Best way to adjust/get used to eyeglass mirror?

[maryellen]

I've tried both helmet and sunglass attached mirrors and have not been able to adjust to them. But I think it's because I use reading glasses for close vision and the combo of peripheral vision and reading glass distance is confusing my brain.

I think I'll try a handlebar mirror. That will probably be far enough away that I won't have the same problem. I'm hoping my brain will interpret it like it does looking in car rear view mirrors. Fingers crossed. I live in NYC so a rear-view mirror is particularly useful.

[emily_in_nc]

I've tried both helmet and sunglass attached mirrors and have not been able to adjust to them. But I think it's because I use reading glasses for close vision and the combo of peripheral vision and reading glass distance is confusing my brain

That's a good point. My DH was wearing pretty high power reading glasses for close work when he tried the Take-A-Look and did not like it at all. I wear progressives or contacts with reading glasses, but my reading Rx is still pretty weak (+1.25 vs -2.25 for my distance Rx), so perhaps that is why I'm fine with the Take-A-Look and just contacts. So it may not work as my reading Rx gets stronger, but I love it for now.

[evangundy]

The Take-A-Look also comes in two sizes - short stem and long stem. Maybe your and/or your DH have the short one and needs the long one, or vice-versa. That's what happened the first time I tried them, DH got the long one and I got the short one, not realizing they were different. I could not get used to it. One day, they were both off our glasses and laid them side by side on the counter - voila! - different lengths. I tried the long one and Yay! it worked. I love mine and dont' ride without it.

The other trick that someone mentioned (might have been on TE somewhere) was to look at the image in the mirror, not at the mirror.

Good luck :-)
Edna

[GLC1968]

Wow, this thread is timely! I've been trying to get used to a helmet mirror and I can't seem to get it adjusted right. I'm able to ignore it when I don't need to see what's behind me, but there are two problems when I do need to use it:

1) It takes me a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the nearness of it and focus - so I have to look longer than I'd sometimes like to (I'm hoping this is a learning curve thing)

2) I have to figure out how to adjust it's positioning better. I have to turn my head to see in the mirror and the direction I need to turn it is not intuitive. I find that I'm riding and constantly tilting my head all over the place. I'm sure I look like Stevie Wonder to the people around me.

There are some great tips here, so I'm going to give it another shot. I especially like the idea of using it walking first. Of course, since it's attached to my helmet, I'm going to have to do this around my yard so that I don't need to wear my bike helmet walking down the street.