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I wear a neon-neon-neon yellow Olympia Air Glide jacket--that sucker can be seen a mile down the road. I also wear a white helmet...just makes me feel a little better. When I was bouncing around on the Net looking for color statistics, white came up as most visible with bright yellow a little behind. Good enough for me.

Most of the time I ride with the Spouse Thingy; for a long time he wore a bright blue jacket and I knew he was there behind me, mostly because I could see his headlight modulator at work. When he bought himself the same jacket...holy carp. I can SEE him back there, even when I get incredibly far ahead. He's noted that I am for more visible now than when I just wore an ICON hi-viz vest.

Nothing can substitute for clean riding and keen situation awareness, but it sure doesn't hurt to make yourself as visible as possible.

I'm a fairly small target to spot on the road at 4'11" and on a Virago 250cc. I wear a bright, sparkly pink helmet and pink and white mesh jacket.

For cooler weather, I have a black riding jacket and I think I'm going to go with the neon orange or green vests that militry personnel are required to wear on their personal bikes.

I agree with many of the previous posts though. Buy what you like, so you'll be sure to have proper protection.

If you live where the sun is hot in summer, black gear has other disadvantages. You quickly feel like a potato in the oven, if you ever get caught in slow traffic, and even sitting at traffic lights.

One reason my summer gear is light colored.

P

Thumper wrote:Nothing can substitute for clean riding and keen situation awareness, but it sure doesn't hurt to make yourself as visible as possible.

+1

If there's a riding variable you have control over (like visibility), might as well control it, because there are a bunch of variables you can't control (hence the need for situation awareness).

oldschoolorange wrote:yellow, Orange or white will increase visibility, you may not think you look as cool but people will see you. You could allways buy some reflective tape or a reflective mesh top ( like the kind construction workers wear) and wear that at night or poor driving conditions

+1

Newbie here. . .My husband is all decked out in black (gear and bike) and he's already described to me close calls and cagers pulling out in front of him too close for comfort.

With my bright gear, I've seen cagers and (farm) tractor drivers think about pulling out from a side road and then they either spot my headlight and/or my bright gear. Now that I'm building up my commute days, it gives me great comfort knowing that my gear (pink and white) is a good color contrast that works well on the PA country roads and in the urban environment.

So far my rule of thumb for riding on some of these narrow PA roads is to closely follow the speed limit if it's 40mph or below. I think the locals are accustomed to taking a quick left-right-left check before pulling out on the main road and if I'm going too fast then missing each other for that second or two might be a recipe for disaster. Also changing lane positions (left-third, right-third) helps to get as much time to see and be seen by side road traffic has worked really well so far.

My .02

Usually always wear my Milspec orange vest. However, a red light runner scared the hell out of me (never saw me) even wearing the vest. So it probably does not matter what you wear if you don't ride like your are invisible.

I have put a head and taillight modulator on my bike for added visibility and put reflective strips on my helmet and the saddlebags.

But its your obligation to SEE Search Evaluate Execute. If you fail to do that as I did and went down, you only have yourself to blame.

I so far have been seen. Never do I assume though. I LOVE the color purple. Named my bike,"purple princess". Yes it is purple. Had a hard time finding one. When it came to gear, there was no wondering what color gear I was choosing. Purple jacket with white and reflective black. Hemlet is white with purple flowers. I guess if there is a purple mass flying by, someone is bound to SEE it.

Black from head to toe, and a black machine

Im invisable, and ride accordingly, always have, always will