Visibility while riding at night has been so important that I have continued to add lights to both my bike and my helmet. It seems more important to be seen from the rear so that vehicles you can't see immediately know you are there. As a result I have two rear lights: a giant 18 LED flashing red Realite mounted on my rear rack and a Planet Bike Superflash which has high output LEDs on the rear and sides. The Superflash is mounted on the left rear wheel stay. Between the two the bike should be visible from the rear for half a mile.
Click here to see video of the bike in actionTo get some side action I have a thin rope-like light called Bikeglow.
It's blue and it either flashes or can be on steady and it wraps around the entire frame. The effect is a continuous rope of light along the triangle of the frame. It's an attention getter although not as bright as the rear lights.
On the handlebars in front is a flashing Planetbike one watt Blaze which can also be set to flash or be on steady. It's less important to light up the road in the front than to be seen and flashing is more noticeable than steady light. My aim is just to be visible not to light up the road and the flashing one watt seems to do it. To be really visible from the front I have a small high output LED flashlight attached to my helmet. The light blinks and can be set to blink at different speeds. It is so bright that it lights up road signs several blocks away. All of these lights use AA batteries and I try to use rechargeables in them all.
My current favorite source of light does not use any batteries at all. I have replaced my pedals with Pedalites which have three LEDs: white in front, yellow in the center and red pointing toward the rear. Each pedal has a tiny generator powering the flashing lights as you pedal and when you stop a capacitor has stored power so the lights continue to flash.
