Lights for night time, low-light, and low-visibility Commuting

My bike commute dictates I ride when it is dark. Having bicycle commuted 10+ years out of the past 15; I know being seen is the most important aspect of sharing the road with motor vehicles. As an Environmental, Health, and Safety professional in the Transportation and Utility industries, I have been involved in assuring the safety of employees working in traffic 24/7. Being visible in traffic makes the difference between life and death. My experience working with strobe lights, rotating lights, conspicuity issues, DOT requirements, and knowing the diversity of high visibility clothing and equipment has significantly influenced my choices of bicycle lighting and high-visibility apparel I wear will riding at night.

Each one of my commuter bikes has a slightly different setup, but at a minimum my night time, low-light, low-visibility lighting includes:

· Front Lighting: 1 or 2 Trek LED 5-Disco front flashers (in flashing mode), a knock-off brand 5 LED red flasher (in flashing mode), a Blackburn Quadrant (in flashing mode), and a Cateye EL-300 – a constant on-only 5 LED headlight. Most of the lights are mounted on the handle bar, but I try to mount one or two lights lower along the head tube to increase the apparent size of the light to on-coming traffic.


· Rear Lighting: 1 or 2 knock-off brand 5 LED flashers (in flashing mode), a VistaLite Eclipse (in flashing mode), an older model VistaLite red 5 LED flasher (only mode), and 1 Trek LED 5-Disco front flasher. On flasher is mounted on the tube just below the seat. Two flashers are mounted on rear outer side of the rear basket, and on my mountain bike I have made a 2-foot long light bar out of corrugated plastic. Looking at the rear of the different bikes you see a 2-foot triangle of red flashing light.


· Wheels: TireFlys LED tire-valve mounted flashers, 3M reflective side-wall tires, and 3M reflective tape applied in ¼ inch pieces mounted evenly around the rim. The TireFlys turn on by centrifugal force and work best at over 15 MPH, the also light up when the wheel gets jarred going over rough road. As the wheel spins the light makes a circle. I am a little disappointed the TireFlys aren’t on more, but they are cool. When headlights strike the 3M material they reflect the light back toward the source so on-coming motorists. So on-coming motorist see 2-20 inch round white and neon green circles as they approach me.


· Apparel: DOT Class 3 lime-colored mesh vest (for ventilation) with wide 3M reflective stripes, and a Bell helmet with ¾ inch 3M reflective tape covering about 20% of the hard shell. 3M reflective materials are cool. I actually have 2 yards of the material I am saving for a small project. When car headlights, or any direction light hits the material, the light is reflected back in the direction it came. You can see this material reflecting at 4000 feet away. (For summer night riding I have DOT Class 2 hi-viz polyester t-shirts with 3M reflective strips on them – they are visible and reflect a lot of on-coming light.)

· Soon to be added is a nifty English made LED system that uses a magnet generator. I am also looking for a string of battery-powered LED Christmas lights to add to the “area” lighting by stringing on my rear basket.

Combining the lighting and apparel, I have created a significantly large area of highly visible combination of bike and bike rider which is hard to miss. While a little “battery-heavy”, my current setup should (according to all the different manufacturers literature) last for 200 hours of use; this equals about 100 days of commuting. Considering I work a 3- or 4-day work week on a 12-hour rotating schedule, the 100 days of commuting will probably take me through to May 2006, or for about the next 6-months. For the most part, I am happy with my lighting choices. I am a little disappointed with the Cateye lights (I have the EL200 and EL300) because they don’t flash and they don’t throw as strong a beam of light beam as the Blackburn.

I know my setup works because a lot of people give me eye contact, actually stares. Most adults try to avoid me, most teens laugh at me, and most kids say, “cool bike”. On my 20” Dahon, I feel like I finally got the bike I wanted when I was a kid. On my mountain bike with my beat-up old panniers, I look like a bum on a cool bike. On my Sun EZ3 Aluminum recumbent trike with Zzipper fairing, I look like some futuristic visitor here before my time.