Bicycle Radar

Curious to know if any of you are using rear-fitted radars such as the Garmin Varia or Bryton Gardia and, if you do, whether you think it’s been effective, and/or improved your safety or sense of safety?

Hi,
I used the Varia for a year until the power button broke and Garmin wouldn’t replace it because it’s a design problem. While using it I liked it because it added safety to my cycling because I ride on farm roads and listen to earbuds. I didn’t like having to mess with another device and deal with power concerns but overall it worked as advertised. That written I prefer low tech, cheap safety items like the helmet mirror, rear blinking light, and bright color shirt because they are easier to manage. My strategy is redundant cheap safety accessories. And I take my safety seriously. E.g hand turn signaling, ditching for trucks, and not riding parallel.

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Good to know. I’ve seen some reviews of the Varia that talked about the broken power button issue, and that does concern me. I’ve got a mirror on one handlebar, but it’s hard to keep it in the right position and I end up doing an awful lot of adjusting. I do have blinking lights myself night and day, but in a country like Taiwan, it feels like it might be wise to use every extra precaution I can find.

If you are using Garmin head unit you don’t need to ever turn the radar off. It turns off when you turn your head unit off. You can control the light also from the head unit.

And would definitely not ride here without one. On narrow less travelled roads its really useful. In the city not so much of course.

The camera version is not worth the money.

Ah! That’s really good to know - I recently picked up a cheap Garmin 530 edge. I’m only intending to get the very basic no-light radar–I already have a cheap rear light with a built-in accelerometer, so the extra expense seems unnecessary.

Was the camera no good?

Me too. I recently saw a wristband mirror that you wear on your left wrist where you can adjust the angle of the mirror to see what’s behind you. But the drawback (for road bikes) is that you can only be on the hoods to see the mirror clearly. If you’re on the drops, the mirror would be too low and hard to see.

I have a small mirror located on the drops of my road bike, but any time I use the drops, or get off the bike and move it, I always have to readjust it again to get the angle just right. It’s a bit annoying. With a radar, I might not have to look back so frequently. And I might be alerted to something approaching when I don’t happen to be checking the mirror.

That said, it feels most times like I can always hear something coming.

Yes, most of the time, except when it’s a Tesla or Gogoro.

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Thumbs up Incubus. Great point. EV silence is a huge problem here. How many times have I watched pedestrians start across the street before looking, simply relying on audio perception? Countless. Same goes for me the silent cyclist overtaking a pedestrian and them starting across the street without looking, causing near collusions or swerving into traffic. Expect people to make bad decisions on the street. Devices make it worse.

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I’m not much of a cyclist, so apologies if this is a common term, but would you mind explaining what you mean by “ditching for trucks”? I searched for “ditching” online and apart from “abandoning”, I found only a meaning exclusive to Columbus, Ohio, of “cutting in line”. The cycling safety information I found mentioned staying behind trucks, so I wonder if that is what you were saying?

When using a helmet mirror, if I’m on a narrow road I give way to trucks by getting off the road. This is what I mean by ditch.

I’m surprised by how few cyclists use them.

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I didn’t know it was called ditching. I also often stop on narrow roads for buses as well as trucks.

Incubus has a good point, and I’m going to look into getting one of the basic Garmin radar units.

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When in doubt, always give way to vehicles coming up behind you. I can go pretty fast on my bike, especially in the well-paved city streets. But whenever the road gets narrow and a bus ahead of me slows down, I’m faced with the decision to either speed up and pass the bus or “ditch.” The latter is often an extra 20 seconds of waiting and breathing in toxic fumes from the bus, but it could also save my life.

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I do worry about some of the roads outside the cities which have deep ditches on either side: pretty much impossible to get out of the way of traffic coming either way in that case.

The trick is to trace the line. If there’s a ditch on the side of the road or if there’s an oncoming vehicle, instead of looking at the ditch or the vehicle (which can throw you off track), I concentrate on tracing the line on the edge of the road, and I can pretty easily avoid the potential danger.

The worst is when there’s a blind curve coming up, and a truck’s passing you. “Oh shit, if an unseen vehicle is coming the other way and is out of their lane, and the truck needs to swerve over, I’m toast.”

…which for me is where my ears take prime place even over a radar unit where there’s any kind of sudden curve in the road.

Not sure I get the tracing thing, but I’ll think on it.

I mean riding along the line and use it as a guide to keep you on the side of the road without falling off it. But be sure you don’t ride ON it as that line could be slippery if it’s wet.

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