Various kinds of bike lights have been appearing on the market these days. While it's nice to see bikers now have lots of options to ensure their road safety, it can be not easy to distinguish the kind of bike lights essential for the road.
Helmet, pedal, and wheel lights are becoming increasingly popular these days–but this doesn't change the fact that they're mere accessories without function. Worse is, some of them can be costly.
If you're a cyclist looking for the bike lights that will let you see and be seen on the road, then this blog is for you.
What are the essential lights for cyclists?
According to most road regulations worldwide, cyclists must have white front light and a red rear light–preferably a brake light. This will give you complete road visibility in all necessary directions.
No regulations state the necessity of having lights on helmets, pedals, and wheels. These are but optional. However, a significant number of cyclists are already ditching their front lights for helmet lights. This can be dangerous.
The problem with helmet, pedal, wheel, and other bike lights
Some bikers don't realize that the trajectory of light cast by your helmet light is directly affected by your height, posture, and movement. Therefore, it casts a very inconsistent and unreliable light.
Aside from that, in most cases, it's usually projected on the farther side of the road, giving you a certain level of blindness on the area directly around you. Aside from this, it makes your helmet heavier, which can be uncomfortable when you're cycling.
Aside from helmet lights, front lights mounted on tires instead of on the bike handles are also becoming a trend among cyclists. They claim that these lights mostly projected downward, allowing you to see the road better.
However, many bikers persuaded with this kind of marketing quickly realized that it's just a gimmick. And these tire-mounted lights aren't just inconvenient but can also lead to fatal road accidents.
First off, these tire-mounted lights can be such a hassle to mount and dismount. Some of the mounting accessories that come with these bikes aren't compatible with various bike sizes.
Aside from this, your bike's tire section is essentially the most unstable part of your bike as it takes on the movement and force of the tires. If you're lucky, you can get into your location without your bike light being dismounted at least once.
This placement can be hazardous. Your bike lights can easily be dismounted off with one wrong move, and they can easily topple off your bike. If this happens on a busy road with lots of larger vehicles on the road, this can be fatal.
Aside from helmets and tire-mounted lights, other auxiliary bike lights like pedal and wheel lights don't add anything to your safety. Sure enough, they can make you visible among other road users. However, it can cause great confusion. They wouldn't know your position on the road, and you might even startle other drivers with your lights.
These unnecessary lights, aside from the fact that they're useless, also affect your riding experience. Millions of dollars are being spent worldwide to develop new bike models that can be as lightweight as possible. But these unessential bike lights will only weigh down your bike.
The truth about bike lights: quality over quantity
If you're hoping to get optimal road safety when cycling, then you should invest in bike lights with smart technology.
Various bike lights are being sold today with artificial intelligence to improve every cyclist's riding experience. Some innovative front lights already come with ambient light sensors that automatically adjust the setting of the bike lights based on their light environment. They also come with Total Internal Reflection technology, a high-level optics that projects light in various directions with low power output.
Not only that, some innovative brake lights are equipped with drone-powered accelerometers. This way, the brake light goes off even before you reach a full stop to alert drivers behind you. Some of them come with anti-theft technology, too. This resolves the problem that bike lights and other bike accessories can easily be dismounted and removed when unattended.
All of these features are controlled and managed via smartphone connectivity. This means you'll be able to track and control your bike lights anytime and anywhere—biking convenience at its peak.
Are you thinking of getting a helmet and pedal lights? Think again! Note that sometimes, less is more when it comes to road safety.
