54
votes
Should unconventional colors be avoided for lighting?
A quick search, however, shows other colors available to purchase. Concerning "to be seen" bicycle lights, should they be avoided?
Yes, they should be avoided.
First, off-colors might not be legal ...
- 10.3k
54
votes
Legality and morality around wearing a red / blue flashing light on a bicycle in the UK?
Don't show a red light of any kind on the front unless you want a head-on crash.
Red is for the back only, steady or flashing. In the shadows it will look like you're riding the wrong way down the ...
- 55.7k
43
votes
Polite way to ride in the dark
There are now many bike lights on the market which have a shaped beam with a "horizontal cutoff" giving strong light onto the road or path, but much less above the horizon. When adjusted ...
- 6,535
43
votes
Legality and morality around wearing a red / blue flashing light on a bicycle in the UK?
Legality aside, this is a bad idea.
The entire point of putting distinctly colored lights on emergency vehicles is to make them instantly recognizable as such, letting people know that they need to ...
- 11.6k
41
votes
Accepted
Should unconventional colors be avoided for lighting?
Most places will legally require you to run with white lights on the front and red lights behind. This is crucially important because it immediately tells everybody else on the road whether you're ...
- 16.9k
40
votes
Accepted
Polite way to ride in the dark
Consider how you feel when a fellow cyclist approaches you will full beam straight ahead. It's pretty blinding, even for a moment, and especially off-road when your eyes aren't used to it.
So in a ...
- 524
39
votes
Accepted
How to give away lights to cyclists without lights?
We have had much more success advertising it and doing it through a local bike shop or bike group. Once each, so far, that I've done.
I think the psychology behind refusing a gift from a stranger is ...
- 23.2k
36
votes
Accepted
Can I legally use front facing blue light in the UK?
Regulation 16 of the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations (1989) states:
Restrictions on fitting blue warning beacons, special warning lamps and similar devices
No vehicle, other than an ...
- 16.9k
34
votes
Accepted
Are Penny-Farthings Legal to Ride on Public Roads (UK)
UNITED KINGDOM
Intro
I ride a 50" Penny-Farthing almost daily on the UK's public roads, both individually and as part of groups in daylight and evening conditions.
Before venturing out onto the ...
- 2,183
33
votes
Accepted
Is there a benefit to turning off dynamo-powered lights?
Yes, there is an efficiency gain by turning the lights off.
Cyclingabout made a hub dynamo comparison based on an experiment by skjegg, where power consumption was measured for different dynamos ...
- 1,059
23
votes
Should unconventional colors be avoided for lighting?
The topic has been discussed here in the Netherlands, and found an answer summarized in the below chart (text translated into English from the original):
Wrapping up: lights should be fitting the ...
- 7,041
19
votes
How to give away lights to cyclists without lights?
I am from the Bike Lobby in Austria, and we are doing security checks together with the police. We make a checkpoint, the police stops all cyclists and checks their equipment.
If everything is O.K. ...
- 1,219
18
votes
Where can I put my rear light that is designed for the seatpost if the saddle bag is in the way?
You could attach the light to something else, like another part of the frame, or a tab on the saddle bag, or your backpack.
You could remove the saddle bag, attaching onto e.g. the handlebars or ...
- 12.7k
15
votes
Accepted
Mounting light on handlebar with bag installed
As Chris H notes, the clerk was wrong. And he suggests a good suggestion to raise the light above the bag. However, you can also mount the light below the bag as well. Operating on the same principle ...
- 28.9k
15
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
https://bikelightdatabase.com/ has a lot of good information.
There is much more to a light than output. Optics is far more important (and in parts of the world, its illegal to use bike lights that do ...
- 47.7k
14
votes
Legality and morality around wearing a red / blue flashing light on a bicycle in the UK?
Restrictions on fitting blue warning beacons, special warning lamps and similar devices
16. No vehicle, other than an emergency vehicle, shall be fitted with
(a) a blue warning beacon or special ...
- 13k
13
votes
How to give away lights to cyclists without lights?
Yeah I've thought of doing this too. However people generally don't accept spontaneous gifts because it creates a sense of obligation and humans avoid that.
The other viewpoint is they are adults ...
- 119k
13
votes
Is my helmet/camera/light setup dangerous?
If we check the helmet's documentation, there's guaranteed to be some legalese text in there similar to:
modifications to the helmet will void warranty, and may decrease the effectiveness of the ...
- 119k
12
votes
Is there a bicycle light which is hard to steal or very portable?
I always carry lights with me when riding. If I'm parking somewhere safe, like my garage at home or our locked bike room at work, then I'll leave lights attached.
If I'm at the shops then I lock the ...
- 119k
11
votes
Does anyone make a dynamo light buffer battery that will keep it going at full power?
There are standlights, which are essentially supercapacitors combined with LED headlights. They're designed to be charged from the dynamo while riding and give you a few minutes of extra lighting when ...
- 28.9k
11
votes
Why doesn't my (battery-powered) light work in the cold?
Batteries, especially most types of rechargeables don't work well in cold conditions. The chemical reaction that powers the electric voltage does needs some temperature to perform as intended. If you ...
- 3,509
11
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't my (battery-powered) light work in the cold?
There are two reasons why it might not work:
The batteries don't like the cold. Many battery chemistries don't like the cold -- notably alkaline, manganese (heavy-duty), and NiMH/NiCad batteries. To ...
- 28.9k
11
votes
Mounting the front light on the frame instead of the fork or the handlebar?
The light is better on your handlebars or fork than on your frame - the frame lags and always points at some tangent to where you're going while turning, so either you need a really wide beam, or you ...
- 119k
11
votes
Where can I put my rear light that is designed for the seatpost if the saddle bag is in the way?
You obviously have very little seatpost exposed. Most cyclists on compact (i.e. sloping top tube) bikes should not be in this situation, but some of us are on level top tube bikes and some of us have ...
- 28.4k
11
votes
Is there a benefit to turning off dynamo-powered lights?
In general I leave mine on all day (SP-PD8 and Axa luxx 70) but it does take a little extra pedalling effort. A few Watts is likely to be a couple of percent of your effort, but if you were into ...
- 55.7k
10
votes
How to give away lights to cyclists without lights?
Consider offering to lend your spare set instead, and give an address where they can be returned. It doesn't have to be your own address; you could specify a local bike shop, for example.
This ...
- 344
10
votes
Accepted
Which front and rear lights can run while charging?
USB rechargeable lights are not typically designed to be run off of USB power continuously, they're only designed to be charged over USB. I run The Bike Light Database, and have tested dozens of ...
- 3,803
10
votes
Rear light with failure warning
The problem is that you have to start considering the failure modes of the failure detection system. You're quite likely to end up with a less robust system or a lot of false alarms if you have a ...
- 55.7k
10
votes
Polite way to ride in the dark
I had to face exactly this on an old commute. Dipping the front light was absolutely necessary in a park and another stretch of unlit bike path. It was a bright enough light to illuminate the road, ...
- 55.7k
10
votes
Should unconventional colors be avoided for lighting?
Depending on where you are in the world, there may be legal requirements.
For example here in New Zealand at night time you MUST have
White light on the front, no more than two, only one may flash, ...
- 119k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible