[dkarl]

Reflective tape on the rims is a common solution. There's reflective tape that looks black in daylight and is available at any bike shop. There are reflectors you can put on the spokes, too, also available at any bike shop.

Here's a video showing what reflective tape looks like in the dark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm5muia44XI&feature=relmf...

As for actively illuminated lights, there are a large number of commercial products available. I'm too lazy, but anybody tempted to donate to a project melodramatically promising to "save lives" in the name of somebody's beloved grandfather should first drop by their local bike shop and see if perhaps it's already possible to light themselves up however they want for a modest amount of money.

[jrockway]

Indeed. Pretty much all Schwalbe commuting/city tires have huge bands of retroreflective material around the sidewalls that make your bicycle quite visible to anything beside you with a light. (They're really good tires, too.)

Most bicycle lights also intentionally spit out a little bit of light to the side to also make you more visible. I'd recommend investing in a good front light and good rear light (with built-in reflector) before bothering with wheel lights. Wheel lights are cool if you're willing to maintain twice as many lights as you need (batteries, remembering to turn them on, etc.), but I prefer ease of use and so will not be getting these. (My rear light automatically turns on when there is both darkness and vibration, and it's a reflector, so there are few cases when I ever need to think about it. I keep my front light with me at all times and just need to press one button to turn it on. And I carry spare batteries, just in case.)

[dkarl]

One thing I don't like about the reflective strip on tires is that it can create the illusion that the bike is stationary, because you don't see the wheels turning. The Nori video shows the same problem. I suspect anything that makes the turning of the wheels evident is a big improvement.

Some people have a lot of fun with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU_O-OKuaeI&feature=relat...

[jrockway]

I don't really understand that. If the bike is moving, it will look like a pair of moving circles because the bike is moving through space, not sitting on a repair stand.

Anyway, wouldn't you take the same action for a stopped object in your path as for a moving object in your path?

[dkarl]

I might not be in their path yet :-) I don't want to get hit by someone rolling through a right on red because they thought the shiny circles were a reflection from a sign across the street or what-not. Depth perception in the dark is greatly aided by knowing what you're looking at, and lights are especially tricky to identify and locate when there's water on the road, lots of illuminated signage around, etc.

I still worry that a driver is going to see my obviously spinning wheels and not understand what they're looking at. I want my reflection in the dark to immediately suggest a cyclist, not a set of mysterious floating lights, since depth perception is aided by knowing what you're looking at. A car can travel a long distance in the time it takes to go from "WTF is that spinny thing in my field of vision?" to "Oh, a cyclist in the right lane." (It doesn't help that I'm in Texas, where cyclists are still an oddity to many drivers.) I'm considering putting some reflective tape on my helmet -- I wonder if that would help.

[lifeformed]

You could just obscure parts of the strip with some electrical tape, so you can see the dark part moving in a circle.

[freiheit]

Or still have a conventional reflector on the spokes...