General Lighting Tips Article

[Tim Kelley]

I was pleased to see the official blog of the triathlon team (Team Fexy) that I do much of my training with, run an article on setting up your bike with a good set of bike lights for riding in the winter season.

http://www.fexycoaching.com/blog/201...utdoor-season/

The author even gets it right and recommends covering your light or looking away when encounter other peds/bikes coming the other direction. I'm glad to see positive messaging going out to the type of riders who might not necessarily check in on some of the conversations going on here!

[Certifried]

Great info! One thing I don't see much of is "sticky'd" info on the forums, perhaps this can be sticky'd in the bikes and gear sub?

[Tim Kelley]

Not a bad idea--I'll do that! Hopefully the thread won't turn into a lengthy debate that some of the other Light discussion have.

[Certifried]

lock it

[Certifried]

It seems the article link has changed

http://www.fexycoaching.com/2012/09/...utdoor-season/

[TwoWheelsDC]

Good article, but there are two bits of advice that conflict with each other, and I'm curious how folks here would address it. The article says: 1. run two headlights, with the brighter being mounted on your helmet 2. cover your light for oncoming peds/cyclists. Practically speaking, a cyclist cannot do #2 if they do #1. So yeah, sure you were considerate enough to cover your 300 lumen bar-mounted light, but you still ended up blinding me with the 1500 lumen light on your helmet.

[Tim Kelley]

With a helmet light, you can simply look away (down or to the side) if you are worried about blinding oncoming cyclists or peds.

[Certifried]

With a helmet light, you can simply look away (down or to the side) if you are worried about blinding oncoming cyclists or peds.

This is hard for me. I always tend to make eye contact with the person and offer some sort of greeting, even if it's just a smile. After the pass, I realize the look on their face wasn't, in fact, a return of my warm smile. It was the look of blind anger.

[vvill]

Good article, but there are two bits of advice that conflict with each other, and I'm curious how folks here would address it. The article says: 1. run two headlights, with the brighter being mounted on your helmet 2. cover your light for oncoming peds/cyclists. Practically speaking, a cyclist cannot do #2 if they do #1. So yeah, sure you were considerate enough to cover your 300 lumen bar-mounted light, but you still ended up blinding me with the 1500 lumen light on your helmet.

I generally have a low intensity light on my helmet (for being seen), and a brighter one as low as possible on my bike used for illumination of the ground in front of my bike (and then I usually also run a small flashing LED if I'm on suburban back roads). The low mount one is fairly easy to palm with a gloved hand.

[JimK]

I've had a lot of trouble in the past month or so (early morning and evening) dealing with runners/walkers who have no lights or reflectors and oncoming bikes. Sometimes I am struggling so much to see the runners that I cannot afford to cover my headlight. What do do? A couple of nights ago I was literally threading at slow speed through a group of runners/walkers as a bike approached me from the other direction. The rider yelled at me to dim my light, but there was no way I was going dark at that moment.