Third Eye handlebar mount mirror

This mirror was invented by Malcome Brown after a friend of his died from being hit by a car. He sold it for a while under the name Safe View. Bicycle Safety, Inc. took over the marketing of it a number of years ago, and it has always been successful. This product has a 3 inch convex glass mirror with an aluminized reflective backing.

Handlebar mounted bicycle mirrors are a tough design problem. It is great to have a mirror always attached to your bike—you never leave home without it. Putting it on the handlebar end is a convenient spot. The problem is that a flat mirror of any workable size, when that far away from you eyes, gives you a very narrow field of view. You won’t see much of what is behind you.

One possible solution to this problem is to make the mirror larger. To get the same range of view as one of our helmet mounted mirrors, it would have to be as big as a car mirror, some 9 or 10 inches wide. That is far too large and heavy for a bicycle, especially in that spot.

The other solution is to make the mirror convex, which is what this mirror does. That way you get a nice, broad field of view even with a small, light mirror. The downside to all convex mirrors is that they make objects look smaller and further away than they really are, so be aware of that when using this mirror.