As it gradually gets darker, it becomes more and more important to be visible on the road. My previous post talked about my favorite headlight, which remains the Planet Bike Blaze 2W. Most of my bikes also have the Planet Bike Superflash (the non Turbo model, although I do have one Turbo as well). I also have an obnoxiously bright bike jacket as well as a bright yellow helmet, and reflective material sewn into my bike pants.
The other piece of reflective gear that I rely on year round are my Glo Glovs. I’m already posted about them twice. They stretch over any regular gloves, or can be worn alone. They are terrific as turn signals, but also help me give hand signals to cars at intersections. I often wave a car through ahead of me which always gets a friendly wave back.
When it is cold and rainy, I like to wear the glo glovs over a thin pair of shell gloves. These are MEC Windstoppers which are not the ultimate in durability, but are very light and thin, and take the edge off, even if your hands get a little wet in a downpour.
I’m showing one of the gloves with the Sport model Glo Glov over it. As mentioned in a previous post, the sport model is not very good for cycling since the reflective triangle on the palm tends to get unstitched in the corners. However, I don’t use the rain gloves that often, so they are OK here.
I recently ordered two new pair since my oldest pair was looking pretty worn. Now there is a dealer in Canada, which is very convenient for me. I found that there have been a few changes to the design of the glove.
Here is a picture of one of my new glo gloves (actually after about a month’s use) with an old one. Don’t be put off by the appearance of the older glove; it has seen about four years of hard use, worn on rides at least 200 times a year. Comparing new to old, there are two differences. One is that they’ve gone to the same smooth, stretch Lycra material as the Sport Model, rather than the mesh material from the older one. The other difference is that there seems to be a little more padding under the palm pad.
They also seem to have upgraded the stitching although this might have more to do with the change in material.
Bottom line: I highly recommend these if you are riding in the city at night. Don’t be a bike riding ninja.
