On 2017-09-16 17:03, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/16/2017 2:34 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-16 09:28, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/16/2017 10:51 AM, Joerg wrote:


On a steep uphill I sure want my rear light as bright as it gets. On
winding uphill stretches the risk of being seen too late is highest.

Have you ever bothered to get a friend to ride your bike at night, then
observe your bike's lights and reflectors as you drove your car?

I've done things like that many times, with my family, with friends,
with bike club members. And as mentioned, I've gotten spontaneous
compliments from motorists.

All of this testing has showed that a cyclist does NOT need super-bright
lights or high tech equipment to be perfectly visible.

The modern paranoia calling for super-bright lights is silly. It's
spouted by people who haven't done simple tests.


Nonsense. I did tests. If you want to be able to pull up to 15mph on
singletrack or 25mph on a road with occasional debris on it those 1000
lumen lights are a safety feature. Because you see stuff. For
slowpokes that is, of course, a different story.

At night, I don't often hit 25 mph.


I do every time I return from a church meeting. Nasty thoroughfare sans
bike lane and I want to leave that behind me fast. So I step on it. A
friend of mine travels at that speed. I can't do that anymore, only for
a few minutes at a time. Embarrassingly I am a few years younger than he
is but after 20mins at 25mph my tongue hangs on the handlebar.


... I don't know many cyclists who do.
But when I've done it I don't recall trouble seeing adequately with my
Busch & Muller Cyo headlights.


Here, you have to see debris that fell from construction trucks and
tossed glass bottles well ahead of time. Because there is no chance to
evade those if you are just being passed by a bus.


BTW, I do have one friend who completed Paris-Brest-Paris a couple
times, over ten years ago. (He's one of the guys who finished my double
century with me.) PBP is hilly riding in dark and remote Brittany, with
lots of night riding. His lighting equipment was very, very ordinary,
and nothing at all close to 1000 lumens.

However, I note a subtle shift in the topic of conversation. Upthread
you were claiming a nighttime road cyclist needs glaring lights to _be
seen_. Now you're switching to fast-riding cyclists needing 1000 lumens
to see where they're going.

I think you'll dance around any and all topics in your effort to "prove"
that riding a bike is very, very dangerous.


No, it's both. My lights serve both purposes. At night they make my bike
appear like a small motorcycle and that has reduced the number of cases
where someone pulled out of a parking lot in front of me.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/