When I said reflectors, I was including the leg bands, the tape on my helmet, various parts of my bike, and backpack.

I don't rely on those, but consider them to be additive to the lights. In this case, my light was failing me and and I'm not sure how my reflective material was performing.

While I'll admit that's a really bright light, I don't like the separate battery bag or the cost. The RadBot 1000 is supposed to be as bright as a car tail light, and based on the one I have, it is plenty bright enough. The two will be for redundancy.

Actually the new Cygolite Hotshot is brighter then the RadBot, as is the Light and Motion Vis 180. I haven't seen any comparison of the HotShot vs the Vis 180 because the Hotshot is to new yet.

Unless I'm missing something, they have short run times and I can't change batteries mid-ride.

For good perceptibility, pulsing backlights will be irritatingly more visible and run a lot longer. Put them on tip of "safety sticks"(*) right and left, and you're done. Those sticks wobble and bounce as you go, making the pulsing lights even more visible.

(*) Horizontally mounted flimsy flagsticks of around 1 meter, to keep passing cars away.

There's a pretty sizeable & vocal contingent of cycling activists who will tell you that an oncoming driver's depth perception is less accurate when fixating on a flashing light; it's much easier for cars to judge their distance from you when your light is always on, not blinking.

For this reason, I try to use a combination of steady & blinking lights: Blinking so I can be "irritatingly" visible, and steady so they can figure out how far they are from the irritatingly visible guy and not run him over.

Given that the decent blinking rear lights will get noticed from vast distances even in daylight, I find the hypothetical depth-perception benefit (if it really existed) is a moot point. Getting on the radar early, before they resume looking down at the text message they're composing on their cell phone, is the main concern, and that's best done with blinking mode :thumb:

Seriously, I have no problem assessing the range of a taillight like a SuperFlash at distances approaching 1/2 mile. I can't see through anyone else's eyes, but is it really a problem for any of you? By the time I'm anywhere close, I've already been watching them for quite a while, it's not like WHOA, ALL OF A SUDDEN HE IS ONLY 100 FEET AWAY, HOW ON EARTH DID HE GET THERE?!?!1

Guess I should add that in my firsthand experience riding divided 4-lane highways, people see my all-blinking bike and change to the left lane at long range, like >1/4 mile. I even have some video footage demonstrating that. Getting noticed trumps everything else, IMO:


At about 1/2 mile out (about halfway through the video), if my lights weren't flashing, I think many overtaking motorists would not conciously take note of them. And that's the range where a semi driver would probably start assessing his zones to make a lane change and stay away from me.

One of the rules for doing Randonneurs is that the bike needs to have a fender mounted taillight. For my application i.e. Fender mount, steady state and to comply with the reflector rule most states have PDW Radbot 1000 rear light narrows my options I also like using a rear light during the day

From the RAO Rule book

1. Bicycles ridden at night must be equipped with a front light visible and operating from 100 meters (300ft.) and steady-state (not-blinking) rear red light or incandescent red light visible from 150 meters (500ft.).
2. Reflective tape or plastic reflectors must be installed on the back of pedals, cranks, seat stays, wheels, and forks.
3. Night riding shall be considered that time of day between 7:00PM and 6:00AM and at any time when automobiles would normally have their headlights on. If you have any doubt about the visibility conditions, operate as if it is night time.

A friend of mine used to call the number shown on the TV ad to buy a clapper. He told them he put a clapper on his TV and asked them to stop playing the commercial because it would shut off his TV.

Given the very, very short runtime on the Radbot 1000, you'd better bring along your spare AAAs and Phillips screwdriver ;) As a practical alternative, consider the Planet Bike BRT-5, which is a legit reflector and reasonably good light with better runtime.

So ! Thats a WMD ? Luminous, luminary, luminosity and the individual lumen all represented in the photo. Kinda like a day at the beach watching Jaws

I am researching that now. The fender mount is a different light than the standard Radbot 1000, http://www.ridepdw.com/goods/lights/fenderbot%E2%84%A2 , I will need to send an email about the fenderbot and changing battteries

From what i can tell the BRT-5 mounts on the rack . Yes i will use that on the rack but it doesn't work on the fender

OK! I found a review http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/2010/0...ot-review.html

One screw to loosen to change batteries . I like that idea at least until i need to change batteries in the rain

agreed....if a person needs lighting advice, Mech's the man.

rolling on the floor

n + 1

If you leave the Cygolite on steady it will burn for 4.5 hours, on flash it will run for 300 hours...so how long do you ride in one night? for 300 hours? The L & M one will only burn for 4 hours on high and 8 hours on pulse...again, how long do you need it for in one night? Both of those lights are rechargable, so you plug into a USB port and charge it after every use. That doesn't seem that complicated to me. It sounds like you ride 8 to 10 hours straight at night, do you live in Alaska?

On the Cygolite, the I misread the runtimes.

As for how much I ride at night, that's not really the point. When I get on or off the bike, I like leaving all my equipment as is. If riding a bike becomes a big inconvenience, I'm going to be inclined to buy a car again. When I get home from work, I don't want to take of 3 lights, take them in, charge them, and have to put them back on the bike later that night or in the morning.

I want to use them until they start to get dim and replace the batteries. Most of the time that would be somewhere that I could charge them, but on occasion that would not be the case. Without a battery indicator, sometimes it sneaks up on you.

On secondary bikes, when I go out and find out the tail light is dead I don't want to have to charge it before I can ride it.

That being said, I have added the Cygolite to my Amazon wish list and I may buy it as a replacement for the light that clips on my trunk bag. That would be a 3rd light and replace the relative dim wal-mart blinky I have now as a secondary. The L&M is just to expensive for a single tail light for me, when I really want redundancy.

As a side note, here's what my reflective devices look like on camera:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...3_081343AA.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...3_081349AA.jpg

I guess the rain might have been causing issues, but at least in the dry on camera, it looks pretty good. Still adding more active lighting though.

And yes, I wore a Santa hat riding to work last week.

Remember too that RAO was initially a French event and the lighting requirements are drawn from their road code. However Europe in general has been far ahead of the US in lighting for both cars and bicycles.

Aaron :)

The way anything "looks on a camera" is not even a remotely good approximation of how it will look to a person (a driver).

Firstly, exposure settings on the camera can essentially turn night into day, and make a barely visible taillight look like a spaceship-destroying laser gun. Secondly, camera flash, being a very compact source of strong light located very close to the lens, will exaggerate the apparent effectiveness of reflectors far beyond anything that will happen in real-life situation.

Your pictures are good for illustrating the layout of your reflective setup. They are not in any way representative of its effectiveness.

I think the L & M light is too expensive as well nor are the run times satisfactory, but it is one of the brightest on the market. I haven't bought the Cygolite yet, not sure if I will because my main light, a Blackburn Mars 4 is extremely bright though the company way over exaggerated it's run times, on steady mode it will last about 8 hours on steady and about 18 hours on flashing...they quoted 50 on steady and 150 on flash!!! But I like the light because it has the side amber lights for added safety so I'm willing to put up with the battery life to get the side amber lighting...that's the reason why I like the L & M because they also have amber side lighting, but the price is kind of a deal killer when the Cygolite Hotshot is about as bright and is rechargeable too, except the Cygolite has no side amber lighting but it cost $50 less. There in lies the reason I am completely happy with the Mars 4 because it's cheaper then the other two and nearly as bright, and has the side amber lights.

I would think riding a bike waiting for lights to dim to change bats is just as inconvenient as unclipping a couple of lights and recharging them. My tail lights I have right now do not have a built in recharger, so I have not only unclip my lights but then take the bats out and put them in a charger! I do carry back up bats like you because sometimes I forget to charge them up, but I've only ran out of battery once on a ride in 40 years so really I don't ever use the backup bats. The other problem with waiting till bats dim is sometimes they dim without you knowing it while riding, then suddenly your riding around without a tail light or a very dim and thus useless light. Running out of bat on a ride is the second reason why I also use several tail lights, in case one goes dead and I'm not aware of it, the others are still functioning. I would think based on having to keep purchasing batteries and replacing them and maybe having one go dead on a ride it would be more convenient to be able to charge them up every night...but that's just me because I currently have to remove my lights, then the bats to recharge so by just having to remove the lights and plug in would be great, in my opinion.

I agree, in real life with just the human eye and headlights of a car reflectors never look that bright! That brightness is obtained by angling the flash towards the reflectors then when the pic is taken the iris on the camera didn't have time to close down because it was exposing for the darkness of the overall pic, so you end up with an extremely bright looking reflection off the reflectors...not even close to what you would see.

A few thoughts about the cyclist with 18 rear blinkies:

1: If he ever gets hit from behind it probably wasn't an accident.
2: I use discount-store AAAs that cost ~ 1.97 CAD for 18 of them, and I get about 3 or 4 months of run time out of my blinkies with them. If I had 18 blinkies that take on average 3 AAA batteries each, it would cost me between 18 and 24 dollars per year.
3: I would bet you get some funky patterns as all those lights goes in and out of synch over time.

Yes, I should have indicated that I understood that in the first place. I have intended on having my wife follow me at some point and see what things look like, but it's just never happened. Not that it matters, because I'm doing the best I can at this point with reflectivity.