Maintaining clearance

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

I still see them occasionally, usually attached to an old clunker. (Still waiting to see on a Colnago or *insert appropriate bling bike here*... My hat off to the first person to do that.)

Seemed like a half sensible idea by indicating to drivers that "I need more space than you think", but then I'd probably end up whacking pedestrians on the bum with it as I passed... which could be kind of fun now that I think of it!

Eddie(did my bike just make a pass at you?)c

"eddiec" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

I still see them occasionally, usually attached to an old clunker.
(Still waiting to see on a Colnago or *insert appropriate bling bike
here*... My hat off to the first person to do that.)

Seemed like a half sensible idea by indicating to drivers that "I need
more space than you think", but then I'd probably end up whacking
pedestrians on the bum with it as I passed... which could be kind of
fun now that I think of it!

Eddie(did my bike just make a pass at you?)c

--
eddiec

Unless the pedestrians are walking along the middle of the road, I don't
reckon they'll be in too much trouble. Ya gotta have it sticking out on the
right side. I was thinking of doing this myself actually, sticking out about
2 ft from the right side of bike with big reflector and with a diamond point
on the end so that the next mongrel in a car to get too close is gunna have
a nice scratch right alongside his (insert make of car here). God I hate
Mondays!!

DJ

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

The whole idea of those was to keep cars away, however in slow moving
traffic passengers would sometimes grab onto them and give them a good
yank. They seem to have gone out of fashion.

Zoom

DJ said:

Unless the pedestrians are walking along the middle of the road, I don't
reckon they'll be in too much trouble. Ya gotta have it sticking out on the
right side. I was thinking of doing this myself actually, sticking out about
2 ft from the right side of bike with big reflector and with a diamond point
on the end so that the next mongrel in a car to get too close is gunna have
a nice scratch right alongside his (insert make of car here). God I hate
Mondays!!

Hmm.. how 'bout the whole metre then?

Complete with an extra lever on the bars to fold it up for when you need
to split lanes!

m.

"Russell Lang" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

I saw a lot of bikes with them in Belgium, mostly town bikes I guess.

Adam

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

Yes, generally a white plastic paddle stick with red reflector in
middle. I think they were spring loaded. which was good for leaning
bicycle against buildings as well.

I produced a mini-version from the metal stiffner in covers for computer
paper - wide carriage verrsion, except I use a combo composite
reflector; two side and one front/rear panel in various combos
red/orange, clear/orange, red/red, etc. I think it made a difference.

"Zoom" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

The whole idea of those was to keep cars away, however in slow moving
traffic passengers would sometimes grab onto them and give them a good
yank. They seem to have gone out of fashion.

Zoom

Although, having said that, I caught up and overtook two guys on the Yarra
Trail last week near Fairfield and they both had one of these "reflector on
a stick" setups. I reckon that the go would be to have one that has a LED
flasher attached to it although you would have to remember it was there
before you decided to split lanes at the lights. I would guess that if you
ran a second flasher on the seatpost, the separation between the two would
improve rear visibility by quite a bit.

On the topic of visibility, I am considering putting a white flasher on the
front of my helmet so that when I am commuting home at night and heading
down a bikelane to the left of a line of stopped traffic (Northwards on
Wellington Rd towards Clifton Hill in particular), cars that are coming the
other way and turning right where a gap has been left in the traffic have a
better chance of realising that there is a bike that is actually moving
despite all the cars being stationary. I am actually pretty paranoid about
this situation and always cover the brakes enough to avoid hitting anyone
who does turn right from the other direction but some more lights might
help.

I guess the other alternative is to mount a HID on the helmet so that when I
make eye contact with approaching drivers, I will know that they have seen
me when I see the reflection back from their eyes 🙂

Ride On,

Gags

Gags said:

I guess the other alternative is to mount a HID on the helmet so that when I
make eye contact with approaching drivers, I will know that they have seen
me when I see the reflection back from their eyes 🙂

a fornight ago i picked up a 5W vista light and nicad nightstick =)
now thinking about a second one for the helmet for the same reasons.
the helmet is a nice height that is well above most cars and is eye
height for most 4wds...

cheers,

kim

Russell Lang said:

A few years ago I knew of a professor who rode his old bicycle to Uni.
Attached to his bike was a reflector on a horizontal post sticking out
to the right, which was attached via a spring to the pack rack.
When ridden, the reflector would bounce up and down a bit on the
spring, and could be folded in to keep it out of the way.
The reflector was probably glass bead on aluminium plate.
I always wondered would happen to the side of a car if they side
swiped the cyclist :-)

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

Greetings,
Yes, I bought one in England in 1984 and had it for a few years, but
found it was something of a problem with the panniers. The `lollipop' as
they appeared to be known was of red plastic with a corner cube plastic
reflector built in. By an odd co-incidence, I saw one on a bike around
this neighborhood only a few weeks ago. I believe mine either got bust
or was taken off as it was something of a nuisance, I had reflective
tape on my rear mudguard and panniers anyway.
Regards,
Ray.

Gags said:

On the topic of visibility, I am considering putting a white flasher
on the front of my helmet so that when I am commuting home at night
and heading down a bikelane to the left of a line of stopped traffic
(Northwards on Wellington Rd towards Clifton Hill in particular),
cars that are coming the other way and turning right where a gap has
been left in the traffic have a better chance of realising that there
is a bike that is actually moving despite all the cars being
stationary.

Blue and red flashing lights work pretty well (on our fire-truck).

Theo

Theo Bekkers said:

Gags said:

On the topic of visibility, I am considering putting a white flasher
on the front of my helmet so that when I am commuting home at night
and heading down a bikelane to the left of a line of stopped traffic
(Northwards on Wellington Rd towards Clifton Hill in particular),
cars that are coming the other way and turning right where a gap has
been left in the traffic have a better chance of realising that there
is a bike that is actually moving despite all the cars being
stationary.

Blue and red flashing lights work pretty well (on our fire-truck).

Theo

I've used blue and red flashing lights on my bike for some years and
never had any kind of problem because of it. I highly recommend it.

Zoom

Zoom said:

I've used blue and red flashing lights on my bike for some years and
never had any kind of problem because of it. I highly recommend it.

I've got a very bright white flashing LED light on the front - normally
gets me noticed.

I was riding home last night after dark, turned a corner about a block
away from my place, and noticed three figures walking away from me up
the street. Strange thing about this town - people walk on the road,
even when there's a perfectly good footpath.

They noticed my flashing light, and gradually moved over to the side of
the road as they walked, taking a few nervous glances over their
shoulders at me. As I drew level with the three teenage boys, one of
them said to me, "We thought you was the cops, brah, coming to pick us
up!" Made me chuckle.

--
John <[email hidden]>
(Remove hat before emailing)

Quoted post said:

On the topic of visibility, I am considering putting a white flasher on the
front of my helmet so that when I am commuting home at night and heading
down a bikelane to the left of a line of stopped traffic (Northwards on
Wellington Rd towards Clifton Hill in particular), cars that are coming the
other way and turning right where a gap has been left in the traffic have a
better chance of realising that there is a bike that is actually moving
despite all the cars being stationary. I am actually pretty paranoid about
this situation and always cover the brakes enough to avoid hitting anyone
who does turn right from the other direction but some more lights might
help.

I've been riding with a flasher on my helmet for the last couple of years and I think that it has helped with my visibility. At least I haven't been hit from the side in that time, but then I haven't been hit before then either.

I think it works for entering roundabouts where I can turn my head to directly face the driver contemplating entering the roundabout to cut me off, or for cars in side streets. I can also stand a bit higher if I want to flash over say a parked car blocking the site line of another car about to back out of a driveway.

The one I've been using up till recently was a Basta/Smart 4 LED unit that has an elastic headband and a handlebar mount. It strapped around my helmet quite easily and the design is such that there is some light output to the side.

It's been pretty flakey since some batteries leaked in it, so just this last week I've been using a 14 LED head light that I picked up from an ebay seller in Hong Kong for $13.50, batteries included.

It is a lot brighter with a narrower beam, but the flash rate is slower. It is a little heavier and the angle is adjustable, but not very secure. Construction is of course very cheap, so it might not last a long time, but for the price... Not sure what the run time will be like. The 3 AAA in the Basta would last a year. The new one also runs on 3 AAA, so I might get some NIMH batteries if the alkalines don't last so long.

I also use a homemade bar light which is about 10W, but I might get another 14 LED for the bars as a backup.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> "slaw" == slaw <[email hidden]> writes:

slaw> I think it works for entering roundabouts where I can turn my
slaw> head to directly face the driver contemplating entering the
slaw> roundabout to cut me off, or for cars in side streets.

That's where it really scores for me, being able to direct the light in
the direction required.

slaw> The one I've been using up till recently was a Basta/Smart 4
slaw> LED unit that has an elastic headband and a handlebar
slaw> mount. It strapped around my helmet quite easily and the
slaw> design is such that there is some light output to the side.

I've got a watch battery driven one, single LED. It works to be seen
but no way could I ride by it alone. I picked that type 'cause I didn't
want to put too much weight on my head, had enough of that in the army
:-p

Other lights, 3 LED Opticube and a 10W NiteFlux on the front. On the
rear five LED flasher and a set of TopFire LEDs for the helmet. One of
these days I'll get another led flasher to put on the saddlebag as a
back up for the one bolted to the rack.
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\<,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)

On 2005-08-22, Zoom (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Russell Lang said:

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

The whole idea of those was to keep cars away, however in slow moving
traffic passengers would sometimes grab onto them and give them a good
yank. They seem to have gone out of fashion.

As well as diamond tip on the end, and a retraction lever, razor
blades lining the spring.

--
TimC
Beating is one thing .... pounding accompanied by the shakes is a bit
unnerving -- Andrew Comeau in RHOD

TimC said:

On 2005-08-22, Zoom (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Russell Lang said:

Anyone remember seeing these reflectors?

The whole idea of those was to keep cars away, however in slow moving
traffic passengers would sometimes grab onto them and give them a good
yank. They seem to have gone out of fashion.

As well as diamond tip on the end, and a retraction lever, razor
blades lining the spring.

Cutting peds in half?

Hmmmmm Can;t say I approve. But I wont turn you in either 🙂