Roadies puzzle me sometimes.

I ride a lot of lanes locally , this time of year with reduced daylight and visibility I wear a bright orange jacket thinking it gives me half a chance with car drivers?

All Summer I see roadies in bright colours but now this time of year the majority are like Johnny Cash The Man In Black ? Just seems counter intuitive to me , though sometimes I get close passes so maybe they’ve worked out it doesn’t make a shit of difference wearing ” Can you see me now colours” ?

Most of us have flashing lights, though?

Did they not wave at you? 😉

It’s deja vu all over again Rodney

You were right in the assumption if makes **** all difference what colour clothing you wear. To be seen other road users, they need to look, and that is something beyond the ability of most. I get hi-vized up just so I can’t get blamed when I do get close passed/hit.

The roads are full of black cars that have driven into each other 😉

@MoreCashThanDash do you mean I already posted about this ? I’m at a funny age .

Sample size of one; I went out last week for the first time wearing a new Galibier bright orange gilet covered in reflective strips. I got more close passes than I can ever remember beforehand. Also was wearing a green jacket with 3M strips on it the day the Ford Galaxy pulled out on me and broke my spine.

Saw 3 people texting while driving down the M60 today. I really don’t think what colour you wear makes the slightest bit of difference.

IMO lights make way more difference than colour of clothing. A decent light will punch through most weather conditions and catch the eye of drivers more than clothing.

Anecdotally… I’ve been out riding and clocked a flashing rear light (or an oncoming flashing front light) a long way ahead of me way before I can even see the shape of the rider, never mind the colour of clothing.

Dressed all in black. Retina destroying red lights that strobe once every six and a half seconds.

The colour of clothing on a bike makes naff all difference.

/end of thread.

tribalism helps no one

I personally don’t like black tops. My two warm winter tops are black as that’s the only colour they came in so I usually stick a light coloured top over it when commuting/road rides.

In Dustin Klein’s recent video about making a Gore jacket from scraps, he designed it with a dark back as riding the road in winter without proper guards covers your jacket in muck and ruins the fabric color. I’d not considered this before, but I have a nice winter soft shell in bright red but for the back panel which is annoyingly black.

Whilst I ate that they have to be looking to see you, it helps if you’re had to miss.

I tend to wear fairly bright colour tops and jackets, when I actually get out on the road bike.

My mild winter gloves are bright yellow, my lobster gloves are retro reflective silver.

I wear retro reflective toe covers on my shoes all year round.

My Boardman jacket/gillet is fully retro reflective, but can be a bit boil in the bag.

Usually wear bright socks, some have retro reflective bands.

Moving bright and/or retro reflective garments on legs and feet are more likely to be seen imo.

…riding the road in winter without proper guards covers your jacket in muck…

The solution is to ride a bike with proper mudguards, not design a jacket that hides the dirt!

I used to commute regularly by bike for 20+ years – the brightest clothing and retina burning lights made sod-all difference, particularly in daylight. Reflectives at night however did tend to make a difference.

IMO lights make way more difference than colour of clothing.

It’s been grey and wet here for a few days. I’ve seen several roadies in full black outfits with no lights dissapear in the road mist. I’m genuinely terrified for them.

I wear bright colours when I expect to be on the road because if my light fails then at least it’s better than wearing black.

A helmet light and rear when commuting in all conditions. Bad passes were very rare.

As someone who has designed and assessed camouflage for a living… It’s Contrast Not Colour that’s important. And the primary cue for detection is movement not contrast, so have a flashing light.

I wear what I can afford. Not all, but a lot of my cold weather cycle clothing happens to be dark. Have been tending toward brighter cycle clothing more recently however. Not a roadie, but commuter on a hybrid.

Doubt it’ll make the blindest bit of difference. Even on my cycle through town tonight there were two drivers that almost pulled out on me from a side road without even giving a glancing look in my direction. Wearing high viz isn’t going to help when some don’t even take the time to bloody look. The poor level of driving is really getting rather tiresome

I have black jacket and tights for winter on my road bike.

I top it off with a bright pink gilet with a massive reflective band round it.

Mostly hoping to look weird enough to be looked at/ registered by driver. ” Look at that weirdo” means they’ve seen me and hopefully are less likely to squish me.

I saw someone else with the same gilet on. And I think my plan is a great one : )

I’ve recently got in riding on the road more, one thing I’ve discovered is that an awful lot of roadie-aimed clothing is black…

In fact, buy green/orange etc has saved me a ton of cash as it’s more likely to be discounted.

Black is slimming.  Why would I want to wear anything else?

My dad was recently knocked off his road bike wearing Met HiViz helmet, Endura HiViz Jacket.

The police attended, the driver said he didn’t see my dad.

The Copper looked at my dad and immediately tested his eye sight and then requested a proper court sanctioned eye test.

My Dad is fine, some lingering bruises and has had a lovely new road bike paid for by the Driver insurance, not everyone is so lucky

Two rear lights and respro reflective ankle bands that shout “cyclist” to the approaching driver. Three and a half ours yesterday evening. Not a single close pass. In fact most were more than accommodating as I rode some of the lanes.

I ride with lights all the time; Exposure Daybright and a Garmin radar.

I wouldn’t blame the cyclists too much as there does seem to be a trend with kit manufacturers to use dark clothing colours, which limits choice.  Might look into a gilet actually.

That said, I got my spine broken in daylight, wearing bright red on a bright red bike, with two front lights switched on.

Yesterday:

Someone turned right across me. Had a feeling they were going to do it so I was ready to stop and I did, no big deal. I saw them look at me. I saw them looking at me as they were turning, but they just did it anyway. I think they just were not expecting a bike to be going at 20 or so (not bragging, it was downhill).

Someone close passed me. They saw me fine because they moved out _just_ enough to squeeze past with the car coming the other way. They even indicated. The thing with this one was, it was 100m before a dual carriageway. We’re talking country road short dual carriageway, not major A road. And not busy.

To be fair on them I was wearing black. Oh and pink reflective overshoes and gloves. And white helmet. And Exposure Trace flashing on max front and rear.

Within reason, it makes no difference what you wear.

Once on a very minor country road, actually part of the national cycle network and a designated county cycling route, person pulls up along side: ‘you shouldn’t be wearing black, all you cyclist wear black, blah blah’. It was high summer, middle of the afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. Response: ‘well, you saw us OK didn’t you?’

Black kit looks best from an aesthetic PoV but I always wear bright colours (or white)- not because I think it makes a difference, but because its one less thing for drivers to moan about/use as an excuse.

I always run front and rear lights now though, pretty much all year round. Garmin Varia on flash for the rear and a Bontrager Ion 200+ on the front- a dedicated daytime flash light with disruptive flash pattern. Its tiny and weighs almost nothing so seems like a no-brainer and I think makes a big difference.

I think there is a certain type of driver who would be further enraged by a cyclist wearing black. And would then administer a deliberate close pass to prove their point.

Just a theory though

Each to their own.

I tend to wear bright colour clothing. Every little helps.

I too see some black or dark/muted colour only riders without lights, reflective or bright clothing – and they can ‘hide’ well

But then the two times I’ve been knocked off I was wearing lumi yellow jacket and had a light on…

I’m also of the view that most bike incidents, close passes and near misses have nothing to do with SMIDSY and a lot more to do with sh*t judgement, entitled driving and crap driving skills.

I use a bright flashing rear light, because I want everyone to know I’m there but I feel safer if some of them are just not that confident exactly where. Many of my closest calls have been deliberate close passes.

I started road biking again this summer after a break of a few years, pre covid at least, and noticed that almost every roadie rides with a blinkie now. My riding area is usually between the Bilbao ferry and the French border. In August I was riding in daylight with a blinkie, and almost without fail if a driver passed too close, it was either a UK or French registration. Clear signs everywhere saying 1.5m passing distance.

In fact, I had so many aggressive passes on Saturday over the French side that I won’t be going back that way in a hurry (Pyrenees is different, way fewer cars).

Conclusion, it’s neither the lights nor the fluoro garb. It’s avoiding these tossers as much as possible. Unfortunate if you live in UK or France.

(Disclaimer – only time I’ve been knocked off was a Spanish driver. He missed the first time, turned back and crossed the central line to hit me head on, just to make sure)

In general I find the amount of room I’m given is more than enough when there is nothing coming the other way . The problem starts when there is oncoming traffic and a driver thinks I can easily get through there . The other day an Audi estate thought the same and succeeded only because the guy in the Transit coming the other way jammed on his anchors . Trouble is if it goes Pete Tong we all know who’s going to come off worse .

I don’t think the Highway Code update re hierarchy has made a shit of difference. No

I wouldn’t blame the cyclists too much as there does seem to be a trend with kit manufacturers to use dark clothing colours, which limits choice.

The manufacturers make what people want to buy.

FWIW – the ninja cyclists round here are mostly not “roadies”, who seem to be relatively sensible in terms of visibility – its the “non-cyclist on a bike” who seem to be wearing tarmac at dusk camo, have no lights when its dark and have removed all the reflectors to look cool.

I have to agree that colours seem to make sod all difference; when daily commuting I used to have multiple rear lights, one flash one solid and spoke reflectors are worth it because they work at multiple angles. if they are going to close pass or hit you that’s because they are ****s

The theory is that the flashing light gets their attention but the solid light makes it easier to track where you are visually, something about depth perception

funnily enough, some celebs wear proviz jackets because if anyone tries to photograph them when not working they get a blizzard of backflash – we’re fashionable!

Returning from the city center on Saturday at about dusk, got behind a small group pottering along. Of the 3 only 1 had lights

I could have zipped ahead as they were pottering a bit slow even for me, but felt a kind of responsibility and thought my bigger Exposure eye burners would help to keep them safe.