Test your visibility!

[Dirt]

I’ve talked about this a few times. I think a lot of us think we are visible. I know a while back I was not as visible as I thought I was. Every now and then I snap a flash photo of my bike and see what jumps out at me. It is also not bad to have a friend take a flash photo of you on the bike from a few different angles as you ride by to get an idea of what you look like in the headlights of a car.

You might be surprised how invisible you are. Hopefully you won’t be.

Bike test from this morning. Though dirty, the tire sidewalls still glow. That’s good.

Love,

Dirt

Topic

[Dirt]

@PotomacCyclist 54364 wrote:

Canadian geese hiss at me if I get too close to their young. They tried to chase me off of the MVT one time when I was running by. Mallard ducks are calmer, and basically oblivious to everything around them. They won’t move for anyone or anything, and they don’t seem to care who or what is there, even if it’s a car.

True. I wasn’t so much herding them, though I kind of was, as keeping the row of 6 cars behind me from running them over. Every time they got close to the double yellow line, I moved over there to herd them back to the side. They hissed and honked a lot, but they crossed the road with all their kids to safety.

[btj]

I recently purchased a Bullitt cargo bike, mostly to use as a kid carrer. I’m in the middle of finishing the plywood cargo box and purchased some reflective glass bead powder (http://www.colesafety.com/Reflective-Glass-Beads_c17.htm) to mix in with the glossy urethane coat to hopefully make the whole cargo box reflective to light. I’ll be sure to post a photo of the final project, hopefully with a bright reflective box.

[btj]

Only took me 4 months to actually post a photo… The box isn’t as reflective as I had hoped but it does reflect a little bit. The glass bead powder directions said I could either mix it in with paint / polyurethane or sprinkle the powder on wet paint / poly. I went with the polyurethane mix-in method (on top of orange stain for hi-vis and I liked the color combo with the blue frame). If the light hits it just right during the day the box sparkles, so that’s kind of cool.

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Here is a daytime photo for comparison:

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[Author]

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