I have just brought a Hilltop Jacket in the winter sales, it is great for keeping me dry while walking to/from the station on my daily commute into Manchester, as well as when I am out on the hills at the weekends.

However at this time of year it is dark both on my way to work and my way home, add heavy rain to this and it becomes very hard for a driver to see me crossing the road, or walking along the edge of a country road.

I don’t wish to look like a motorway police officer, but would like some discreet “3m” reflective piping to improve my safely. (Why should only children cloths have safely built in?)

I have in the past seen fabric that is mat black in normal light, but that shines brightly in headlights – I think it is used on some motorcycle cloths – this type of fabric would be another option.

Has anyone come up with a way to discreetly retrofit reflective tape to a Hilltop Jacket without adversely affecting its performance?

I use magnetic tape as backing on the car - could two strips back to back do the trick?
Nik on Twitter

Hi

Good question & I might be able to shed some additional information on the qualm

What you are asking for is a reflective edge to your garment, plus encouraging Rohan to look at creating a solution to this problem for future production

Years ago Rohan did lead the way with their Flashback range of garments - Ben has a sample of one up in Keswick. Since then I have worked with both 3M's & Reflec/ Illuminite's solutions in a technical capacity. Flashback was good, but expensive & it could be worn off

What you ask for is possible - but it is not a great as reflective tape as mentioned by RTFadmin; his solution is as good as any

Whatever solution you have (to my knowledge) will affect the jacket in two ways. Reflectives add a much greater weight than you think to the garment, plus that particular area suffers from not being as breathable as the rest of the garment

As for placement of the reflective material most designers look towards EN471 (the regulations) which have multiple & complete all round visible status features. If I was to get excited by any reflectives, what Sprayway are doing with their kids garments is to edge outer panels & make the silver part of the design

If you are keen for non-tape then accept that printed ink will not be reflective as tape. To a screen-print solution you can add colour dye, but this will also affect the reflectivity - especially if you use a black dye, but to answer the question you put: you can have black material that becomes retro-reflective when a direct light is shone upon it (black is as poor a choice of reflective ink as white).

Once a screen-print has been applied, it needs to be cured (set); some base fabrics have problems with this due to heat finishing processes, & then the water-resistancy finish needs to be applied

If the material is subjected to constant rubbing (aka Martindale test) a screen-print will rub off faster than a tape (beware backpack straps & under arm areas)

A rather fuller answer to say it is a problem that designers do not yet have a solution for. Look at some of the coloured reflectives in brighter shades (or silver - if it can be put up with), preferably as part of the design on the outer edge of materials. Progress has been made with reflective stitching, but this produces an area not large enough to be seen from a distance by an approaching vehicle

You could always use a solution that cyclists have popularly used: a flashing red LED clipped to something (backpack/ briefcase)...

I think the level of reflective detailing that Spayway is using on some of their jackets is about right, however I want it on a full length jacket with the practical everyday detailing that Roman is so good at. I see no need to keep to EN471, as I am not walking across motorways at night (I have a reflective vest in my car door if I ever get the need to cross a motorway).

There are some great little LED lights now - some of them very small, light and bright. Some of the fixing systems for bike lights could easily be attached to rucksacks and maybe some clothing. You can also get (rarely, but lots of them in Scandinavia) reflective tabs in various shapes that attach with cord. Slight risk of looking like a Xmas tree with this one though...

I often have this problem, and use reflective snapwraps that I got from various cycle promotion stalls, one on each ankle and or one on each wrist . When they are not needed they roll up together and sit in a pocket.
I also use a headlamp because one of my walks takes me along several minor unlit roads where a light is pretty essential just to avoid the potholes let alone alert drivers and I clip a tiny red led light to the strap at the back.

If you want a headtorch which also has a red Led on the back, look Alpkit's Gamma or (more expensive) one of the Mammut versions

Yesterday Outdoorsmagic had an article that would be of interest to the original question:
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/gear-blog/ ... /9175.html
but this garment does not have the same smart appearance of the Hilltop