It's been awhile since I've ridden home from work at night. First, my headlight went out a while back and I only got another one this week. While the light was out, I got in the habit of putting it off altogether and taking the car. So, it has been several weeks since I took to the road at night.

Some of the things I "re-discovered" might be of interest to the commuters who may not have taken the "night rider plunge."

Lights – You can't have enough

HEADLAMP
My new forward vision light is a CREE diode flashlight, rated at 280 lumens on high power. It is adequate, but just. It is powered by a 18650 battery, which is kind of like an oversized AA on steroids. Mine have 3800mah of capacity, so I reckon it should last about 6 hours on high power.
I run it mostly on strobe mode, as this lessens battery power drain and extends the life per charge.
It is kind of weird getting used to the strobe effect, but it gives oncoming drivers the double take – they immediately react to it from several hundred yards away.
Nevertheless, I find myself wanting even more illumination. Its pitch dark out in the rural country were I commute and you cant see a thing. Every bit of light helps and I can't help but think that more would be better.

TAILIGHTS
I have several lights in back
1 – Flashing red, 3 LED in normal rear position
2 – White strobes, offset to left and right
1 – Flashing red, single LED, on the lower seat stay next to the hub

I also wear reflective bands around my ankles, banded "pants keepers."

I've been told I look like either an emergency vehicle from behind .... or a UFO. Judging by the way cars go around me, it's obvious bicycle visibility is no problem.

Conditioning
Here is a benefit you may not appreciate until you start night riding in earnest. At first it was a bit of a surprise to me. I find that the usual obstacles, wind, hills and so on have much less "presence" at night. Well, actually, they have none since you can't see them nor their effects. During the day a big-ass hill looks monstrous, but in the dark, well... you can't see it! This eliminates the crucial psychological effect these things might have. I just pedal harder when the pedaling gets tougher.

Descents are essentially meaningless, too. You just keep shifting up until you are topped out. Speed is hard to judge since you cannot see your electronic indicators in the dark, eithee. Well, mine has no back light so I can't see it. Therefore, I have no way to judge how fast I'm going. This means I cannot tell when enough is enough. I just pedal like hell.

As you might expect, cadence takes on a new importance. Since you cant see anything along the road (and in my case there is no digital readout) you nothing to judge your progress by visually. All you have is your cadence. There in the dark, with no distractions, I focus far more on my rhythm than I would during the day.

Riding by Feel
Here's a big shift from daytime cycling. You ride the bike by feel almost exclusively. You cannot see which chain wheel you are on, so you shift and move through the gears by feel. The bike has to be well tuned, naturally, because every little variance is felt, or heard when you can't look down to see what's happening!
Of course, your bike has to be in top shape and well maintained.Believe me - riding at night will point to problems in a hurry.
Every little bump or hiccup in the road is felt, too. You cannot see them in advance, and you have a very short time to react to them. Even with a higher powered light than mine, this is still an issue.

REARVIEW Mirror and Approaching cars
With my rear light array, cars have no problem seeing me. But I have a difficult time judging them in the rear view mirror. I do see their light long before they get to me; that part is better than daylight riding. But while I see their lights early, I have a hard time judging their distance solely by looking in the mirror. I find I look behind me more at night, when cars approach.

In summary, night riding offers several beneficial effects:

1. The field of view you have closes in tightly, shrinking to only that illuminated by your lights. No longer can you see far down the road. This causes your reflex time to sharpen dramatically.

2. Your conditioning improves, since you are not intimidated by that which you are riding into. You pedal harder, all the time. I'm sure there is some deep psychology behind this, but suffice it to say it happens.

3. You also ride more by feel. Every shift, every buzz or noise takes on an importance all it's own. You become more a part of the machine at night.

4. It's very stimulating to be out riding in the night. The noises are different, the smells change and you become more keenly aware of our surroundings. All you have is you and the bike, moving through a small puddle of light.
Plus the stars are out where you can see them– you remember the stars, dont you?

Certainly many of these things can be part of daytime riding, too, but they are more pronounced at night.
You are like a blind person, really, relying on other senses besides familiar sight... and so you become a better rider in the bargain.
Road cyclists would do well to try night riding for all the reasons mentioned.

Yes, it can be intimidating at first. It's even a little spooky the first few times.
But it's worth pushing through that to gain the benefits.

You might want to invest in a cheapish front blinkie type light (such as a Planetbike Blinky 5) for your front flashing light and use your current flashlight to actually light the road. It would still give you a front flasher, and you should be able to see obstacles in front of you.

I love night riding. LOVE IT. My illumiination lately is a JOS "Dynamoblock", an integrated sidewall generator-headlight combo, which is more than adequately bright and always, always works. I keep a spare bulb taped to the underside of my saddle, but have yet to need it. I run around with a PB blinky on my courier bag or (if I remember it) actually clipped to its mount. I also have two reflectors on the back, one on a chainstay mount and another on the fender, and am considering a second dynamo to run a 6v3w taillight, which would probably be overkill.


In any event, since so much of my riding is in the winter when it's dark 28 hours a day anyhow, I've really come to love my midnight rides. It's so still.

Another thing to look out for is critters. I've taken to going out for recreational rides at dusk (because it's cooler than during the day) and I've had quite a few encounters with animals. I almost ran over a skunk a few days ago, but I only scared the crap out of it. It was so tiny and cute. :3 I've also seen raccoons, but I do my best to stay clear of those guys.

280lm is not very bright. My dyno light puts out more than that.

I have an energizer headlamp that I bought at walmart for $15. It takes 3 AAA batteries and the light is pretty strong. The light points to where you are looking so you can look at your front and rear sprockets to see what gear you are in. Plus if there is a strange noise on the bike you can look [or try to look] at it without disembarking from the bike.
You can also look at the side of the trail / road while riding.

I love riding at night. On the Pinellas Trail where I ride [https://www.pinellascounty.org/trailgd/default.htm] I see some wildlife [i.e. varmints] every evening. Possums, armadillos, cats, and the occasional coyote.

Usually I count cats on my ride to work. They stare back at you with glowing eyes as you glide through their territory.

This headlamp is also useful for doing home repairs if the area you are in is light-challenged. I also carry a Cateye light on the front of the bike for an emergency light.

"Nevertheless, I find myself wanting even more illumination. Its pitch dark out in the rural country were I commute and you cant see a thing. Every bit of light helps and I can't help but think that more would be better."

If you feel the need for more light, you should get more. I didn't realize how crappy my lighting was
until I got my current flashlight claiming 900 lumens. Now I feel I should add another one that has a
longer/farther throw.

I tried night riding in rural areas once, but was thoroughly creeped out despite having a P7 flashlight (theor. 900 lumens). I went several miles without passing a single soul on roads that are typically quite busy, never did it again.

Night riding in urban areas is more acceptable, but non-streetlit areas I still find somewhat hazardous; as detailed in this thread even my P7 headlight was a little late in detecting a ninja jogger (I was closing at ~20mph, he was closing at ~10mph). Potholes and such also have a tendency to jump out of nowhere.

I do a fair amount of riding at night, but I make it a point to be more careful because I believe there are more drunks on the roads. My friend was just telling me a few days ago that while riding at night a (probably) drunk driver slammed into him and left him crawling to get off the road with a rapidly swelling knee, before the next car came along.

I do see obstacles, that isn't it. I suspect I could see more thats all A forward blinky sounds like a good idea.

That is a great part of it for me. I actually like it better at night.

Another thing to look out for is critters.
SO far so good. I expect at some time to encounter dogs.
Ill work on that.

Yeah I get that sensation, myself. It is one of the things I find stimulating about it. Odd, I suppose.
As for 'ninja joggers' and looming potholes, well.... the joggers not so much where I ride. Pretty dead ass country. The potholes? Yeah, but it is good road and Im intimately familiar with it.
This is a concern of mine, I admit. There aren't many public places to get drunk out here, so that probably helps to some degree. There are the home drunks, I suppose.... At any rate, I don't normally ride on Friday, should work keep me late that night. Good point. Ill have to rely on the millions of miles ridden without incident, an ever increasing array of rearward flasher lights and Providence. It's that or don't ride.

I generally like riding at night. It's a lot of fun!
But I'm wary now after an incident last summer.
My bf, another friend, and I were night riding with full lights on a rural road and a huge racoon jumped out of a ditch right into my bfs rear wheel. Kicked the bike right out from underneath him. He went down. Knocked out (helmet cracked). Grade 3 concussion, minor brain hemmorage (sp?). Surly CC did not have a scratch on it.

Cars I can deal with. Critters totally unpredicable.

Hub Dynamo, now have 2, 1 28", 1 20" both Schmidt, for disc brakes..

One thing I cannot recommend enough to night riders is having some type of bright helmet or head mounted light. I believe that I was hit by a car at night because despite my bright bike mounted headlight, the lady did not notice me out of her peripheral vision before making a turn just as I was passing by.

A helmet light allows you to actively interact with the vision of motorists at night - if you think there is even a small chance they are going to make their turn into you, you can point the light directly into their field of vision and get their attention immediately. I have had motorists stop in mid-turn several times since starting to use a helmet light.

I use a Petzl Tikka II headlamp, which admittedly was designed for hiking. I found it is easily helmet mountable when I secured it using velcro cable ties.

Glad he came out alright - although Im sure it seemed otherwise at the time. I do try to keep an eye out for critters. There are a couple of places along my commute where the habitat is suitable for racoons. And of course, here in the South, opossums are always a possibility. An occasional deer could also appear out of nowhere, especially once hunting season begins next month.
The one animal I confess a worry over is the dog. Rural folks often leave their hounds outside to roam at night, even though they should not. I am not out far enough that feral dogs are likely but the average farm mutt could show up - and I've sen a few dead along the road over the seasons.

This is something Ive toyed with, myself. I have one of those head lamps, in fact.
Currently, I have my forward vision lamp fastened so it shines just at the horizon line. During normal riding, it shines directly in front of me. But with just a flick of the handlebars, it can be made to shine into the driving compartment of oncoming traffic. This would be true, also, of perpendicular traffic.
What Ive been looking for is a low profile strobe light that could attach to my helmet, but not look like some Pee Wee Herman gadget.