Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Audax => Topic started by: arabella on 26 January, 2024, 08:01:32 am
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I'd like to bring to your attention the resolution I have submitted to the AUK AGM about using steady lights only - because some of us find flashing/pulsing/etc lights causes us problems. There's a lot more more on the topic on the AUK forum (https://forum.audax.uk/index.php?topic=2405.0).
Please vote in favour, and please encourage others to vote in favour. (Check your spam if the AGM email doesn't seem to have arrived, your email will also have the additional info/rationale).
If you're not sure, consider voting in favour out of consideration for those who are negatively impacted by flashing etc. lights.
Or if you still don't care then please actively abstain, rather than letting someone else chose for you.
Any further debate please put on the AUK forum (https://audax.uk/Forum.aspx) (it's your normal AUK login details).
KEEP THE DEBATE IN ONE PLACE, which is the AUK Forum thread!
(Mods: please ban replies here, but make sticky until after voting closes which is 5pm on 15th Feb)
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Stickified but we only lock threads if they get out of hand.
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the motion was defeated
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Yes, and I think that was the correct response.
We should advise and educate, not prohibit.
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Bollocks. People who ride in groups using flashing lights have announced themselves as shits.
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As somebody whose vision is affected by this issue I find that disappointing.
It will mean fewer calendar events for me, soon enough anything above 200 will pretty much have to be a DIY.
Also makes me way less likely to organise events in future
All so that some flash Harry can have their preferred rear light setting.
Hot dog
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I don't know if this is still the case, but when I was involved with the FNRttC (Friday Night to the Coast) rides, in the safety briefing before we set off, there would always be a statement about not using flashing lights on the ride. Bearing in mind we would regularly get 50+ riders, that could be VERY annoying seeing as there'd be large groups riding together.
If someone was subsequently found to be flashing, I, or someone else, would ask them to switch to steady. I remember on one occasion, someone only had a basic flashing only light so I gave them a spare one of mine.
So organisers should really push the message that flashers aren't appreciated.
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Apart from anything else, flashing lights are unnecessary if riding in a group.
However I agree with Feanor. I think the decision not to ban is correct. Lots of audax riding is done on one's own and people should be free to ride as they feel because safety, not inconvenience, is paramount. But I'd agree that it ought to be stressed that if you choose to ride in a group it is inconsiderate to remain on flash. It ought be be within the culture that a polite request to change flash mode to static is usual. No need to be rude or aggressive and labelling people "shits". You don't know what their motivations are. There are plenty of audax riders who are quite oblivious. That doesn't make them "shits".
On flashing lights in general, I'd say this. If they are distracting then good. It is their purpose to distract drivers away from what else is distracting them and focus them on me.
I ride a lot of hours, and it's rare for me to have a commute where at least one builder's van doesn't pass me with weed smoke wafting out, or seeing many drivers looking down at mobiles. I want them distracted back to me.
AFAIK the majority of accidents involving bikes occur at junctions, where visibility is key. It's not good enough for people to say "drivers should look out for cyclists", because even though they should, they don't.
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Apart from anything else, flashing lights are unnecessary if riding in a group.
That was the point of the resolution - ECE and DIY were excluded. Group == calendar event. Admittedly well strung out in some cases but also yo-yoing.
On flashing lights in general, I'd say this. If they are distracting then good. It is their purpose to distract drivers away from what else is distracting them and focus them on me.
You do realise that the distracting also applies to your fellow cyclists? Which isn't good.
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Given the number of audaxers during brevets who refuse to swap to steady lights when asked and expect to be instantly squashed by motor vehicles without their blindingly flashing lights despite the other cyclists around them, ‘shits’ is a fair description.
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Have you tried being polite?
I've never had a rider refuse to change a light from flashing to static.
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You do realise that the distracting also applies to your fellow cyclists? Which isn't good.
I am also a "fellow cyclist" ;)
I've no issue with riders asking other riders, in a group, to turn off a flash.
Other circumstances are less clear cut, for example if riding alone another rider catches up with me and finds my flashing light annoying I'd expect them to continue past me. They cannot expect me to change what I am doing just because they want to wheelsuck. How would they even be sure I am on the same event?
I'm 20 years of near daily commuting I've had two people ride up from behind and have a whinge about my flashing light. One of them I'd just flown past on a fixed. He buried himself to catch up with me for a whine. Really odd behaviour. I would have been out of sight in seconds.
The second time was on a cyclepath. A rider came up behind me and sat on my wheel. I moved over and waved them through. They sat there, then when we got to a junction had a whine. Both these were in full daylight.
m. Both were treated to a rare lack of diplomacy on my part.
Some people just like complaining. And for clarity, I don't mean you. Flashing lights in groups of riders are annoying and unnecessary, and I agree with you.
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HF, have you asked more than a handful of times? I am at least as polite as you.
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Unless you're absurdly fast or absurdly slow entering a calendar event means at times riding in groups, or at least within annoyance distance of other riders. Don't use a fucking flashing light.
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I don't do audax
Flashing lights trigger disabling migraines for me.
Flashing lights make it very difficult to just distance (applies to front and rear).
Flashing front lights are by far the worst. On dark paths I found myself reduced to completely stopping until the rider had passed me.
Very bright, badly adjusted lights on steady are also bad for dazzle and making it impossible to judge distance.
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HF, have you asked more than a handful of times? I am at least as polite as you.
I've never asked anyone l.
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So, a meaningless answer.
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Civil, please, masters.
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I don't do audax but have done a lot of Dunwich Dynamos. Flashing lights are bloody awful in a group. Luckily, as long as someone in *your* group isn't using one, you are either passing the flashers or being overtaken by them, so a relatively few flashers are only a transient problem. If a lot of people are using them, it's headache time.
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<thread drift> Let's hear it for badly angled too bright steady lights too. All those Chinesium giga-lumen light buckets without a semblance of beam shaping. Dazzling people heading towards you isn't good, especially when they're piloting 2t of metal. Rear lights as well. There's someone in our Tandem Club group who deploys a dazzling rear light. Of course I haven't actually mentioned it to them yet...
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C-3PO, please point out where I have attacked anybody on this thread.
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C-3PO, please point out where I have attacked anybody on this thread.
No one has been singled out.
Discussion over.
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So, a meaningless answer.
Just my little joke.
I think we are all agreed that flashing lights are inappropriate and possibly dangerous in a group. Should not be a compulsory though.
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There are plenty of audaxing shits that won't stop using flashing light in groups unless there is a rule against it. Tutting at them just strengthens their resolve. At PBP, I had to audibly record somebody's number to get them to stop their taillight flashing, despite PBP's rule. These idiots think that their perception of 'safety' overrides everything.
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I don't think anyone's mentioned the other and possibly major reason why people might use flashing modes on lamps: run time.
A flashing mode will last hours, sometimes days longer than a steady beam. I bet this is a huge factor.
That doesn't mean I approve and I don't flash myself. Certainly not since that zip malfunction ...
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There are plenty of audaxing shits that won't stop using flashing light in groups unless there is a rule against it. Tutting at them just strengthens their resolve. At PBP, I had to audibly record somebody's number to get them to stop their taillight flashing, despite PBP's rule. These idiots think that their perception of 'safety' overrides everything.
There appears to be a contradiction in there
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On flashing lights in general, I'd say this. If they are distracting then good. It is their purpose to distract drivers away from what else is distracting them and focus them on me.
If a light is dazzling or distracting it's a road traffic and construction and use offence.
With astigmatism in both eyes and glare sensitivity due to extra bits it's actually painful and blinding.
I'm of the view that flashing lights shouldn't have been allowed in C&U during the hours of darkness, but they are so...
The answer is of course to sprint to the front of the group and then slow down so that the people who are wanting to ride with you hang around and the ones you aren't fuck off.
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There are plenty of audaxing shits that won't stop using flashing light in groups unless there is a rule against it. Tutting at them just strengthens their resolve. At PBP, I had to audibly record somebody's number to get them to stop their taillight flashing, despite PBP's rule. These idiots think that their perception of 'safety' overrides everything.
There appears to be a contradiction in there
Only if you read 'plenty' as meaning 'all'. There are plenty of folk who will grumble but will still follow a rule against their preferences (I wore a helmet at the recent PBP, unlike previous editions). There will always be an antisocial minority who ignore even explicit rules (polite disapproval is meaningless to them), hence the number of unlicensed and uninsured drivers on the roads.
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They should all be using dynamos, the lazy sods ;D
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I don't think anyone's mentioned the other and possibly major reason why people might use flashing modes on lamps: run time.
A flashing mode will last hours, sometimes days longer than a steady beam. I bet this is a huge factor.
That doesn't mean I approve and I don't flash myself. Certainly not since that zip malfunction ...
Did the judge accept the 'malfunction' defence?
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I don't think anyone's mentioned the other and possibly major reason why people might use flashing modes on lamps: run time.
A flashing mode will last hours, sometimes days longer than a steady beam. I bet this is a huge factor.
That doesn't mean I approve and I don't flash myself. Certainly not since that zip malfunction ...
Did the judge accept the 'malfunction' defence?
I don’t think Peter’s defence stood up in court.
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;D
Depends whether he got lucky with the choice of judge
(https://i2.ytimg.com/vi/9VgwxKW0J6I/default.jpg)
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German traffic regs say no blinkers, French regs say you can have one but you have to have a steady one as well. UAF regs say no.
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I don't think anyone's mentioned the other and possibly major reason why people might use flashing modes on lamps: run time.
A flashing mode will last hours, sometimes days longer than a steady beam. I bet this is a huge factor.
That doesn't mean I approve and I don't flash myself. Certainly not since that zip malfunction ...
Chaps, it never got to court: attending policeman took a quick look and said, "nothing to see here, move on everybody". Humiliating! (This story may not actually exist, not even as a flash on the pan.)
Did the judge accept the 'malfunction' defence?
I don’t think Peter’s defence stood up in court.
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Time for everyone to revert to the MK1 group light
(https://www.picclickimg.com/xmkAAOSwOW9lR8ha/Ever-Ready-Rearguard-Cycle-Light-With-Bracket.webp)
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Other circumstances are less clear cut, for example if riding alone another rider catches up with me and finds my flashing light annoying I'd expect them to continue past me. They cannot expect me to change what I am doing just because they want to wheelsuck. How would they even be sure I am on the same event?
You don't have to be wheelsucking for another rider's flashing light to be a nuisance. They could be some distance up the road and still be annoying, especially if it's a very bright light. And if the speed difference between you isn't enough to close/grow the gap quickly, you could end up stuck with it for a while.
I used to use a flashing rear light, for safety, but the more I read about it, the less convinced I am of the supposed safety argument - it seems to be based on very flimsy evidence. I think there might be more of a case for flashing lights in an urban environment where you have lots of competing light sources, but no case at all on an unlit country road (in fact, flashing lights could be less safe in that situation because it makes it harder for car drivers to judge the distance between you and them).
Anyway, I no longer use flashing lights.
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Time for everyone to revert to the MK1 group light
(https://www.picclickimg.com/xmkAAOSwOW9lR8ha/Ever-Ready-Rearguard-Cycle-Light-With-Bracket.webp)
I have a far older Exide "torpedo" rear light that is quite unreasonably bright when fitted with a Reflectalite red LED. We're talking DiNotte levels of offensiveness.
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That was the point of the resolution - ECE and DIY were excluded. Group == calendar event. Admittedly well strung out in some cases but also yo-yoing.
depends on the size of the field, I have ridden more than a few calendar events where I haven't seen another rider for several hours. When riding in a group I would always set to steady, but flash mode doubles the burn time of the light meaning it's much less likely to run out on me during the event. It's also more obvious to drivers who will be approaching at speed and not expecting to see a cyclist on the road at 1am.
(riding all night is mainly a problem for 400s, on 200s, 300s I would expect not much night time riding, and on 600s I would normally stop 2-3 hours after sunset and typically start again at dawn.)
If the event starts in the dark I would go with steady light, but after 250km the field is likely so strung out I would only expect to see other riders at controls, in which case maximum visibility trumps extremely unlikely discomfort to someone who probably won't be approaching from behind on another bike.
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Have you tried being polite?
I've never had a rider refuse to change a light from flashing to static.
My cycling club pushed back against my suggestion that solid lights were sufficient on group rides, club guidance is actually to use flashing lights :facepalm: FFS riding in the daytime in red jerseys is more than sufficient to be seen. But no, now we have blinking lights.
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I don't think anyone's mentioned the other and possibly major reason why people might use flashing modes on lamps: run time.
A flashing mode will last hours, sometimes days longer than a steady beam. I bet this is a huge factor.
That doesn't mean I approve and I don't flash myself. Certainly not since that zip malfunction ...
ok but i can run a steady light for a whole 600 without a battery change or a recharge. So whilst you are correct about this affecting run time, with current light tech it's a non issue. With light tech from 10 years ago the same is true
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I'm sure it's possible now, V'sprung but it wasn't a few years ago unless you paid more for your lamp than some of us paid for a bike! Which lamps are you using, out of interest?
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Those 2xAAA lamps that have been available in pound shops for 2-3 decades last for several days if battery life is a concern.
In terms of rechargeables, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a rear light bought today and one bought 10+ years ago.
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Peter:
"a few years ago" so 2007 there was a cateye light that took AA batteries
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.backcountry.com%2Fimages%2Fitems%2F900%2FCAT%2FCAT0006%2FONECOL.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0ca5bf664900871aede5c3f2e1998bb2b1a3965f6b41905f28766b5379193463&ipo=images)
Then after that (maybe 2012?) smart made some nice lights that ran on AAA. These are called a super flash but they do also run steady
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/WfYAAOSw3EpbdWhO/s-l1600.jpg)
both these lights were cheap at the time. The super flash is still widely available for less than 10 quid
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I haven't needed anything that's had a long run time for some time (unfortunately) but I have had a couple of the Smart lights in the past and found them pretty good though the "clip" cracked on at least one of them. The tech for bike lamps has definitely come on leaps and bounds in the last few years.
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In terms of rechargeables, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a rear light bought today and one bought 10+ years ago.
Other than the tripling of light output for the same price.
£25 now buys a 300l tail light.
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A cat eye Omni 3 claims 100 hours in steady ...
The B&M secular permanent has a 25 hour run time...
The former is enough to keep the light on even in day light during a 1200. The later will give you 3 8 hour nights worth.
Maybe if you're using tiddly usb lights that are designed for commuting, then you might have to worry about battery life. But for not that much money (esp given all the other costs of an Audax) (cat eye omni 3 is €14), you can have a light that gives you a run time well in excess of your ride length. And if you're that worried about battery life, dynamos...
In terms of rides, my record for a 200 without seeing any other rider is about 12 hours... Of which 5 were spent in the dark.
If people are worried about visibility, I would offer that pedal reflectors offer bigger bang for your buck than a flashing rear light. Ditto wheel reflectors. A nice feature of the B&M mentioned above is the integral reflector. cat eye also make one with a built in reflector called the reflex auto (TL-LD570-R), which also complies with the British standard for bike reflectors. Which is not a common feature.
Personally my rear lighting setup consists of a b&M secular dynamo on the left seat stay, a secular permanent on the right seat stay, a reflex auto on the seat post, and a pair of Omni 3's on the back of my tailfin. Depending on conditions, I'll have anything from 1 to 5 of them on. Usually only the dynamo. In fact the only time I've put all 5 on was when I accidentally ended up on an 80kph main road in Germany on the evening of Christmas day. Which was bloody stupid place to ride.
Flashing lights on group rides is just antisocial. We shouldn't need rules about, just general politeness and thinking of your fellow riders should be enough.
J
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The Smart Super Flash was decent for brightness and battery life but unfortunately not light life, as it succumbed to rain and spray.
Anyway, this reminds me of what I heard from someone I used to work with, that in the '70s and '80s, you could always immediately distinguish a Japanese car at night because they had much bigger tail lights than the British and European makes. Which seems to have been true, but was it a (claimed) safety feature, some result of Japanese regulations, or just a styling decision? I expect the last.
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I'm pretty sure they were still 5W incandescent lamps, so probably a styling feature aimed at the US market, where rear lights were often humungous.
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As it is now, front and rear, thanks (again) to LEDs. Thinking of all the stripes and zig-zags and so on, often the entire width of the vehicle (European manufacturers very much in on it this time).
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The Smart Super Flash was decent for brightness and battery life but unfortunately not light life, as it succumbed to rain and spray.
blog from 2014
https://audaxing.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/not-so-smart-with-lights/
pretty sure i still have one or two in working order after this treatment
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I still have a couple of those PlanetX Superflash clones in regular (though not heavy) use. Admittedly with a strategic elastic band to stop
anyone wanting to nick them the front half ejecting when I fail to avoid a pothole. There's also a real Smart one somewhere which got removed from the Red Baron to when I replaced the rear rack with a tailbox.
My Radbot1000 (which is a better-engineered functional equivalent to the Smart that also uses the same brackets, and must be about 10 years old) has just been transplanted to my new Streetmachine, on the basis that I came up with a suspension-friendly bracket bodge and didn't want to have to change it. It only gets switched on for night riding and shite weather, but it's been on the bike for thousands of miles without trouble. That one's notable for introducing a sinusoidal throb mode as an alternative to hard flashing, which I reckon is a good compromise between attention-getting and melting the BRANEZ of following riders. Sort of thing that makes sense if you're not riding in a group per se, but expect other cyclists to be around.
My primary rear lighting is rack-mounted dynamo lights like dog intended. Mostly from B&M. Notable not just because it's a steady light, but that it consistently points in the right direction. Partially-arsed light attachment (bouncing around on soft luggage loops, seatstay mounted and aimed at low-flying aircraft / into the eyes of following riders) can be as problematic as actual flashing modes IME.
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I have read the thread and two things appear to be clear.
1. Flashing lights are picked up earlier.
2. They are harder to judge the distance of.
The real question does not appear to have been asked.
Does this matter in the real world? Does the earlier notice reduce collisions? Or does the flashing and confusion of senses cause more?
All I know is that I have felt my brain getting muddled when in groups with multiple flashing lights and on a few occasions I have had to stop, let the group go and continue alone.
As a car driver as well I do not think the flashing lights help cyclists. Two good rear lights on steady is good and front flashing lights tend to cause confusion.
Sent from my SM-A346B using Tapatalk
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I don't think there's any decent real-world evidence for bike lights having any safety benefit at all. Even front lights probably just help you to ride faster.
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Does this matter in the real world? .
As a car driver as well I do not think the flashing lights help cyclists. Two good rear lights on steady is good and front flashing lights tend to cause confusion.
As a car driver I'd say that you are correct in rural situations.
On busy urban roads I find cyclists with flashing lights more noticeable - particularly front flashing lights.
(Although it's outside the scope of this thread I find head mounted lights extremely confusing as a driver - the sometimes rapid high level movements make locating the source almost impossible)
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(Although it's outside the scope of this thread I find head mounted lights extremely confusing as a driver - the sometimes rapid high level movements make locating the source almost impossible)
It's far better if there's also a steady light mounted on the bike - it gives your eye something to focus on.
The best light I've seen, apart from the soothing pulse of Kim's Radbolt, was years ago on a recumbent, where the rider had strapped a front light to the top of the long pole mounted behind, so that it shone down and bathed his white helmet (oo-er missus) in light, making him shine like a nuclear egg cup going critical.