I've three at the back, one on the bars and a front/back helmet light. Thats on a road going commuter.
Any better?
Commendable, but I bet some drivers still would claim "Not to have seen you"
IME flashing makes more of a difference than number of lumins (or moomins, or flux capacitors or megatrons, or however we're measuring light output today )
are you saying flashing is better or worst? I flash all of mine.
Flashing lights get the drivers attention, fixed makes it easier to judge distance/speed. I use both.
1 bar light, one forward helmet, then a flashing rear helmet light, and a solid one on the seatpost. Despite them being plenty bright, sometimes i feel i may as well not have bothered...
you should have atleast one solid red light so you can be tracked, some of the flashes are mad long between bursts and in a street with a lot of lights already i find it way easier to keep tabs on a solid light.
Four back and two front.
Kid has 3 back and three front.
But there's some redundancy there since most of them are rechargeable so you would expect at least one to fail on any given day/two days
3 back (actually 5 but only really use 3) along a horizontal plastic bar that I've bodged onto the rack (2 pulsing, one flashing), two front on the bars. Also pedal reflectors, spoke reflectors, reflective anklets glued to my boots and a reflective gilet. I must look quite a sight
Several is good IMO, even just so that you're covered for failure
(I think a combination of flashing and constant is good. I don't do superbright except on the front when there's no traffic as I think it's unsafe to dazzle drivers)
Front - 2 on constant, 1 on flashing
Back, 2 on constant, 2 flashing
Helmet, 1 front on constant, 1 back flashing
Reflectors - On the spokes (there are really good for side roads), on the frame and guards and on my helmet.
Clothing - Hi-viz gillet, snap wraps on ankles, various other bits of reflective stuff on clothing.
I am going to add two more at the back I think for solid operation. Can you tell I've found the light's section in the pound shop. To be fair two on the rear are very bright cat eyes.
Only 3
But Tom has it. You need flashing and constant.....
One front, one rear.
I double up the rear if I’m using the Fly6 or if I’m riding rural roads when it’s foggy.
Front :One fixed one flashing
Rear : One fixed , 3 flashing
Could add a helmet light to give one extra font and rear .
Mt Christmas tree or what...……….!!
thats really impressive all !!
the helmet lights are good as they are high level and when you look at a car the light points straight at the driver. Only just started using one but would not be without one now.
There are some bonkers configurations in the bike shed here. Saw one with 2 Smarts and another cheapo on the rear, and a 1000lm Chinese job on the front. Another one has a long metal bar attached to the side which folds against the frame - folds out to stick out the side with a reflector on the end!
I just have one front, one rear and a helmet light for when it's really dark on the back roads. But it's getting lighter every day so haven't needed it this week.
I am going to add two more at the back I think
You’ve already got four 😳 – what is six going to achieve? 🤔
Rear I have a Cycliq camera with the light flashing plus a constant light below that. The constant has plenty of side beam so it lights me up as well as shining backwards. I also have one large and two smaller reflectors on mudguards along with bright yellow overshoes with reflective strips up the back.
On the front I have a Cycliq camera with the light on constant.
My commute is almost all on country roads so rear visibility is by far the most important (IMHO). Once in town I'm on cycle paths.
I will say, the last time I remember being hit in the dark, was when I used to use a Hope Vision 2 on the bars plus a bright Ebay special flashing like a disco strobe. I was so visible (reflective Zap jacket too) - but this clever woman was too busy looking for a parking space to see anything that might've been coming towards her. So you can wear a Christmas Tree covered in LEDs on yer 'ead.. but if they ain't looking...
when you look at a car the light points straight at the driver.
Ideally not, as it could dazzle them, I have that one on lowish power and pulsing, so they see it in there peripheral vision.
I think another two solids would be effective. It keeps me happy.
5 - I have a couple on the front, one constant, one flashing. Fly6 + another on rear + a little thing on the helmet.
I also have a lot of reflective tape on the bike which bounces back on the sides as well.
In theory my tyres have reflective side walls, but they're filthy at the moment so not sure how effective they are...
I think another two solids would be effective. It keeps me happy.
Having to turn that many lights on and off every time I rode a bike, and having to charge that many lights up all the time, would make me absolutely bloody miserable, but each to their own.
(In fact that’s true even if “that many” is one. Dynamo lights FTW: no charging and no turning on and off either.)
most of them are rechargeable so you would expect at least one to fail on any given day/two days
I don't get this. Surely if they're rechargeable, you can just keep topping them up so that this doesn't happen?
Just two decent rear lights for me. One solid, one flashing. Redundancy of rear lights is important as you won't notice if they stop working, but I'm not sure there would be much benefit in adding more.
Flashing lights get the drivers attention, fixed makes it easier to judge distance/speed. I use both.
Yep.
Local - 2 rear, flashing/constant. One front strobing flash.
That London - rear as above, plus another flashing on helmet. Two fronts, one flashing, one constant.
2 front lights - one on pulsing the other on solid. 3 at the back - 1 pulsing and 2 flashing. Also got a reflective jacket, hi vis backpack with reflective strips on and leggings with reflective sections all over them.
Hopefully that’s enough to get the attention of most numpties driving / texting / facebooking etc.
One front/one back on both MTB & road bike. Hmmm, may need to up my game to compete with some of you, cos you know, it is a competition.
You need steady and fast blinking. Saw a bloke the other day with a really slow blinking rear light, like on and off every second. Basically he kept disappearing and reappearing. Absolutely dreadful in busy traffic. Who the hell designed a light that even has that mode?
Basically he kept disappearing and reappearing.
Mm, I never use a flashing light on its own for this reason (except sometimes in London in the daytime, when I'm perfectly visible without a light but I can expect to be filtering past queuing traffic a lot, and I know from experience that a flashing light is more noticeable in a wing mirror).
A year or two ago, in the pitch dark, I was about to pull out onto a roundabout (in the car). Empty roundabout, nothing approaching.Fortunately I'm the sort of person who always looks twice, because when I looked first time nothing was visible, because the chap on the bike who was just approaching my arm of the roundabout had a flashing light which was off when I looked the first time.
That said, I'd not entirely agree with everyone saying "you need a flashing and a static light". I'd suggest you "need" a static one when it's dark. You might feel that a flashing one helps in some situations, in which case great, fit one. I think it's excessive to say you "need" one.
I agree - front light bright enough to put a noticeable pool of light on the road will get you seen. (By those that are looking!)
My roadbike affectionately named by friends "the Christmas Tree" has
3x led 1600lm headlight
White silicon Leds on:
front hub
fork leg
Bar
Bar end plug
Red silicon Leds on:
seatpost saddle clamp
seatpost clamp
chainstays x2
rear hub
Red spoke Leds on both wheels
and an iGlow pump behind the seatpost - sort of like a mini light sabre when on constant.
and I wear an Led armband and shoe Led on my right arm/foot so drivers might give more room when passing
That makes 15
some are used on constant some flash.
For riding quiet rural roads solo in pitch dark where drivers won't be expecting to see a bike
Flashing ones should be at 1-4hz - i.e. flashing 60 to 240 times a minute if it's the only one you've got.
If I'm running just one it will be on that pulse setting where it's never really off but it's rare that I'd only have one light on the bike.
wow Geex
There's that dude who rides a fatbike, who has a spotlight mounted on each vertically positioned bar-end. I see him about now and again.
True story.
For riding quiet rural roads solo in pitch dark where…
…even one light would stick out like a sore thumb?
We all know you're an expert on all road safety issues Bez but you don't know anything at all about visibility on the rural roads I ride.
Sure, but… I can understand a light so you can be seen without being otherwise illuminated; I can understand hoping that a flashing one might more easily catch the attention of someone who's not fully concentrating; and I can understand hoping that lights or reflectives on legs/shoes might—by way of denoting someone on a bike rather than something else—somehow achieve something. I can even understand just clutching at straws in the hope that buying and fitting a ton of lights is worth whatever tiny benefit it might afford. (So don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing you, it's just that my eyebrows briefly got altitude sickness when I read your list.)
I'm just curious because it seems like you might have a considered justification for adding each of those lights. And you may be right: in each case it may be some highly specific thing that I've not encountered on any of the rural roads I've ridden. But I'm interested…
I currently have my Hope R4+ on the front, which has a slow very bright/quite alternating flash.
On the rear, technically it's five. Tye central light on'throb' and the straps in a rotating windmill mode.
Come on night ride with me and you'd get it fairly quickly.
Narrow, twisty (many 90deg turns) rural tall hedge/wall/tree lined roads with blind exits, dips. and junctions where very few people live. So often you'll rarely meet a driver at all. But if you do it's either a farmer/estate worker or local who is driving on auto pilot used to being the only vehicle on the road or someone not familiar with the roads at all.
I don't run th 1600lm light on full. more like 500 most of the time 1000 for highspeed descents (40mph). So it lasts a good few hours.
Oh.. and also a few of the Leds are usb charged and I'm not brilliant at keeping on top of charging them so 3hrs in some occasionally die
On other routes with better visibility I don't switch them all on. But they do all live on the bike all year round as do mudguards.
I also don't wear hi viz or a helmet
2 front - constant on the bars, flashing on the helmet, 2 rear - pulsing on the frame, flashing on bag - and sometimes if I'm feeling crazy, these on the wheels
1 on the front & 1 fixed & 1 flasher on the rear. Plus i've just bought one of those Lumos helmets with lights after following someone with one on. Brilliant bit of kit.
And a reflective jacket.
like the wheel lights. Even geex does not have those.
Narrow, twisty (many 90deg turns) rural tall hedge/wall/tree lined roads with blind exits, dips.
Sure, but either people have line of sight to your bike or they don't. If they do, they can see one light (if they're looking—and if they're not they won't see any number of lights), and in environments where there are no other light sources then it's more likely, not less, that one light will be conspicuous.
I follow a whole bunch of reasons for using two or even three lights (redundancy, attention-grabbing, distance estimation, identification as a bicycle, etc). And I realise that where roads have visual obstructions like hedgerows and walls (which is most of the UK, though some bits more than others) there's an argument for having one powerful enough to project a glow onto trees and signs to advertise your presence in advance of direct line of sight. I'm just stuck on fitting fourteen lights and thinking, "hmm, reckon it needs another one and then I'll feel safe" 🙂
But who cares if I don't get it, crack on.
they do all live on the bike all year round as do mudguards. I also don’t wear hi viz or a helmet
With you all the way on all of those 🙂
1 on the front, 2 on the seat post and 2 on my backpack. Normally ride with 1 steady and two flashing rear lights (the 4th is treated as a reserve).
thanks for responding everyone.
Sure, but either people have line of sight to your bike or they don’t. If they do, they can see one light (if they’re looking—and if they’re not they won’t see any number of lights), and in environments where there are no other light sources then it’s more likely, not less, that one light will be conspicuous.
Wow! So much of what you've asumed about the roads I ride is wrong.
Line of sight is intermittent. Broken by walls, hedges, fences, trees, walls, corners (You get the jist?). So it makes perfect sense to fit lights facing in all directions and at various heights (and moving in the case of spoke leds) to try and catch a drivers eye/attn before they turn the next blind bend/junction/obscured road section of a road they've driven 1000 times but never encountered a cyclist on in the dark.
I'm not sure why you're even questioning my logic when you know nothing of where I'm using them.
I've already said I use less on other routes/areas.
I can give you a breakdown of why exactly each light is were it is if it'd help satisfy your lack of understanding.
eg. The bar top and saddle clamp (under my saddle) leds are reachable without slowing for times when conditions change during a ride. (dusk/low light/intermittent fog etc.)
The shoe, forearm and bar end plug leds should all mean slightly less chance a dumb **** will close pass and take me out thinking I'm as wide as a single seatpost led.
The iglow pump is backup for if I need more than 2 Co2 carts and happens to include an absolutely awesome solid light but poor sealing design means it can suffer water ingress and fail. hence the extra led around the seatpost collar.
actually... I can't be ****ed. come out riding here at night and I'll bore you silly about the history of my lighting choices.
