Three-inch round
amber reflectors
Oblong
amber reflectors
While the law and some cyclists claim that a small rear reflector and a headlight provide adequate visibility, a quick look at the evening news shows clueless motorists who fail to see well-lit motorcycles, cars, even large trucks. In that environment, I prefer to add as much visibility to myself and my bike as possible without undue weight, bulk, and expense.
At a bare minimum, every bicycle ridden after dark should have a headlight, a tail light, and an rear reflector that is not obscured by bags or clothing. Headlights and tail lights for bicycles are not as bright as automotive lights, but they provide light that is visible to people who do not have lights of their own shining on the bicycle. Reflectors work without batteries or generators, but work only when illuminated by a driver's headlights. Do not rely on either lights or reflectors alone.
The following are all readily-available and inexpensive additions to the average commuting bike that make it much more conspicuous in traffic.
Disclaimer: Check your local laws before using any unusual lights, reflectors, or other devices. And keep the little dysfunctional CPSC-approved rear reflector for legal compliance, even if you've installed a rear reflector that actually works.
A good auto parts store will have a wide range of plastic reflectors for cars, trucks, and driveways.
The standard rear reflector on a bicycle is red, just like the tail lights of a car. But the rest of your reflectors don't need to be red -- amber reflectors, like those used for outlining trucks, are much brighter than red for the same size, while still being a color commonly used in traffic.
Three-inch round
amber reflectors
Oblong
amber reflectors
All automotive reflectors have one thing in common, they are designed to face a single direction. This is different from CPSC-standard rear reflectors whose faces are faceted to make sure most of the reflector isn't facing traffic. This means that a properly mounted automotive reflector will appear much brighter to following traffic than a CPSC-style reflector of the same size. (The CPSC rule is designed on the premise that bicycles are toys which children ride in circles in the middle of the street. It doesn't address the safety of competent cyclists riding with traffic.)
Many bike shops have a small selection of adhesive reflective tape, but in my experience this is usually an inferior grade of tape, with poor adhesive and a thick base that tries to peel itself off of curved surfaces. Instead, look for “diamone grade” or “safety of life at sea” grade reflective tape. This is stocked at better auto parts stores, marine stores, and industrial suppliers. It is more expensive than the cheap bike-grade stuff, but it is designed for prolonged outdoor use and will stick to curves as tight as a rack stay through many years of wet and salty winter commuting.
Some suggested applications:
1-inch wide tape is wide enough to be very visible but narrow enough to avoid wrinkles running down the length of a fender. The back of your rear fender will almost never be obscured by any loads you carry on the bike, so it's a good candidate for reflectorization.
If you wrap tape along one edge of a crank, it will alternately face front and rear, making a large, blinking blob.
Trim tape to fit your helmet and visor. This is especially handy since so many manufacturers have dropped yellow and white helmets in favor of less conspicuous but more fashionable helmet colors. The back of your helmet is a location that will rarely be blocked from drivers' view, and is above the height of many smaller cars. Plus it moves as you look around, drawing more attention.
In all of these locations, I personally prefer amber reflective tape. It is brighter than red reflective tape, and is a color used for general warnings on vehicles and roadways, from outlining truck trailers to warning of road work. Get a high-quality brand of tape (3M diamond-grade is excellent) and it won't peel or lose its reflectivity despite years of bad-weather use.
Outdoor fabric shops often stock some variety of Scotchlite or Reflexite cloth trim. This is not adhesive tape, but the sort of tape that gets sewn on as trim. I find a 3/4 inch or 1 inch width the most convenient.
Stitch a patch on the back of each glove. On traditional mesh-backed gloves, 3/4-inch tape usually fits on the back of the adjusting strap, where it won't block ventilation. Reflectorized gloves make your hand signals much more visible. I've had numerous comments on this from drivers. I don't know why more companies don't add reflective material to their gloves. One good source of reflective gloves is http://www.gloglov.com. Their gloves are used by quite a few workers on our local Washington State Ferry System who have to direct traffic in poor lighting.
Use a good fabric or leather glue, as appropriate, to glue heel and toe reflectors on your commuting shoes if you ride in cycling-specific shoes.
Add reflective stripes to the forearms of your rain jacket, again making hand signals much more visible.
Stitch the tape along exposed nylon webbing on your panniers, fanny pack, etc.
If you really want to go overboard, outdoor fabric stores sometimes stock ripstop nylon cloth that is reflectorized over its entire surface. It makes very visible pannier covers.
Most state laws require a headlight; many allow or require a red tail light. But in some conditions, that is not enough.
Blinking LED Tail Light. Blinking tail lights on bikes have
become so common they say "bicycle" to many people like
nothing else does. They're also more conspicuous than a steady tail
light, and have excellent battery life because they spend most of
their time off. My personal favorite is the Planet
Bike Super Flash
It comes with a clip and a
mounting bracket, but if you have a standard reflector mount on your
rear rack, you can drill a hole in the back of the case and mount it
directly to the bracket.
Marine lifejacket man-overboard emergency
strobe
You need two cars and your bike. Find a quiet residential street or an empty parking lot. Park one car and lean your bike on it next to the headlights. Take the other car up the street or across the lot and shine its low-beam headlights at the first car. Does your bike show up clearly next to the glare of the first car's lights? That's where you need to be seen, after all, in dense traffic, surrounded by bright headlights and illuminated by dim headlights.
If I ever get around to scanning it in, you will see the results of my experiment here. My test is a bit more stringent: is my bike clearly visible next to the halogen high beams on my van when lit with just the single yellowish 6-volt headlight of my old Honda Trail 90 motorcycle? With just a stock CPSC reflector set it's hopeless, but with all my additional reflectors it's pretty good.
An added benefit to a wide range of reflective material is that the bike is not only brighter, but appears bigger. I get noticeably wider passing clearance from motorists when fully reflectorized, and when I have the amber strobe on in the fog they slow down to an almost reasonable speed and pass even wider, since until I'm ten feet away they can't tell if I'm a cyclist or perhaps a safety barricade or a stalled tractor with an invisible tiller hanging into traffic.
Finally, putting all those reflectors on the bike clearly isn't "cool," so in my experience, you'll reduce trouble with the whacko minority of drivers who love to harrass cyclists they see as yuppies playing in traffic.
Like it or not, some motorists pay so little attention to the road
that you read about them in the newspaper after they drive into the
side of a firetruck parked with its lights on. Besides being visible,
you'll be safer if you can be loud. I use a Delta
Airzound
Josh Putnam's Home Page | Josh's Bike Page. | Josh's Framebuilding Page. | Josh's Photo Page.
©2009 Joshua Putnam