Tips for riding at night

[Tharkûn]

This will all be repost for you old timers, but feel free to contribute for the newbies out there. Winter is upon us with early darkness, so here's some advice for you newer riders who perhaps haven't spent a lot of time riding at night. This will all be freeway specific since that's where I put all my nighttime miles.

-Don't outride your headlights. Keep your speed down and use the lights of other cars ahead of you to look for debris. A game you can play is to ride in the carpool lane and test yourself by seeing how far away you can see the painted diamonds in the lane. Keep in mind that debris won't be painted white and will be even harder to see.

-Don't ride in a lane with no one visible in front of you. Basically, don't just ride in the number one lane (fast lane) where you can't see someone else in the same lane ahead. If a car way ahead of you hits debris is your lane, you will be able to see that and move before you can actually see the debris. If you're all alone in a lane, you'll be the first one to hit it!

-Stay clear of the lane lines and edges of the freeway. Debris that gets hit ends up on the white lines, or on the edges of the freeway. It can also end up in middle of the lane so keep to the car wheel tracks.

-Watch for cars stopped on the shoulder. If you see one car stopped with its hazards on, it may have just hit something, if you see multiple cars stopped spread out over a hundred yards or so, SLOW DOWN there is some serious flat-tire-causing debris out there that you might not be able to see yet.

-Watch for other cars braking unnecessarily. If you see someone that's just cruising along and then a couple cars jump on the brakes, ask yourself why and get prepared to move.

-Keep scanning close and far. Usually in the daylight as you come around a curve you can scan for debris as far as your new line of sight is, say a mile or so, and determine its clear of anything serious. At night you don't have this long distance sight benefit, so you need to keep your eyes up to about 15 seconds ahead, but also scanning to the distance of your headlights for debris you can't see from far away.

-Use reflective bot dots to your advantage. Assume that all of them are there and if you see an inconsistency, eg some of them look like theyre missing, perhaps something is covering them up.

Your eyes and mind should be tired after riding at night from paying attention so intensely. The hard part is riding at night also makes it easy to get lazy and just drone on without paying attention.

 

[Whodat]

I ride home 40 miles on the freeway every night between 2 and 5am. Thanks for the reminders :thumbup

 

[vitalus]

something I do at night also is to turn my mirrors a touch lower so that I don't get the bright headlights in my eyes in my normal riding position - i have to ever so slightly duck the head to see what's behind me, but the tradeoff is worth it in my opinion

 

[gixxerjeff]

Tailgate aggressively.
The closer you are to the car in front of you, the more you can utilize his superior headlights.

 

[planegray]

Thanks Tharkun !

Questions;

How do you make that "U" with the thingie on it ?

How often do you see this ? I've seen it a couple times

"-Watch for cars stopped on the shoulder. If you see one car stopped with its hazards on, it may have just hit something, if you see multiple cars stopped spread out over a hundred yards or so, SLOW DOWN there is some serious flat-tire-causing debris out there that you might not be able to see yet."

 

[Wack]

Thanks Tharkun ![/I]

+1, Reflective trim and emblems on your ATGATT really helps as does leaving the unsightly reflectors on your bike. In dense fog one night in the valley I was envious of a guy on a 'Wing who was lit up like a Christmas tree, while I lived in fear of getting a Chevy enema on my CBR.

 

[hisg58]

Thanks for the tips. Luckily in my 10 months of riding I just take the car if there's any chance i'll be at work long enough for the sun to be gone... but coincidentally just purchased a DDM HID kit this morning just in case.

edit: I also wish my bike had freakin hazard lights just to let people around me I'm going slow or something for a reason.

 

[Gary856]

Thanks for the tips. Adding some comments:

-Don't outride your headlights. Keep your speed down and use the lights of other cars ahead of you to look for debris. A game you can play is to ride in the carpool lane and test yourself by seeing how far away you can see the painted diamonds in the lane. Keep in mind that debris won't be painted white and will be even harder to see.

I find it impossible to NOT outride the headlights at night on the freeway on low beam. On low beam, I need to make use of the lights from other vehicles; see below. High beam helps greatly, but I tried not use it when there are other vehicles around.

-Don't ride in a lane with no one visible in front of you. Basically, don't just ride in the number one lane (fast lane) where you can't see someone else in the same lane ahead. If a car way ahead of you hits debris is your lane, you will be able to see that and move before you can actually see the debris. If you're all alone in a lane, you'll be the first one to hit it!

Two variations of this:

- Ride a few seconds behind a car in the adjacent lane. This way you can see what's in your lane up ahead using the headlight of the car a few seconds ahead of you.

- Use the headlight reflection off the pavement from oncoming cars to help see what's on the pavement.

-Keep scanning close and far.

Your eyes and mind should be tired after riding at night from paying attention so intensely. The hard part is riding at night also makes it easy to get lazy and just drone on without paying attention.

When it's really dark and there's not much to focus on, it's easy to stare straight ahead and get into a trance. I keep my eyes moving even when there's hardly anything to see, similar to how a tennis player would keep shifting his weight left-right constantly while waiting for the serve.

 

[Tharkûn]

Tailgate aggressively.
The closer you are to the car in front of you, the more you can utilize his superior headlights.

Well, I don't agree with that, here's why

-If you're that close, might as well just use your own lights rather than theirs. I use other cars headlights from a greater distance, like 200-300 yards

-Sportbikes headlight beam bounces like crazy over anything but the smoothest of pavement and looks like you're flashing your highbeams. Can lead to some road rage situations

-If the car does evasive manuevers you'll have less time to react. If they hit something and spit it out the back of the car you're in for trouble

Thanks Tharkun !

Questions;

How do you make that "U" with the thingie on it ?

How often do you see this ? I've seen it a couple times

"-Watch for cars stopped on the shoulder. If you see one car stopped with its hazards on, it may have just hit something, if you see multiple cars stopped spread out over a hundred yards or so, SLOW DOWN there is some serious flat-tire-causing debris out there that you might not be able to see yet."

I see it often because I usually get called to clean up the mess. Picking up debris at night sucks because I need about a mile or two to safely stop traffic depending on how busy it is, but I can't see the debris until I'm basically on top of it. I usually use cars with flat tires as a marker for where it should be, about 1/4 to 1/2 mile prior

 

[Tydive]

Great tips. :thumbup

A few from my night rides.

Look towards the fog line when bright lights are coming.

Always use cages as blockers and light sources.

Your brakes need squeezing every so often when it's very cold or wet. Keep em warm or they might not be there as quickly as you would expect.

Remember to look up every now and again :ride

 

[tgrrdr]

How do you make that "U" with the thingie* on it ?

Copy/paste from Tharkûn?



*circumflex

 

[SummerLove]

Anti-fog device on your visor!
I have a fog-city thing on my smoked one. I'm thinking about picking up another for my clear (use it the most when it's cold anyway.) I'm a little concerned about back reflection though. It happens when it's cloudy or in shadows with the smoked visor. May try a pinlock but Shoei visors are $$ so it's like 80 bucks for the whole thing.

+1 to using other cars' lights and as blockers. I've never had a bike with a decent headlight. Set of clearwater LED driving lights is on the list for my Multi since it had a terrible headlight (spread is waaaaay too narrow).
Scanning, scanning scanning. Started seeing LED street lights around here and I have to say they are much better than the yellow and orange mercury vapor or sodium ones they replaced. I hate the old style lights, they suck out the contrast and ruin my night vision while not actually putting out useful amounts of light to see the damn rode. I'd take no street lights over them because then my eyes could adjust and my headlight wouldn't get lost in it.
Try not to combine rain and night for the first time. Last october I made that mistake. Something in Santa Cruz ran over late and I found myself having ride home over 17 in the dark, while it was raining.. then the low beam on my bike went out (cracked headlight lens + water). Of course I had no way of telling this to Tixens who was with me on her Concours at the time. Visor was fogging up, couldn't see a thing thanks to the lights reflecting off the droplets on it. No water shedding treatment. Eventually I parked myself in the rain shadow of a semi and managed to make it out of the rain.
It was fucking dumb and dangerous. I didn't know it was raining when we left Santa Cruz and I wasn't comfortable pulling over either. I also ran over some small fuzzy creature on the way back over before I found the semi. Needless to say I think that was one of the dumbest positions I've put myself in. I should have told Tixens I needed to go home before it got dark.

If you can avoid it don't try to put those too situations together, especially on a road like 17. Of course after that I wasn't really scare of rain or dark so maybe I'm not so bright.
Oh fucking deer if you are in the hills. It's deer season and they are out in force outside of the metro areas, especially during twilight.
:|

 

[Whodat]

Tailgate aggressively.

Really bad advice :thumbdown. Cars can straddle stuff in their lane that will take down a bike.

Riding in the dark or in bad weather I always increase my separation from anything around me.

 

[matt fe2o3]

Total BS. If you ride fast enough the sun never sets :laughing:laughing

Seriously, deer are my biggest concern and I ride a lot at night. I light up the road, high beams and 2x55w Baja Fuegos.

I dim for oncoming of course but when the road is mine it is lit up.

"take all the light I can get"

 

[2wetdogs]

I ride quite a lot at night the bikes i own all hsve great lighting , but one thing i never do is ride 280 too many deer!!
If you happen to go down there at night hopefully someone will see the sparks as you leave the pavement

 

[RaptorFA]

One thing I learned is not to over-react to changing light behind you. What might seem like a car bearing down on you is actually you entering the car's light pattern in the next lane over. The way the light spreads out can be tricky if you are not used to it. And Deer. Watch for those bastards, especially now. I had 2 close calls with forest rats last year. Tharkun is right about being tired after a longer ride at night. So you probably don't want to be fatigued when you start your ride.

 

[slowpoke]

How do you outride the speed of light?:wow

 

[HappyHighwayman]

Drive a little slower.

I wear a full visibility jacket all the time, but if you don't, add a reflective vest. Also if you ride at night regularly, invest in hyperlites or another set of flashing brake lights, and auxiliary LED headlamps...they don't necessarily light up the road for you much better but they make you quite a bit more visible, even during the day.

 

[Rebus]

^^ This. I do like my hyper-lights.

I'm running some small PIAA light on my crash bars, but they don't light up in front of me as much as I would like. But they do make me more visible, and I run them during the day, too.

 

[Godsdarling]

I love night riding and usually ride home every night at sundown. I am a much better rider at night. Less distractions. :laughing Lucky for me that I live in the mountains so not much traffic.

If I can find another car I will pace them so I can utilize their lights as well as my own.

Once it turns to one lane I like to get behind the car so he will be the first to hit anything and I can follow their taillights through any fog. :laughing