Author Topic: Visibility in fog  (Read 5901 times)

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #25 on: 24 February, 2019, 08:34:35 pm »
Personally I don't like extra bright dazzling lights, front or rear, especially flashing, so I don't use them.

I wouldn't get any just to use for the rare chance that it's foggy when I need to ride.

Depends how common fog is. Round these parts, it's surprisingly common. I often wake up to find I can't see the ground outside, from 6 floors up. Riding to work in those conditions, I run with my edelux II front light and a secular dynamo at the rear. But then I live in a swamp, so it's probably more common here...

J
I use a clerical battery.


I'll get my vestments.


And a serious comment: morning fog is also common in small, steep-sided valleys and around large rivers. Very common round here to go from sunshine up on the ridgy bit into fog down in the Severn Valley, for instance. Hill fog of course exists as a counterpoint to this.
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Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #26 on: 24 February, 2019, 08:36:10 pm »
Oh, and the great thing about dynamo lighting in fog or heavy rain is that you can use it without worrying that you won't have enough battery left for the night time part of the ride.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #27 on: 24 February, 2019, 09:20:12 pm »
Of course when riding rather than driving the fog did not seem so thick.

Do you wear glasses?

You've misattributed the quote (that was tatanab), but FWIW, I wear glasses, and find that glasses with droplets on them are about as bad as my distance vision without glasses.

I haven't really had an opportunity to compare cycling with driving in fog.  Indeed, I don't think I've driven in proper fog more than a handful of times.

Ben T

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #28 on: 24 February, 2019, 10:10:46 pm »
I rode in the fog today, had rear cat eye spare on as well as the dynamo rear, and yellow gilet. Radbot probably better but not worth having one just for the handful of times a year there's fog, the combination I've got is probably ok.

But was shocked at the amount of drivers that seem to think it acceptable to drive around in fog with no lights on at all!

I've never found car front fog lights make much difference, maybe I'm looking wrong or it's the wrong sort of fog for them? The button is an easier way of getting the main head lights to switch on if the sensor decides it's not dark. (I could move the switch to always on, but I'd have to remember to put it back to auto)

rogerzilla

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #29 on: 24 February, 2019, 10:34:54 pm »
Front fogs are useless on most cars.  You can't normally tell from the driver's seat whether they're on or off.  The ones on my old Jimny did sort of work but the ones on the MX-5 and Mazda 6 are just for sporty looks, as far as I can tell.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #30 on: 24 February, 2019, 10:57:27 pm »
Should your riding in fog encompass the hours of darkness, an StVZO front light (preferably mounted fairly low) is considerably better than any other light.
If you are to see where the road goes, you want to minimise the amount of brightly lit fog between your eyes and the road. Head mounted lights are particularly bad, verging on unusable.

Kim

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #31 on: 24 February, 2019, 11:10:20 pm »
Should your riding in fog encompass the hours of darkness, an StVZO front light (preferably mounted fairly low) is considerably better than any other light.

Absolutely agreed.  Best not to mount your head fairly low at the same time, thobut.

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #32 on: 24 February, 2019, 11:43:32 pm »
Many years ago I had a 12 V lighting system on a bike. The rear light was a car fog light, (https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Genuine-HELLA-Rear-Fog-Tail-Light-2ne-002-985-001-Top-German-Quality/9021669655?iid=382572863126&chn=ps) in which I ran a 6 W bulb. ....
That seems rather expensive:
For years my main dynamo rear lamp was a ring rear fog lamp* lit to tail lamp level with 1.5Watt Sturney Archer MES bulb (approx 15lumens) till unavailable then 2.4W bulb(21lumens) in it (cycle bulbs trade brightness for life compared to car bulbs such as your 5Watt (approx 36lumens perhaps?)...): because it had a nice wide beam compared to then filament cycle lamps: it lives on with a power led emitter pointing at the reflector (IQ style :) ) and a salvaged Spanninga Arcus 180 Circuit board.
It seems to have forgiving optics: I once tried the same idea in a  different kind/make and it was rubbish....

*only white versions seem available now at 4.75+P&Phttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ring-Automotive-140mm-Rectangular-Clear-Lens-Reversing-Light-Car-Lamp-RL013/272106273317?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

I suppose running an extra heatsinked LED at >1watt from a battery would give a real fog light...
NB on battery emergency fog lights:  if one cannot raid a headtorch etc, should batteries not be available in a nearby garage?  Currently in fog I would use two moon pulsors at full power but I would probably be prone to listening and scurrying out of the way rather than relying on driver sense....
You could argue that the existance of mandoratory car fog lamps encourages bad driving...

Pingu

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #33 on: 24 February, 2019, 11:52:00 pm »
Of course when riding rather than driving the fog did not seem so thick.

Do you wear glasses?

You've misattributed the quote...

Soz, deleted the wrong bit of the post. I meant to ask tatanab if they wear glasses.

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #34 on: 25 February, 2019, 12:00:07 am »
International Orange is the best colour of all for showing up in fog (IME). Much better than yellow.

I noted that orange (which a couple of riders were wearing) was less good than either yellow or black, but that may be an artefact of my colour vision.  In less monochrome surroundings, it has a habit of blending in with greenery.

And for completeness light blue was unremarkable, though less invisible than the Provis.

Orange hi-viz is what is pretty much universal for french hunters ("chasseurs") and beaters, particularly during drives for wild boar. Often coupled to camouflage markings. Perhaps that makes them melt into the countryside in the eyes of the prey while still being visible to their mates. Doesn't prevent beaters being mistaken for targets, mind.
Personally I don't like extra bright dazzling lights, front or rear, especially flashing, so I don't use them.

I wouldn't get any just to use for the rare chance that it's foggy when I need to ride.

Depends how common fog is. Round these parts, it's surprisingly common. I often wake up to find I can't see the ground outside, from 6 floors up. Riding to work in those conditions, I run with my edelux II front light and a secular dynamo at the rear. But then I live in a swamp, so it's probably more common here...

J
I use a clerical battery.


I'll get my vestments.


And a serious comment: morning fog is also common in small, steep-sided valleys and around large rivers. Very common round here to go from sunshine up on the ridgy bit into fog down in the Severn Valley, for instance. Hill fog of course exists as a counterpoint to this.

Indeed, the Severn Valley is notorious for it. I have photos with Crickley Hill standing out as an island in the middle of a sea of fog.
Where I am now fog is more a thing of the midnight to 3am shift. Windy little country roads with no white lines and 20m visibility surrounded by ditches and very solid trees. No fun at all!!

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #35 on: 25 February, 2019, 06:56:41 am »
Soz, deleted the wrong bit of the post. I meant to ask tatanab if they wear glasses.
Yes I do.  In fog or rain I wipe the outside often to keep them clear.

quixoticgeek

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #36 on: 01 March, 2019, 10:44:27 pm »

For the 3rd, or possibly the 4th day this week I woke to thick fog. Was off on a DIY 200, which I did with my dynamo light on for the whole ride. The fog became that sort of drisel that you don't actually notice falling, but when you stop you notice everything is wet...

So yeah, fog is common round these parts...

J
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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #37 on: 02 March, 2019, 08:39:30 pm »
I was on the same event as Kim, and I don't actually remember riding in anything like that in decades. Even then it was only foggy on the tops, as Kim says - down in the flatlands, on the way from Aylesbury, it had all cleared. As I mentioned elsewhere, the sneaky trick I used was accidentally to turn up one hour later than I should have done for the start, thus allowing the fog to clear more by the time I went through, but it was still thick around Christmas Common, and I was making some of the same observations (with basically the same conclusions) as did Kim.

It did remind me of riding home, maybe the first or second year I was at senior school. That one was so thick that my Mum came out walking, looking for me. As I remember it now, I couldn't even see her on the pavement next to me. Youthful innocence, but I felt perfectly safe because the cars basically couldn't move at any speed, as they couldn't even tell where the road was.

Kim

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Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #38 on: 02 March, 2019, 09:14:50 pm »
There was some decent fog on the train down from Brum, to the point where the conductor got confused and announced that we should "be careful when disembarking the plane, as there's a big drop".  I assumed it had cleared up by the time I reached Aylesbury, but it was evidently lingering to the west, as we were back in it before turning off the B4009.

It wasn't quite as bad as the fog we had over the moors on the FNRttC to Blackpool last year - that was proper need-GPS-to-find-the-other-side-of-the-road stuff, but the main safety fear was not being able to see where you were going, and the motorists were in the same boat.

Certainly the worst I've experienced in daylight for a few years, though, and the first time I've experienced it in the company of large numbers of other cyclists.

Re: Visibility in fog
« Reply #39 on: 02 March, 2019, 09:47:42 pm »
In heavy rain and fog I supplement my dynamo light with Exposure joystick and rear light mounted on helmet. 
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