Regular Varia with light, RTL515. Never leave home without it.
I also always use ‘be seen’ lights. Even with great weather, even for a granfondo if roads aren’t closed.
My front light for dark conditions has a beam+pulse mode that’s a nice 2 in 1.
Looks like feel-safer-but-not-actually-safer tech to me, at least for my use cases and environment. I don’t see how it would give actionable information that significantly improved my safety at all.
Yeah, it certainly won’t stop someone crazy from running me over, but I really do like having it – it almost feels like having a pair of eyes on the back of my head. For me, it’s been useful info to have when riding on open roads.
I used to think it was a useless gadget before I got one (I’d always think, “I just turn my head to look and I can always hear a car coming!”), but it really has helped in heightening my awareness of what’s going on around me when I’m out riding.
I try not to chime in on threads where athletes discuss what products they like/want to buy because of the “TR Team” badge next to my name (I’m not trying to influence anyone!), but having been hit by a car (and knowing many riders who have also been hit by cars), road safety is an important priority for me, and I do feel like having a radar light increases my safety out there – even if only by a little bit.
Anyway, maybe you could ask to borrow one for a ride or two if you happen to know anyone who has one – like I said above, I thought they were pretty gimmicky until I actually tried one.
I used to think the same thing….i live in the Chicago suburbs with a lot of traffic. There is always a car behind me, so I always ride like that.
It can actually be hard to define how the Varia impacts your riding in lots of subtle ways……but it does. As many others have noted, I don’t leave home without it. In fact, I have multiple ones now so that one is always charged and ready.
As an addition to what Zac posted above re: lane positioning, etc. I also use to help me know when to move to the middle of the lane when there is traffic behind me. Sometimes taking the lane is your safest option and the Varia helps you make that determination by letting you know someone is back there.
Also worth noting it will alert you LONG before your ears ever would.
Another option is to ride with someone who has one and pair to their Varia for the ride (it will support multiple head unit connections). So you’ll get the same alerts as your riding partner and you can “trial” it that way.
Also worth noting it will alert you LONG before your ears ever would.
I think in terms of actionable info, this is probably up there – you get a few extra seconds to prepare for a car to pass you. May not sound like much, but things happen fast at speed on the road, so a few extra seconds can be pretty huge if you’re in a dangerous situation.
I also like that it will flash/alert you when a car is approaching at higher speeds, so you know when something behind you is closing in quickly.
I very confidently thought the same thing and ate my hat within about 5 minutes of using one after buying it. Think this is a common experience. But of course YMMV.
On the topic of this actual thread, I’ve done 1000s of hours of these early morning rides. It has a real cost over the weeks and months. Intensity is harder. Fueling and therefore planning is harder. It is irreducibly more dangerous.
It really needs to be significantly more volume and better fit in my life on a given day for me to exercise the early AM option.
Wow, thats a lot of Yes’s, I must have had my blinders on and missed how useful this would be. Will order ASAP. Hoping maybe it goes on sale.
Thanks all
I’ve only been hit by drivers who drove straight at me, so maybe I have some bias there 
I think that Zackery has made lots of good points. I wasn’t going to make a long impassioned statement about how much I like the Varia.
One of the other features that I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned (apologies if it has) is that it will show you multiple vehicles behind you.
So maybe you have a mirror or excellent awareness, but I doubt these would make you aware that there are 3 cars approaching, especially if the 1sr vehicle is large enough to obscure the following cars.
With the Varia, I can see that there are 3 cars approaching, and I only need to do my over the shoulder check once they have passed, and if I do a slight wobble as I do so, that would be much safer than doing a check between the 1st and 2nd, or between the 2nd and 3rd.
Does it make me totally safe? No. The Varia won’t tell me that the driver behind is distracted by their phone or whatever. But I will know there’s a car approaching, so I can move to the side slightly, rather than being in the middle of the lane. And the Varia will also start flashing rapidly to try and attract the attention of the driver ( not just an ‘on’ light or some kind of regular pattern).
I would be very interested in a survey of people who had ridden with a Varia, just to see how many had then decided they didn’t need one. I reckon it would be a very low number.
I think you’re right, but for me popularity isn’t a factor in safety purchases. If I were to buy one it would be to make me feel less insecure - a perfectly valid justification of itself - but not a driving* factor for me.
*
While it does give me a piece of mind by providing situational awareness, I think the changing flash pattern does make a difference for the drivers. One can sometimes overlook a steady flashing light but the sudden changes do tend to get the drivers attention more effectively.
I also have found (N=1) that cars give me more room when I use lights, not just a Varia but any lights. That goes for daytime forward lights too.
I regularly have early morning rides. It puts me in a positive mood to start the day. Love these rides but (for me) they do require a bit more preparation which starts the night before - eg moving schedule to cater for an earlier night sleep, food and fuel prep, etc … .
Definitely need to have lights and radar because traffic is light in the morning (ideal for cyclists) but it also means that cars don’t expect you to be on the road in the dark!
so the brighter or more visible you are, the better it is for everyone.
re Varia … on a Winter night commute a couple of months back, my Varia picked up a car approaching from the rear.
I looked at my mirror … nothing in the dark.
Looked at shadows and light on the tarmac … nothing unusual …
Quick glance over the shoulder … again no headlights, no cars… nothing.
But Varia kept beeping.
I moved to the road shoulder just to be sure.
It turned out to be a car with headlights switched off in the dark (absent-minded driver??) … for once, the Varia worked where the mirror and my own checks failed.
I once had a driver comment to me on how bright the Varia was in daylight and that the changing flash pattern caught their attention as soon as they saw it. They were an older couple and were so grateful they could identify me as a cyclist well in advance. 
How are early am rides more intense? Don’t we as individuals have control over that?
RPE maybe
Can you expand on that?
I do nearly all of my training very early for life reasons, so I’m curious to learn
If I’ve just woken up, and have to do a threshold or whatever workout, the RPE will be elevated and therefore feel more intense.
You can control intensity I.e power output yeah, but I find it a bit harder to hit certain power on less sleep/less food (you might be fasted in the morning/no caffeine (caffeine takes an hour to get going, and I aren’t gonna wake up at half 4 just so my coffee is peaking at half 5 )
I managed a sprint workout on my way to work this morning, probs would’ve been better/easier in daylight when my body had woken up. But roads were quieter at 5:30am and it makes the commute more interesting lol.
Thank you for that perspective. Makes sense. I’m usually up for more than an hour before exercising so plenty of time to eat and take caffeine, but can see how going straight from bed to the bike would prove difficult.