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Dear Arthur Ross, That was excellent information. It is obvious that the Cat Eye Opti-Cube is not suitable for bicycles. It is an excellent flashlight for around the house, though. One cannot adequately see more than ten feet on the roadway and I ride at twenty miles per hour. Fortunately, I know my roadway and use the same one for training. Possibly they don't even make a bike light which could put out a beam as you describe. And if it is set for that distance, the imprecision of such lights if strapped on would certainly blind oncoming bicyclists. Is there any solution? And if the ten foot focused light costs $4O, just think of what the sixty foot focused light must cost? Eric Ross, Arthur wrote: Let's take a best case scenario. An experienced bicyclist able to achieve 0.5 G deceleration, riding on a good, hard, dry surface, traveling at 15 miles per hour. Braking distance for 15 mph at 0.5G is 15.1 feet. In terms of reaction time, tables from the 1980's used .75 seconds. Tables I have seen more recently use 1 to 2 seconds. In 1 second at 15 mph you travel 22 feet. Thus at 15 miles per hour with a 1 second reaction time you need a light that lets you see at least about 40 feet ahead of you. If you can only see 20 feet ahead of you, you should slow down to 10 miles per hour to be safe. If you are traveling 20 mph get the best light available (56 feet braking plus 1 sec reaction time).Arthur Arthur Ross, Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator City of Madison Traffic Engineering Division 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Suite 100 PO Box 2986 Madison, WI 53701-2986 608/266-6225 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Martin Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 12:19 PM To: Eric Westhagen Cc: Meiers, Steve; BikiesSubmissions Subject: Re: [Bikies] Finding opportunity from crisis? (Bikie attack) Topic: bike lights I agree with Eric about the cost of "cheap" bike lights. They used to be a pain because the batteries would drain quickly, but with LEDs, even the cheap ones seem to be getting expensive. My question is whether bikes actually need to be "focused" and "white." In my experience, the "cheap" LED lights offer next to nothing in terms of helping me see where I'm going. If anything, they're distracting. What I want from them is that cars see me from the front, so I'd rather have a bright unfocused light that flashes in all directions (except at my eyes). So, are there cheap *unfocused* front lights? Any recommendations? On Dec 11, 2008, at 12:05 PM, Eric Westhagen wrote: |
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