Gloves
The most-used bicycle safety equipment aside from helmets is probably the glove. Gloves protect
the skin on the palms of your hands when you fall on pavement. Some are padded to protect the
hands from compression stress from the handlebars on long rides. They keep your hands warm in
winter. They let you wipe glass bits from a tire before the glass penetrates the tread fully. Gloves
are highly recommended.
Active Lights
There is no substitute for active lights if you ride a bicycle after dark. No reflective device or
material can achieve the visibility that electric lights can achieve. Use the largest lights you
can, the lights that identify a bicycle as a bicycle, and always have some additional lighting/back-up
to accommodate the notorious unreliability of bike lights. Active lights unfortunately require
active maintenance, but no rider should be without them at night.
Reflective Materials
Use a lot of reflective tape on bicycles and helmets. But recognize its limits: there is
nothing to reflect back to a car until the car's headlights are shining on the tape. At that point it
may be too late. And there is no scientific evidence that reflective material actually helps to either
identify the bicycle, pinpoint its location for the motorist, or grab the driver's attention any
sooner. Still, you should not be without it, since it does not rely on maintenance or reliability of
the bicycle's lights, and we often see cyclists because of the CPSC-mandated reflectors on their
bikes even if they do not have lights.
Tires
Bike tires are not all equal in adhesion to the road, particularly when conditions are rainy or icy.
Tread may not be the answer, and a softer rubber compound may be more important. We don't
know enough to advise you on brands or models, but you should be aware that tires can make a
difference.
Flags
Recumbent bicyclists and others who are concerned about being out of sight in traffic often use a
bike flag. Long distance tourists favor them for increased visibility on highways. They are readily
available at discount stores as well as bike stores, usually in orange or white for high visibility.
Toe clips, clipless pedals and cleats
Under some conditions the rider cannot have their feed clipped to the pedals, but usually you can,
and doing it helps to eliminate the crashes that result when a foot slips off the pedal at the wrong
time. Whatever system you use must be adjusted properly and maintained well.
Your brain
The most important safety equipment on any bike is the brain of the rider. You can avoid more
injuries by riding safely than equipment can possibly protect you against. Give it some thought,
and make a conscious choice on the level of safety you want to pursue. Maybe you don't care that
much if you are injured - but maybe you do. Thinking about it in advance can give you
behavioral guidelines for those occasions when some wild emotion makes you want to throw
caution to the winds!
Source: Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
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