Riding into the sun . .

[Indy Dave]

I'm on a Spring Tune kick. Have a look at the video. Interested in thoughts on what should have been done. Seems the rider is picking up speed as visability gets worse, so that's one. I'm not sure stopping on the roadway is a option, for obvious reasons. Hard to see how much space there is off the road, as my thoughts lean towards getting of the road and stopping.

 

Thoughts?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgzTB_44nkI

[Glenn Reed]

Well, we're looking through the lens of his camera, so that's not going to show what he sees inside the helmet. Obviously both were blinded, so it seems like we have a fairly good representation though.

 

I know others here have used electrical tape on the top inch or two of the visor to alleviate the "sun in the eyes" issue, (kind of like the flip down visor in the cage) but even that's not going to work when the sun is directly on the horizon and straight on to the rider.

 

Lots of helmets these days come with an internal sun visor that can be raised or lowered while riding, and I have used this to help in similar situations. Partially lowering the visor, and tilting my head so the sun is coming through either the visor, or blocked by the top edge of the helmet itself seem to be the main things that come to mind.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Hard to see how much space there is off the road, as my thoughts lean towards getting of the road and stopping.

 

Looks to me like there's an adequate shoulder off to the left of his lane. It appears that he couldn't see a damn thing, despite trying to use his left hand as a temporary visor; I can't think of a reason to continue at speed under those circumstances.

 

Years ago (when I did more evening riding), I used electrical tape on the inside of my helmet's faceshield, but I never liked how this blocked my view of the scenery; when I stopped riding in the evening so much, I took the tape off.

 

I've used my left hand as a sun visor before, but not under circumstances where I would have been completely blind without it. It's also a risky thing to do when traffic is around, since you may need both hands to control the bike.

 

These days, on those rare occasions when I'm riding at sunset (typically when on tour, traveling to/from hotel and dinner restaurant), I'll grab my chin bar and rotate my helmet forward on my head, and/or tilt my head down so that the forehead part of the helmet acts as a sun visor.