55
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 ...
- 62.6k
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 ...
- 10.8k
45
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 ...
- 17.1k
44
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 ...
- 12k
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 ...
- 6,747
39
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 ...
- 514
38
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 ...
- 17.1k
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 ...
- 2,203
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 ...
- 1,114
26
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 ...
- 7,311
19
votes
Accepted
Dynamo hub lights flickering: should I be concerned?
Shimano hubs and B&M lights should work nicely together. I've used that combination in the past.
You need to ride around for a few minutes to charge up the capacitors that power the stand-lights ...
- 4,670
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 ...
- 13k
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 ...
- 29.5k
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 ...
- 53.1k
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 ...
- 15.8k
13
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 ...
- 29.5k
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 ...
- 131k
13
votes
Accepted
DIY system for charging battery packs from hub dynamo
Decathlon uses a third party part, that is available for sale if you want to fit it on your bike: Cycle2Charge
The category name for this kind of products is "headset cap USB charger" or &...
- 24.7k
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 ...
- 131k
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 ...
- 4,489
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 ...
- 29.5k
11
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 ...
- 62.6k
11
votes
Accepted
Why are there no/very-few bicycle-specific lights with replaceable 18650 Li-Ion batteries?
Technical reasons: It’s harder and more expensive to design and manufacture a sturdy, lightweight, waterproof case which can be opened by the user. It’s also harder to design and manufacture spring ...
- 29.3k
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 ...
- 36k
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 ...
- 62.6k
11
votes
head and tail light connected to a single battery?
All the head/tail lights on the market appear to have their own separate battery and separate switches
Not so.
There are battery-less lights that you can run from dynamo. Generally the rear light is ...
- 21.3k
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, ...
- 62.6k
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, ...
- 131k
10
votes
Are dynamo hubs specific to particular lights?
Speaking in terms of past few decades to current generator hubs and lights, mostly they are interchangeable, with some qualifiers and exceptions.
Almost all current hubs and lights are based around 6 ...
- 88.2k
10
votes
Accepted
Where is the Shimano e-tube project light connection setting?
Shimano hides this kind of information behind its TEC site. This is for 'industry professionals', but you can register by selecting some random bike shop as your place of work, there are no checks.
...
- 4,240
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible