Azndude51

I'm primarily a night person and I just felt like going out for a nice, easy ride in the middle of a night (11:30pm), it turned out to be pretty relaxing. My roommate thought I was crazy. What do you guys think? is it really that uncommon to be cycling in the middle of the night?

I did take as many precautions as I could as it was my first night run. My roommate knew my exact route and where I was going, it was along a paved bike path that goes through residential/suburban area, parks and the edge of a few light wooded areas. ~8 miles total, 80% was bike path, 20% was on marked bike lane on road. I had cell phone, emergency contact info, ID, multiple LED flashing taillight, reflective vest, 2 Luxeon LED flashlights as headlights. It ended up being pretty quiet as I encountered maybe 10 cars at the most.


Like so:





The flashlight on the handlebar is set on flood so I can always see the immediate area in front and the one on my helmet is more of a spotlight so I can look around corners and farther down the path. It works pretty well for a light setup that cost me nothing (I already owned the flashlights).

nickj6

Pretty cool setup.

A few times over this summer, I would come back home on my bike at 3AM from parties being that I was drinking .

Blue Jays

You were perfectly safe with that lighting arrangement.

wethepeople

I quite often go out for rides at 1:00am on my tallbike, all I have is a front light and rear blinkie, and my phone sometimes.

Bushman

I ride in the middle of the night every night, NEVER had an issue, even when riding thru skid row. just be situationally aware and you'll have problems.

Azndude51

So... if i'm NOT situationally aware, I won't have problems?

ChipSeal

Your room mate is crazy not to join you!

divergence

Hey, that actually describes my approach pretty well.

But no, you're not crazy. Your roommate, however, is in need of psychosurgery.

donnamb 

Night rides are glorious.

twahl

I'd suggest at least a rear blinkie be added, but other than that, you're good. I do more riding at night than during the daylight hours. With adequate lighting I generally feel safer. Less traffic, and frankly I feel more visible. You might want a stronger headlight setup and maybe a bright vest if you're going to ride at night regularly, although from the sounds of your traffic conditions that might be overkill.

Doug5150

I work third shift, and am often up part of the night on the nights I have off. In the summer, it's cooler at night and there's drastically less traffic and noise.

I go night riding all the time, but I usually try to avoid city/suburb riding during the bewitching hours of 1:00-3:00AM, because where I live all the bars close at either 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM. BIf I do end up riding at that time, I am VERY wary of all cars when the drunks hit the road!

Also I have gotten flat tires in the past, and suffered 150 mosquito bites while I was fixing the tire.
-----
You got any rear lights on that bike???......

I prefer to run TWO rear blinkies, in case one would stop working (low batteries or whatever). If you're alone and you only had one rear light and it stopped working during a night ride, when would you realize that? When you got done with the ride and got home, and went to turn the rear light off....
~

John Wilke

Same here: 3rd shifter and have ridden many times at 3am. It's a wonderful time to ride if you take the proper precautions. I had my rims, shoes, clothes all rigged up with reflective tape in addition to a strong headlight and bright blinking rear light. In fact, one night at 3 am, I had a cop drive right up and follow me for a mile ... but he left me alone and drove on!

oneredstar

I night ride all the time. Hitting the streets afterdark is a lot of fun. Less cars is the main reason. With a decenet set of lights it is no more danger then during the day, infact I think there is less danger at night.

chevy42083

Night riding rocks. I love it. I have a cat-eye LED front light and rear blinkie... no helmet light, no reflection vest. You're safe.
Well, that's not a garauntee or anything, but I feel you're safe

atomship47

i like riding at night. however, there are too many drunks on the country roads at night. i just got too scared to be out there.

j.w

Work has been taking up a lot of my time so when I get home it's already dark. Being that it's winter here as well I'd rather sleep in so I've been doing the night rides. Now two of my buddies want to join me.

Something cool I discovered - the MUP has fairy lights along the edges so you can see where the path goes. It's like riding on an airport runway.

pino pomo

In town, yeah. But that's commuting rather than for exercise, riding either through neighborhoods or where there's good ambient light. No way I'd ride out on the country roads at night around here.

CdCf

I do it often. Almost no traffic, usually lower wind speeds (almost always windy here) and less time spent waiting at traffic lights (since there's so little traffic). During warm weather, the temps are often cooler as well, which I like.

I do about half my night riding in the city centre and half on country roads.

mead_hall

I always ride at night, its so hot here during the day its like riding in the rain.

UmneyDurak

If you have enough lights, reflective stuff it's not crazy. Although I think it is a bit more dangerous. Drivers can't judge the speed of a bike during a day, at night it gets even worse. So higher potential for someone turning in to you etc. Thats how I got hit, and I looked like a damn Christmas tree.

John Wilke

Here's a story for 'yall.

I had headed out for a 2 hour ride on the rural Glacial Drumlin Trail west of Waukesha, WI around sunset. It's a paved path and I was sure I had plenty of battery power for my 12 watt headlight to last the ride. BZZZZZT. Wrong. About 3 miles from the end my battery went dead. Being a mostly rural area, it was pretty dark, but I could see well enough not to be riding off the pavement. As my eyes got used to the low light, I gradually got brave and picked up the speed to about 10mph. I was feeling pretty confident that I would make it back to the car ...

UNTIL ...

A HUGE EYEBALL APPEARED

and I smacked head on into another rider comming the other way also without any headlight.

Instant pain. SKY - ground - sky - ground. Then swirling stars for about 5 minutes. (this was the first time I actually got my bell rung, and saw stars ! )

I could not get up. Not that I had any broken bones, but it was such an impact that all I could do was just roll around on the ground. After a few minutes (? guessing here), I could lift my head and see the other rider about 20 feet back down the trail, also laying on the ground, rolling around, unable to get up.

Not good.

Eventually, another biker found us sprawled on the path and made sure we were 'okay'. (what a sight, eh?) He helped us up and gather our stuff back together that was literally strewn everywhere, then rode and got his pickup truck. He gave me a ride back to my car and the other guy a ride home.

I got the other cyclist's phone number and called it later to see if he was still alive, because he didn't have a helmet on and I KNOW we smacked our heads together. His dad said he was okay, which was good. As I cleaned myself up in the bathroom, I noticed a scrape on my elbow and was going to wash it off .... SQUIRT! it shot blood all over the mirror ... ARTERIAL BLEEDER !! No wonder my shirt was so bloody. I held pressure, stopped it, finished cleaning up a bit, and drove myself to the hospital where I got a half dozen stitches in that elbow. Did I tell them that I got my bell rung, saw stars, and probably passed out for a few minutes? Nope, it never even crossed my mind until I was back home again. (and I'm a nurse!! ) Man, I was afraid to go to sleep fearing that I had a bleeder in my head and that I'd never wake up (I live alone).

But all turned out okay.

Lessons:

- Make _ _ _ _ sure you've got a fully charged battery before going out, or at least bring a back up of some sort.
- Make _ _ _ _ sure you call 911 if you come across and accident like that. Either of us could have died that night from brain injury.
- Make _ _ _ _ sure you tell the docs in the ER that you hit your head when you crashed !

That was one crash story I'm not to happy to tell, but I learned some lessons that hopefully I can pass along to others.

Ride safely.

itsIRIEpat

Night riding is fine. Just make sure you have the proper equipment, front head lights and rear blinkies etc. In the last two areas I lived in, Long Beach and Bakersfield California the Police will pull you over at night if you don't have the proper equipment. They aren't too concerned about your Safety as they are of Shaking you down and making sure you are not a Tweaker Caring around some Methamphetamine or some other Controlled Substance!

Tabagas_Ru

If you are crazy for riding at night, than I am surely bonkers, I used to get my best miles at night. I would meet my riding buddies at midnight somewhere on the other side of the city at midnight, then ride till sunrise. The funny part is that we all lived in the same neighbourhood to begin with. Ahhh, the joys of unemployment.

Of course we did not care about helmets or lights, or much else for that matter, that was probably part of the bonkers part. Sometimes I would ride along the bike path through the forest using the yellow line to keep from the going off the path. Much of the time I would be hoping that another person was not doing the same thing in the other direction. I had plenty of near misses.

I think one of the only things that I miss about living in a big city you don’t run out of road before hitting the highway like you do in a small town.

The phrase “they only come out at night” reigns true on night rides. I always saw the strangest stuff, of course many non-cyclists would probably be referring to us when they used the above phrase.

stapfam

Night riding is great- less cars and less people about- Couple of points and you have found one that also cures another problem. The most usefull lamp you can have at Night is a Helmet lamp- This also takes care of always having two lamps on the front as if One packs up- you need a spare. Same on the back- At least you can see if a front lamp packs up but I always have two lamps on the rear aswell. One set on constant and one Flashing.
We used to ride offroad on the tandem and if going offroad you do not need an ordinary light- You need searchlights.

Artkansas 

I ride to and from work at all hours. I used to work swing shift and get off and go riding around Hollywood. It felt safer than say at 4pm.