difficulty turning your head, leaning forward and looking back helps.

Or look back through the gap between the arm and torso.

I use that type of mirror too. I started wearing one 7 years ago after I noticed others in the club using them. I dont like to ride without one now.

I use that as well (much better than my third eye mirror that clips to my glasses) and like it a lot, but I should have the mirrors that fit into the bar ends at the bottoms of the drops waiting for me at home tonight and I'm anxious to try those especially for the rides in which I don't want to use my glasses.

Their "courtesy" is far from helpfull and has landed me in dangerous situations too often. When you are making a lane change and a car suddenly hits the brakes and blocks your path of travel because "OMG, there is a bicycle on the roadway!", I'd settle for invisibility.

+1000

I have one of the bar-end mirrors but it just kind of plugs into the handlebar plug that comes with it, and every time I hit a bump, even a small one, it bounces down and out of position.

Has anyone found a way to keep the bar-end mirror in position? I tried using some of that gritty stuff that you put between two carbon fiber components, and that helped a little, but I still need a real solution to the problem. Any suggestions short of gluing it in place?

Rick / OCRR

I've heard that wrapping the ball that you put into the cup of the bar end in duct tape makes it s very tight fit and doesn't allow it to jostle much. I'm waiting to see how it goes when I install mine (might be a while as I'm putting new brakes on and that'll require re-wrapping the bars after I redo the cables.

All of these posting are useful indeed and a fish story to boot. Thanks!