It’s dark = lights

[Geoff]

This morning, while making a left turn off the W&OD, a cyclist behind me called out that he could barely see my arm signal due to my bright red tail light.
Some thoughts:
* I hadn’t realized it before, but my tail light is angled slightly up. It might have interfered with the other rider’s vision. I’ll have to angle it down.
* I should get reflective wrist bands so my signals are easier to see. The trail was unlit at that point.
* My tail light has two flash settings and two steady settings. I was using the higher of the steady settings. I wonder if the lower setting would be better.

[dkel]

@Geoff 97305 wrote:

This morning, while making a left turn off the W&OD, a cyclist behind me called out that he could barely see my arm signal due to my bright red tail light.
Some thoughts:
* I hadn’t realized it before, but my tail light is angled slightly up. It might have interfered with the other rider’s vision. I’ll have to angle it down.
* I should get reflective wrist bands so my signals are easier to see. The trail was unlit at that point.
* My tail light has two flash settings and two steady settings. I was using the higher of the steady settings. I wonder if the lower setting would be better.

I always set my tail light on its low, steady setting at night on the trail. I always just assumed that it was supposed to be that way because of the lack of ambient light to compete with the tail light. That was just a guess, though.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@Geoff 97305 wrote:

* I should get reflective wrist bands so my signals are easier to see. The trail was unlit at that point.

A lot of full finger riding gloves have reflective index and middle finger tips for just that purpose.

[mstone]

@Harry Meatmotor 97322 wrote:

A lot of full finger riding gloves have reflective index and middle finger tips for just that purpose.

Works for all kinds of signals!

[Geoff]

@mstone 97325 wrote:

Works for all kinds of signals!

Surely that rates a groan!
But what is worse, is that when I read Harry’s post, I immediately thought of other signals!

[Harry Meatmotor]

@Geoff 97326 wrote:

Surely that rates a groan!
But what is worse, is that when I read Harry’s post, I immediately thought of other signals!

the ambiguity was intentional!

[Geoff]

@Harry Meatmotor 97329 wrote:

the ambiguity was intentional!

Well, yes, but it makes me think of the Order of the Turtles. Not familiar with them? Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_and_Honorable_Order_of_Turtles

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 97298 wrote:

Perhaps it is not lumens, but instead the need to pay a significant fraction of the price of a bike for a simple headlight.

Except the point was that it’s not actually all that simple, right? Now, I fully acknowledge that good lights tend to be crazy expensive, and that may be more than a lot of people are willing to pay–but everyone should be clear on what the tradeoffs are, and why some lights cost more than others (it’s not just because the good companies are putting huge markups on stuff you can get cheap from china, and it’s not the case that a higher lumen rating means a better light). In general, though, I don’t have any idea on how to fix the market–the general solution would be to give the consumer information to make an informed decision, but we already know that most of the lumen data (which is simple but also useless) on the internet is just made up. What we really want is a beam pattern showing lux at a given distance (something like http://www.bumm.de/uploads/tx_templavoila/IQ-TEC_vs_IQ-Premium.jpg but with numbers and in a form that’s comparable across manufacturers)–that actually tells you how much light is on the road vs how much is up in the sky. But who would actually ensure that manufacturers gave out reliable data of that much more complex and hard to generate sort, if we can’t even get them to tell the truth about lumens? Until we figure out how to get better information to the consumer, the manufacturers have no incentive to compete on quality of light output.

[hozn]

@mstone 97335 wrote:

Except the point was that it’s not actually all that simple, right?

I would argue that once you get into a finer-grained distinction than a “see” or “be seen” light, the beam shape etc. really doesn’t make any significant difference. Definitely not a difference that is going to be worth more than a few bucks. I’m more likely to pay more for waterproof and shockproof, since a light that doesn’t emit light is always the worst kind.

I have probably used a half dozen or so different kinds (brands/models) of lights for night riding, typically from 200-350 claimed lumens (and a more for MTB) and also have a Supernova shaped-beam light, somewhere in that lumen range. The Supernova light is more polite to other users on the trail, but I always make an effort to shield my light to stop blinding people, so this doesn’t actually do much for me; it’s not like I see the trail better. The lights have all made the trail similarly (or sufficiently) bright. My only complaints have been with things unrelated to beam pattern or brightness — such as battery life, water-resistance, ease of recharge, low-battery indication, controls, etc.

I just don’t think there’s actually a problem that needs fixing here.

[mstone]

@hozn 97344 wrote:

I would argue that once you get into a finer-grained distinction than a “see” or “be seen” light, the beam shape etc. really doesn’t make any significant difference.

I’ve found a huge improvement in my ability to see the road with a beam that illuminates evenly vs one with a bright round spot in the middle distance (less contrast between light and dark spots ahead makes it easier to see the whole field). I suppose YMMV.

[cyclingfool]

@bobco85 97174 wrote:

The taillights of cars at night have 2 different settings when on: normal (red) and braking (bright red). This change in brightness draws attention to the fact that the car is braking. Bicycle taillights do not have a feature like this as they have usually 3 different settings when on: solid, flashing, and strobe.

This got me thinking, the ideal bicycle taillight would be a solid red light that occasionally flashes brighter, and then I realized that there is already a real-world application of this. In some areas, I’ve seen stoplights at intersections that add an additional white flash every couple of seconds to their red lights at night so that sleepy drivers will be more likely to react to them.

Inventors of the world, create a bike taillight that stays solid red with the occasional flash of brighter red every couple of seconds, and I will be your first customer/kickstarter/etc.! Heck, if someone could mod my PlanetBike flashing taillight to do this, I’d be set 😎

The Portland Design Works Radbot rear lights have a flashing pattern something along those lines. Likely evident in one of these videos. If I’m not using solid on, I use the solid (three seconds) – blink (one second) pattern. It also has a good red reflector built in, which I like to think makes it brighter to cars coming from behind, and if nothing else still gives me some visibility if the batteries die mid-ride.

[jabberwocky]

I’ve owned/still own some expensive lights (had a L&M HID in the pre-LED days and have a few Dinotte lights now) and also have one of the cheap chinese knockoffs. I have trouble justifying the price for expensive lights today. The knockoff works fine, and the complete system was less than a third the price of a single replacement battery for the Dinotte. I’d definitely be interested in shaped beams, but I’m not paying hundreds of dollars to get that feature. Bike lights have the advantage of being simple to aim though. I tend to keep mine pointed down at the road for normal riding and then I’ll angle one up when I’m hitting a descent where I’ll be going faster.

mstone has it right that the lumen race is pretty silly (especially since a lot of cheap lights use purely theoretical lumen ratings). Beam shape plays a significant role in how usable a light is in the real world.

[AFHokie]

@mstone 97335 wrote:

Except the point was that it’s not actually all that simple, right? Now, I fully acknowledge that good lights tend to be crazy expensive, and that may be more than a lot of people are willing to pay–but everyone should be clear on what the tradeoffs are, and why some lights cost more than others (it’s not just because the good companies are putting huge markups on stuff you can get cheap from china, and it’s not the case that a higher lumen rating means a better light). In general, though, I don’t have any idea on how to fix the market–the general solution would be to give the consumer information to make an informed decision, but we already know that most of the lumen data (which is simple but also useless) on the internet is just made up. What we really want is a beam pattern showing lux at a given distance (something like http://www.bumm.de/uploads/tx_templavoila/IQ-TEC_vs_IQ-Premium.jpg but with numbers and in a form that’s comparable across manufacturers)–that actually tells you how much light is on the road vs how much is up in the sky. But who would actually ensure that manufacturers gave out reliable data of that much more complex and hard to generate sort, if we can’t even get them to tell the truth about lumens? Until we figure out how to get better information to the consumer, the manufacturers have no incentive to compete on quality of light output.

I believe what you seek is a bicycle version of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108. I don’t think bikes need anything quite as in depth or specific, but some sort of baseline standardization would be nice. Unfortunately creating one would make herding cats on catnip look easy.

[mstone]

@AFHokie 97391 wrote:

I believe what you seek is a bicycle version of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108. I don’t think bikes need anything quite as in depth or specific, but some sort of baseline standardization would be nice. Unfortunately creating one would make herding cats on catnip look easy.

No, I don’t think there’s any chance of a required standard for bike lights in this country–we’re just not that into standards generally. (Whereas in Germany they’re ok with citing a cyclist for a non-approved light because that’s how they roll–they have standards for everything.) There are also different situations where different kinds of lights make sense (e.g., mountain biking at night) so it may not be a one size fits all situation. What I’d like instead is just better information so a consumer can more easily make an informed choice. Maybe it will be printed on airborne swine.

[AFHokie]

@mstone 97398 wrote:

No, I don’t think there’s any chance of a required standard for bike lights in this country–we’re just not that into standards generally. (Whereas in Germany they’re ok with citing a cyclist for a non-approved light because that’s how they roll–they have standards for everything.) There are also different situations where different kinds of lights make sense (e.g., mountain biking at night) so it may not be a one size fits all situation. What I’d like instead is just better information so a consumer can more easily make an informed choice. Maybe it will be printed on airborne swine.

That’s no different than non-road legal lights on 4×4’s and track cars. With cars, it’s easy…on a public road the light isn’t legal. For bikes, where do you draw the line? MUPs? Gravel trails like the C&O?

[Author]

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