General Lighting Tips Article

[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/2012/09/19/bright-lights-in-the-big-city-with-less-daylight-buy-some-lights-to-extend-your-bike-training-day-and-outdoor-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]

@Tim Kelley 35544 wrote:

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]

@TwoWheelsDC 35542 wrote:

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.

[bobco85]

For the most part, I will either have a lower setting on my helmet light and point my handlebar light towards the ground about 10-15 feet in front of me. However, on trails like the MVT where you constantly get blinded by the passing car lights (since the GW Parkway is usually a little higher up than the MVT, the car lights shine directly into your eyes), I will use the brightest setting on my helmet because I just can’t see without it (I’ve gone off the trail a few times due to the GW Parkway traffic). I turn my headlight away from oncoming traffic when I can, but it’s not always possible to avoid blinding others.

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