The Best of All Ways to Lengthen our Days...

[JennyB]

... Is to steal a few hours from the Night, my dear! (Thomas Moore)

I've had some wonderful rides after dark (full moonlight on a wet country road, snow on the hills, cows' eyes reflecting pink) and some that I'd rather forget - but I've never ridden right through the night. Unlike my uncle back in the Forties, who missed his train back to Cork and simply kept riding through the night and much of the next day for 200 miles, and arrived before the next train. 8)

I'd rather like to try that myself next Spring when the days get longer again.

Does anyone here have experience of long night rides, or interesting shorter ones?

 

[ddk]

About a zillion years ago, when I was a mere yoof, riding through the twilight zone into the night was (and remains) my favorite time to ride. Traffic was just non-existent at night... and this was in the San Francisco Bay Area !
... nowadays we, in the us of a, have to suffer with 24-hour non-stop automotive traffic. Therefor excellent night-time lighting is not just a requirement, it's becomes a safety hazard with only standard bike lights... and a certain amount of extra lighting is well-advised using strobes and flashing and/or twinkling razzle-dazzle lights.

 

[The fingers]

Half of my regular commute time is in the dark, equally divided by early mornings and late evenings. Seems like you are going faster when it is dark than in the daytime, and it is a little more dangerous (with all the drunk drivers, dogs chasing and such). I carry a 500 lumen flashlight to shine at partying wildlifers in cages, police, and night critters; to reduce the chance of creating or being reduced to fresh road kill. :wink:
"Honor your father and mother and reap length of days" Quote from the 2003 song Ten Commandments.

 

[Xanda2260]

I LOVE night riding!
My trike has these lights in the spokes of the front wheels, so at speed I look like something out of Tron!
Nice and quiet, no one in my way...awesome.
Just last night I was out doing doughnuts on the local park. Great fun.
Got home and promptly vaporised a balanc connector cos I was tired but thats another story...

 

[Animalector]

I have entered a couple of 24 hour MTB events with a mate of mine as a team. Alternating 12km laps. It was fantastic, there is something about riding a section of trail at 3am with Nobody in sight that really gets the heart pumping. otherwise evening/night rides are great for teaching how to "look through corners" since you have to aim the head lamp far enough ahead to see what is coming. Awesome
Andy

 

[pdf]

About 1/2 of my commute is on a "greenway" (6 foot wide paved path) through a wooded area surrounded by a moderately sized urban center. As the winter comes on, we in the "northern" hemisphere get shorter days and so it is often quite dark on my ride home. I have a MagicShine on the front and one of Justin's superbright LED flashers on the rear so I am pretty visable from the front and back, maybe no so much from the side. In the fall, the greenway is covered with leaves and black walnuts. Even with a MagicShine, it is nearly impossible to see the black walnuts at night and sometimes even to be sure you know where the greenway is under the leaves. If you hit a black walnut just right with a bike, it can make the front tire skip sideways a few inches. If the leaves are wet, it adds an additional layer of excitement.

Unfortunately, the greenway is a few dozen feet of forest on either side of it while meandering through the near urban area. While very picturesque, a few years ago several females walking on it were accosted. I have passed people, probably homeless, passed out in some cases and overnighting in others, along the greenway. It is not common but it is not uncommon either. It is probably one of the few places the homeless can go to sit and not be harassed. I have not heard any reports of problems in the last few years though.

But I digress. I have had some excellent starry-night rides on the greenway. For the above reasons, however, I never feel totally at peace on it at night. I've never ridden at night for pleasure either. But I can see that it would be very nice.

 

[amberwolf]

I prefer night riding for a number of reasons:

--This is Phoenix, so it's nowhere near as hot.
--Traffic is almost always much less.
--Traffic pays much more attention to me than in daytime, mostly because of my lighting.
--It's a lot more fun.
--I don't usually have to be anywhere specific at any specific time after dark, so it is more care-free.

The only thing I don't really like about it is that a lot of people around here like to wear all-black, and don't know how to use the sidewalks, wandering around in the roads or crossing unexpectedly coming out from behind stuff you can't see around from the road, so I usually have to ride a lot farther left into the lane on a number of areas, so I don't risk running htem over when they step out in front of me.

Same thing with other cyclists--there's a lot of them on bikes with no lights and no reflectors, riding randomly wherever tehy feel like without regard to traffic, rules, safety, or sanity.

But aside from that, it's usually a lot more fun at night.


Regarding seeing the road debris, walnuts, etc, have you tried mounting a very bright light very low to the ground? It would cause stretched shadows taht move that would help you see even very dark objects against a dark road surface. It works best with a pair of lights mounted down at the front dropouts or lower. Since they're only intended to light the road down low, you can increase the light by adding a hood to the top of each light, which will also decrease glare to oncoming traffic.

 

[John in CR]

Half of adult cycling fatalities occur at night with a small fraction of the number of riders compared to the number of daytime riders. The best way to lengthen your day is to rise with the sun.

 

[amberwolf]

I suspect most of those fatalities are from people that, like those I mentioned above, ride with insufficient or no lighting/reflectors, dark clothing, and no care to traffic rules and/or sense. I pay great attention to what is around me at night, because pedestrians, animals, and cyclists like that pop out of "nowhere" in the confusing lighting/shadow of roads and side streets, usually several times per mile of any particular ride. If I wasn't watching for them, I would have run over many of them. That's probably why the fatalities--car drivers go faster and pay less attention, for a great many of them, leaving them much less chance to stop or go around when this kind of thing happens.

I have had cyclists hit me from behind when I stop for things they weren't even looking for, even on CrazyBike2 with the brightly lit back end of that bike, when I could see them in hte mirror and when I stopped they were several car lengths back--they had plenty of time to see me stopped and go around if they felt like suicide, or stop if they didn't, yet they jsut rode right into me. Never hurt me or the bike, but it has certainly hurt several of them and broken a couple of their bikes over the years. This happens at night more than in the daytime, but it has happened both ways.


Of course, there are also reasons taht aren't the cyclists' fault, too, as I've myself had near-misses over the years at night due to others not paying attention (and if I hadn't been either, they probably wouldnt' have been misses).

 

[JennyB]

Half of adult cycling fatalities occur at night with a small fraction of the number of riders compared to the number of daytime riders. The best way to lengthen your day is to rise with the sun.

Yes, and I used to do that a lot. Dawn here in mid-summer is around 4 o'clock. But I reckon it will take me about 20 hours to do 200 miles, including all stops, so to get in at a decent time I'd need to start before midnight and look for my first charging point in the wee small hours somewhere around Cavan or Sligo. Best get the night riding done early, and on familiar roads.

 

[The fingers]

The dawn and dusk hours are very dangerous because of the sun being directly in the drivers eyes at certain points. I like unusual lighting which gives a UFO effect. 8) Does it get an e-rise from the cops?

 

[JennyB]

Half of my regular commute time is in the dark, equally divided by early mornings and late evenings. Seems like you are going faster when it is dark than in the daytime, and it is a little more dangerous (with all the drunk drivers, dogs chasing and such). I carry a 500 lumen flashlight to shine at partying wildlifers in cages, police, and night critters; to reduce the chance of creating or being reduced to fresh road kill. :wink:
"Honor your father and mother and reap length of days" Quote from the 2003 song Ten Commandments.

I used a helmet-mounted light for that, but I'd also have a light on the bike as well. Things can look very different at night, especially when there are lots of light sources casting moving shadows. In one way small unlit roads are better, because you always know where the cars are behind you, and all you need do is ensure that your shadow ducks into the ditch in time. :wink: If you get a while without traffic your night vision can get a lot more acute, but then the first oncoming car can ruin it. I wear a peak and duck my head, or else close one eye until it passes, and then switch eyes.

But downhill on a twisting unlit road in the rain, with a slipping dynamo light, is not recommended.

 

[John in CR]

Jenny,
The easy answer for your 200 miles is to go faster, and with some aero treatments I'm sure you could cut your time by 1/3 with the same per mile consumption. Double century days is impressive no matter how fast you go, so I tip my hat to you. Stay safe out there.

AW,
It's been quite a while since I was combing those stats, and yes lighting was a factor in a chunk of them. Another unquantified part that skews the nighttime stats is alcoholics with revoked licenses getting boozed up and killed on bikes, but there's no getting around the fact that it's many times more dangerous at night. Slow moving obstacles just aren't safe on roads especially at night, and my approach of matching their speeds isn't valid at night. That's because no amount of lighting is good enough to see well enough at night to go fast on an ebike. We simply can't see the road surface well enough to identify all traction issues and potholes or other dangers can too easily be hidden in shadows.

John

 

[The fingers]

Even with all the safety gear I wear ( yellow reflective vest, 2 inch yellow reflective ankle bands, red reflective left arm band ), the bike reflectors (double white front, orange side spinners, white front and rear spoke mounted, double rear red ), and lights ( front handlebar light, helmet light, left wrist red blinky, red rear blinky, and middle of my back steady bright red ) ; I still got Gerry Browned when a car mirror at 50-60 mph hit my left brake lever one might. I was well within a marked bike lane at the time on a curve in a 50mph zone and jack lighted the cager but he was going too fast for me to get his tag number.
I'm going to get a bright front axle light next, a guy passed me with one and the patch of road it illuminated was quite visible and impressive, even from a great distance to the rear. 8)
A GoPro opposite on the traffic side, a rear facing GoPro and some type of light bar or neon set up facing down and rear to illuminate the road below and behind. That would about max it out, unless I added wheel lights also.
I could make a lighted flashing arrow trailer which drops ignited one-minute flares or fusees every hundred feet or so and a handle bar mounted rocket launcher for the next Gerry Brown Clipper that tries to get away. :lol:

 

[MikeFairbanks]

About 1/2 of my commute is on a "greenway" (6 foot wide paved path) through a wooded area surrounded by a moderately sized urban center. As the winter comes on, we in the "northern" hemisphere get shorter days and so it is often quite dark on my ride home. I have a MagicShine on the front and one of Justin's superbright LED flashers on the rear so I am pretty visable from the front and back, maybe no so much from the side. In the fall, the greenway is covered with leaves and black walnuts. Even with a MagicShine, it is nearly impossible to see the black walnuts at night and sometimes even to be sure you know where the greenway is under the leaves. If you hit a black walnut just right with a bike, it can make the front tire skip sideways a few inches. If the leaves are wet, it adds an additional layer of excitement.

Unfortunately, the greenway is a few dozen feet of forest on either side of it while meandering through the near urban area. While very picturesque, a few years ago several females walking on it were accosted. I have passed people, probably homeless, passed out in some cases and overnighting in others, along the greenway. It is not common but it is not uncommon either. It is probably one of the few places the homeless can go to sit and not be harassed. I have not heard any reports of problems in the last few years though.

But I digress. I have had some excellent starry-night rides on the greenway. For the above reasons, however, I never feel totally at peace on it at night. I've never ridden at night for pleasure either. But I can see that it would be very nice.

Wait, Knoxville?

Dang, I'm up there several times a year. I love Knoxville.

 

[JennyB]

Jenny,
The easy answer for your 200 miles is to go faster, and with some aero treatments I'm sure you could cut your time by 1/3 with the same per mile consumption.

Not so easy, I think. My estimate was based on 15 mph average on the road @ 10 wh/mile, using a 540 wh battery recharging in two hours. That's 13h 20 on the road, with just under six hours charging. If I could do 20 mph for the same energy that would save 3h 20. But aero is only half the total resistance at 15 mph, and I'm already fairly efficient. More likely it would take about 15 wh/mi, for a range of 36 miles. That's 164 miles to charge at 18 per hour - over nine hours charging - almost back to square one!

OTOH, if I were to double up on battery and charger and stay at 15 mph (or just pedal harder to double my range) I could reduce charging time to two hours. :?

 

[dnmun]

you can hack the charger so that i will produce more current and charge up faster.

i am of the opinion that so many people are texting on their phones that even loads of lights will not make any difference. i don't think they will see you in any case. i see it constantly, kids texting while passing from lane to lane at twice the speed of traffic.

 

[pdf]

Wait, Knoxville?

Dang, I'm up there several times a year. I love Knoxville.

Give me a shout next time you are in the area. It is actually a pretty good cycling town. Just have to avoid the "racetracks" like Alcoa Highway, etc.