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Someone's been reading too many forums

Was out on Saturday and still trying to come to terms with how much the Christmas break has affected my 'performance'.

Anyway, I'm trundling up some 5% behind my co-rider, Kev, when I hear voices behind. Soon the first guy gets up to me and starts chattering away about "dayglo black" and "you can't be seen". I realise he's referring to the fact that both me and Kev are wearing black jackets, whereas he's wearing some kind of dull red colour.

I hear another guy get in behind me and exclaim: "I'm going to stick behind this!"- obviously a reference to me being a sizeable unit on the bike.

So my mood isn't exactly great and it gets worse as I reach the next junction behind them all and hear red-jacket giving a perplexed Kev yet more words of wisdom about "Can't be seen", "dangerous", "SMIDSY" etc. He's an older guy and probably means well so manfully I resist the urge to tell him to butt out and spotting a gap in the traffic, decide to be very zen about the whole thing and ride on.

Kev catches up and says: "That guy's been at the forums a bit," which cracked me up.

So, here I am, on the forum trying to figure out if there is a bit of anti-black jacket angst out there. Personally, I don't see that wearing black is inherently dangerous and I only ride in daylight on quiet roads anyway. If it's particularly dull or overcast I put my lights on. TBH I'm the size of a small car so if a driver can't see me then there's no hope for any of us, daglo jackets or no.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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35 comments

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NeilG83 | 11 years ago
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I don't wear day-glo and have not been hit by a car yet. Most of my summer gear is bright red which stands out, but my cold weather kit is all black.
I think that if a car hits you in good conditions then they have no excuse; whatever you are wearing. What people wear when riding is a personal choice, but there was an interesting article in the Telegraph in October that suggests that hi-viz clothing is now so common it is less effective:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9581969/Fluorescent-clothing-were-all-...
There is a law in France that cyclists must wear a hi-viz vest when cycling at night or when there is poor visibility.

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Colin Peyresourde | 11 years ago
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Being seen isn't about the colour of your jacket. After quite a few rides these sh!tty dayglo colours fade and they just look pitiful. It's all about positioning and driver awareness. If you can see the driver can see you, then you don't have a problem. Quite often crappy cyclists in dayglo colours never look over their shoulder and don't position themselves well on the road.

I almost exclusively wear black - it's not that I particularly choose black, I just subconsciously like the stylings. Never been knocked off my bike either.

I also agree with Dodgy - it's about the road conditions too. Black is sometimes good because it contrasts with the lighting conditions.....scotch reflective strips also help in the poorest of light.

The majority of good cyclists I know don't ever go near the dayglo nonsense, and make their choices on aesthetics. It seems to me then that it has no bearing on your safety.

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homercles | 11 years ago
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Yep, none of his business what you choose to wear on the bike. As an aside, around London it seems to me that those people covered in 'dayglo' tend to be the ones with crappy and/ or badly placed lights on their bikes, or else no lights at all.

Good, well-positioned lights will trump colours for me any day.

(spoken as someone who occasionally wears black, occasionally dayglo)

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dodgy | 11 years ago
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People get transfixed on dayglo green / orange being the only safe colour. I'd say the majority of novices to the sport are wearing dayglo. For me it's more about choosing colour/reflectivity based on weather conditions.

For instance, I have a few black jackets with embedded scotch-lite in them, you show up like a comedy Halloween skeleton in them under car head lights.

I do worry that the whole victim blame culture will see all cyclists forced to wear dayglo, then once that's happened, the motorists (or nazi cyclists) will find something else to blame us for.

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homercles replied to dodgy | 11 years ago
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Couldn't agree more re: this bit dodgy...

"I do worry that the whole victim blame culture will see all cyclists forced to wear dayglo, then once that's happened, the motorists (or nazi cyclists) will find something else to blame us for."

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