A couple of readers have recently been in touch to recommend bicycle mirrors. I’ve spotted these on the odd occasion around London so I thought it would be a good time to roundup some of the best ones.
Bicycle mirrors are useful for being aware of your surroundings. That taxi driver driving too close to your back wheel or a cyclist about to perform a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre are all easier to spot. Whilst I thoroughly recommend frequent glancing over your shoulder to establish eye contact with drivers, a bicycle mirror can be a useful additional tool.
The Bike Mirror For Cyclists Who Don’t Do Bicycle Mirrors
Many people will read this post and think “Bicycle mirrors are simply not for me”. In which case the Cyclaware View Point Adjustable Mini Mirror may get you interested. This is a tiny mirror that attaches to the inside of your sunglasses.
The mirror pivots 40 degrees so you can adjust it to the perfect angle. It’s designed to be self adhesive and to not damage your sunglasses.
I’ve not tried this myself but if any readers have then I’d really be interested in hearing their thoughts on it!
Handlebar Mounted Cycle Mirrors
The Third Eye Handlebar End Mirror is useful for those who don’t want to attach a mirror to their bicycle helmet. It provides a good viewing angle thanks to the convex shape.
The MirrCycle is a similar product but it is also retractable and easier to adjust. It was thoroughly recommended to me by London Cyclist reader Ed.
A reader also recommended the Bike Eye Rear View Mirror. I haven’t tried the product personally, so please take a look at the reviews.
Bicycle Mirrors Attached to Your Helmet
For helmet mirrors the one product that comes highly recommended is the Cycle Aware Reflex Helmet Mirror. At under £15 this bicycle mirror gives you a great view of what is coming up behind you, it’s easy to install and adjust. The product is high quality so it combines durability with a light weight design.
Another product by Cycle Aware worth mentioning is the Heads Up! bicycle mirror. This will mount to your sunglasses and provide you with a good viewing angle. It weighs only 3.1 grams so shouldn’t cause any problems with your sunglasses slipping down your nose. The product costs £10 on Amazon.co.uk.
The biggest advantage of the mirrors is that you avoid that horrible surprise when a vehicle overtakes you at speed and you get a gust of wind. As I mentioned earlier, when riding around central London I wouldn’t use the mirror as a replacement for frequent glancing behind to establish eye contact.
I’ve tried to round up some of the best bicycle mirrors above but as always I absolutely love to hear from readers experiences and reviews so don’t hesitate to leave your comment below.
Hi Andreas,
I’ve been using the ‘Take A Look’ mirror for some months now. For me it’s perfect. Rear vision all the time whilst maintaining forward vision. It really does work well. Either attached to helmet or glasses.
http://travellingtwo.com/resources/take-a-look-mirror
Sounds good Nigel thanks for the heads up on the Take A Look.
I have been using the ‘Take A Look’ for a couple of years. Attached to my pair of Rayban glasses they offer a great rear view with no vibration at all.
I was sold on the idea of helmet mirrors by the Cycleaware Reflex, but kept having to replace parts that fell off and broke, or no longer held together properly (mirror plugged into mounting, mounting sticks to helmet). Searched the web and noticed the very positive reviews of Bike Peddler’s “Take A Look” mirror by American cyclists.
The $14.99 price tag converted to £16.78 once postage and currency conversion was included, but after 3 months I’ve decided it was well worth it : better view and more durable than the Cycleaware product and would be cheaper if I could have avoided postage from the US. Is there a UK stockist?
I use that mirror as well and feel naked without it. Sturdy, adapts to every pair of glasses I have (and I wear glasses all the time, so perfect) and adapts to every bike I ride.
Another vote for the Bike Peddler “Take a Look” mirror. I am a year round 5 day a week commuter, and have used this product for a decade. Motorists rely on their mirrors to see what is going on around them, why wouldn’t we? Handlebar mirrors don’t give you a great view, and can’t be shifted to see what you want to look at. Helmet mirrors vibrate too much. Glasses mounted mirrors give the best view, and the Take a Look product is the best optically and in terms of long term reliability, by a long shot. They sell a standard and a compact, I generally prefer the standard, but both are great. I literally don’t go out without them, and always carry a spare.
I use a road bike bar end mirror, similar to following. Very very useful, aside from when a fully packed pannier back obscures the directly behind me view. You can check mirrors much more often than turning to look behind you- in this case its just a glance down. I still check over my sholder for eye contact when a vehicle comes close.
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/cycle-aware/bar-end-roadie-mirror-ec034027
Looks good and fairly unobtrusive.
,I use an end mirror also on my road bike. Works well. Most of the time, however, I hear before I see.
Except for electric cars which I never hear till they make me jump lol
Having tried numerous different mirrors over the decades, including helmet mounted. None have been anything like as robust and reliable as the Mirrycle. The Mirrycle is a shallow convex design that offers a useful compromise between field of view and image size. Flat mirrors are too vibration prone and offer too-narrow a field of view, whereas many of the convex mirrors e.g. the B&M Cyclestar are just too tightly convex and cars can easily be too small to notice, which I find renders the mirror pointless.
The Mirrycle is certainly neither perfect, nor indestructible, but it is effective and fairly robust. The view is excellent and virtually vibration free. It comes in versions for flat [MTB] and drop bars. The MTB version even works on roadster bars and Above seat steering recumbents.
http://www.parkersofbolton.co.uk/p-1019-mirrycle-mirror-for-mountainhybrid-bikes.aspx
That’s interesting. Looks a lot like the one I spotted on a bike around London – thanks for sending over a link Amoeba.
I picked up a handlebar mounted mirror from Decathlon for a fiver, and while I accept the others mentioned above may be superior (particularly the sunglasses-stick on mirror mentioned first) I just found I could not get on with it.
Trying to glance and make sense of a tiny reversed image of what was happening 50 yards behind me proved to me of a distraction of the road ahead than simply looking over my shoulder.
I remain to be convinced that mirrors really make much sense in fast-changing London traffic. And the bendy-on-helmet ones make the rider look like a cycling Dalek.
I agree about the Mirrycle. I’ve had one on my old tourer for years. Very useful in traffic.
Wish for me – bicycle mirrors attached to your helmet.
I really love the jacket. If you look quickly it looks like you are a police officer.
Will mail it to my freinds.
I’ve seen some people riding road bikes with small convex mirrors attached to the end of their drop handle bars – smaller and more discrete than the Cycle Aware Bar End Roadie Mirror linked to above.
Does anyone know what this product is called and where it can be obtained?
Check out the Evans website for a wide range of mirrors. Maybe the one you have seen is the Cateye Bar End Mirror. Be aware that many of the bar end mirrors extend the bar width and can be damaged when leaning the bike against a wall!
This is the “italian cycling mirror” which you can find on ebay
Like Amoeba, I find flat mirrors useless because of vibration. The Cateye Racing Mirror is slightly convex and dors the job nicely. Fits bar end. Does move about a bit when you hit a pothole, so you do need line it back up while you cycle. Cost £5 last time I bought from wiggle and has lasted a couple of years, so far.
I wish to plug the Axiom FastFlash DLX Universal Mirror (£9, see SJS Cycles). As far as I am concerned: if you have “butterfly” handlebars this is the best. I’ve tried mirrors stuck to the helmet, I’ve tried other convex mirrors (too small or inadequate optical quality). There might be a better end-of-drop-handlebar mirror out there which I haven’t tried, but the Axiom is the best.
The optics quality is as good as it gets. The adjustabillity is infinite and easy. You can see vehicles behind you before you can hear them. Because I don’t have to keep looking behind, my neck is much better thank you.
The image does vibrate unless the road surface is utterly smooth, but you can see all you need to see (vehicles and where they are). The image can be improved by leaning one’s hand against the stalk.
I have yet to try this mirror stuck to glasses idea. Sounds promising but I have doubts about focussing and “brain distraction time”?
I used on of the small, glasses mounted mirrors (on a stalk) until doing Cycle Instructor training – where it was noted that looking is the only really satisfactory way to know what is going on around you.
Some of my friends use similar mirrors, and it is quite scary following them – because they stop/turn/manouevre without apparently looking. At least if you glance it is a good indicator that you may be about to do something, and you can get eye contact when appropriate.
I may try a mirror again (probably bike mounted), but will also be doing plenty of looking!
Speaking as someone who drives more than they cycle these days (sorry), I much prefer cyclists not to have mirrors. Why?
Because when you’re driving a car following a bike and you see the cyclist glance over their right shoulder, it’s a surefire indication that they are about to manuver.
With a bike mirror, the car driver wouldn’t get that early warning and may commence an overtaking move.
I’ve been using the Take a Look for four years now since switching from Mirracycle. Excellent mirror but make sure you get the rightside mounting one.
It mounts either side. To mount on other side you simply pull mirror off spigot and reverse it. It’s in the instructions that comes with it. Done in seconds.
This is a really cool and clever bike mirror for road cyclists…
http://www.aspirevelotech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=RBM_1001
They are apparently very popular in Italy but not so well known in the UK. I’ve had mine for a few months now and it’s got me out of a few near misses. The quality of the mirror is excellent as is the visibility it provides. And it was really easy to fit and adjust.
It’s amazing to pay a visit this site and reading the views of all colleagues on the topic of this piece of writing, while I am also eager of getting familiarity.
All very well for people to complain that mirrors stop you looking behind, but when you get as old as me (68) you lose rotation in your back and neck, and you’ve got to use a mirror – or maybe even two of them.
Regarding looking-round, if one rides a recumbent with a raked (back-leaning) seat, looking-round is either very difficult, or completely impossible. Not really surprising, if one considers the structure of the human neck.
Whether age makes a difference, I can’t be absolutely certain, (I came to recumbents when I was no longer in the first flush of youth).
On my recumbent, I use two Mirrycles.
Yes, I’ve got a Mirrycle now, and it’s better than anything else I’ve tried. There was too much convexity on the previous one, so cars appeared to be far behind when they were in fact right up your chuff.
Another vote for Mirrycle here. Tried both the mountain bike version and old racer/touring version. Both excellent.
There’s also the alernative of a frame-mounted mirror:
http://www.road.cc/content/review/3337-bike-eye-mirror
I wear a REEVU bicycle helmet with a built in rear view mirror. It is a glance up from your normal focal point when cycling and if kept clean it offers a clear image, clear enough to see the MC’s coming up the bus lane and to look out for quicker riders coming up to pass, I’m slow, so often passed. Unfortunately REEVU have discontinued them and make only MC helmets. I contacted them last Autumn for some spares which unfortunately arnt available, but they expressed they were thinking of designing a new model. Maybe a petition it several expressions of interest will G them up
Do a search for the Myklops – it’s a wrist worn mirror adaptable for both drop and straight handlebars. Found it really practical!
BIKE-EYE a great mirror, it fits to the frame in the position agains the head aand down tube, loads of information and an instructional Video on the Web Site @ http://www.bike-eye.com
Thank you for letting us comment. noi
Yes, I’ve got a Mirrycle now, and it’s better than anything else I’ve tried. There was too much convexity on the previous one, so cars appeared to be far behind when they were in fact right up your chuff.