So what are you guys using for mirrors. Anyone else have my problem?
As you might tell from the rust and corrosion, the mirror and my glasses have both given many (11?) years of service. That's a Coke-bottle cap, but you can't tell anymore. This mirror is made by Dick Bird, a retired man in Irvine, CA. See
http://www.marketingcounsel.com/beerview_mirrors.html .
His info:
Richard Bird
26 Spinnaker
Irvine, CA 92614
(949)551-6353
I know there's someone else also making mirrors almost exactly the same way, but I don't know who.
At the last contact I had with him, I don't think he had a website, but if you E-mail him, he'll reply with some pictures of his mirrors and the bottle cap choices. They're mostly beer, since soft drinks aren't really using capped glass bottles anymore.
The mirrors are $15 postpaid. (Tax is not extra). They have a lifetime warranty, although I suppose it's his lifetime since he has been retired for quite a few years. I paid for ours with a check. I don't know if he takes credit cards.
Going with this particular type of mirror has several advantages. The first glasses mirror I had had rubber parts and kind of a ball joint, but the rubber rotted and soon was no good. Dick Bird's on the other hand, are made of the cap, epoxy, the glass mirror, and a spoke or other such wire-- all durable. It takes awhile to bend it to work perfectly with a particular pair of glasses and aim it right, but then as long as you don't sit on it or something like that, it shouldn't need adjustment again as long as you have the same glasses.
The glasses don't shift around like your helmet, and don't vibrate like a handlebar mirror. You can pan a very wide range behind you by turning your head a little.
To anticipate safety objections that have come up before-- There is no way it can go into your eye. Any blow to it will either make it rotate off the glasses, or take the glasses off. Also, the glass is so well embedded in the epoxy in the bottle cap, and it's so small, that I think a car could run over it and not break the glass. Breaking your glasses would be more of a safety concern, yet no one doubts the safety of wearing glasses. Of course the whole reason to use the mirror is to avoid accidents in the first place.