Nighttime motorcycle riding

Hi all,

Recently went off for a cold night ride - not much of nighttime motorcycle rider but this particular ride prompted me to put my thoughts about motorcycle nighttime riding on http://motorpsych.blogspot.com - so if you could check it out and give advice/suggestions that would be great. I wrote this from the perspective of motorcyclists vision rather than emphasizing the hi-vis gear, etc i.e. rather than trying to make the motorcyclist conspicuous.

Thanks,

on unlit roads focus on the catseyes rather than your headlight beam, espiecially if you ride with a fixed headlight unit i.e sportsbikes. take them corners a little slower and more upright too, can't see diesel spills in the wet.

use the same wet weather drills as you have already posted about in your blog at night
use more of the road ,that extra 2 foot to the right (left in your case as you ride on the WRONG side of the road) of your normal position while riding straight ahead may give you that extra room to avoid muppet pulling out of side street/ sliproad on you and makes you more visable to vehicles further ahead

dont trust indicators (turn signals) they are more obvious at night but just cos there on dont mean they vehicle is actually going to do what there signaling

your depth preception is reduced so allow more room than usual for overtakes and the such

sound, sound is your friend at night, you hear more and it travels further, training yourself to hear giveaway sounds will help in your hazard awareness, dump the ear defenders and use less revs/ choose higher gears while riding at night, the reduction of engine noise lets you hear more of whats going on about you, pay particular attention to the car driving chavs with there music blasting out, they arent aware of most things going on about them especially you

hth
dave

Good piece of writing, I enjoyed reading it

Nicely written item. I have had the "cold but dry, I should be on the bike" thought quite a bit recently and haven't been able to act on it 'cos we're still babysitting FILs dog for another few days. It got me thinking about how I ride at night though, as did some of the other comments. My jacket has hi-viz arms so that's good I guess. I definitely ride slower at night and I definitely give other vehicles more room. My biggest problem, at this time of year, is the misting. I prefer during the day to wear contact lenses but they are not as comfortable at night - my vision is definitely clearer with glasses. But then I have the visor AND the glasses to mist up. I ride with all the vents on the helmet open anyway. I just end up with the visor open half an inch. Brrrrr, chilly.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by davepreston

training yourself to hear giveaway sounds will help in your hazard awareness, dump the ear defenders

TBH I find the extra fatigue from the noise more dangerous than not hearing noise, just my opinion though.

Reasons, anything above about 40mph on the XJ900 and any noise is masked by turbulence, on the SV650 pretty much all noise is masked by large snorting noises from the airbox.


I reckon hi-vis is very overrated. The only time I've wished for it (and hazards...) is when my headlight has failed and I've had to ride home. Twice in the same month on different bikes .

Reasons being, the main threat axis is in front, cars pulling out. Any advantage gained by hi-vis will be masked by the headlight, if they don't see that... If worried about being swiped from the side, personally I would question why you are sat alongside cars to leave yourself open to the threat.
And I actually find that more aggressive drivers will take more liberties with a hi-vis'd rider than with one in all black kit. Again just my opinion.


One thing I do at night is a slight change in road positioning when approaching a car waiting at a junction. I hope this change in angle will fire some signals in their brain that it does not fit the pattern of a car approaching from afar with one headlight out, and obviously a moving light source is better than a static one.

Other than that you're still just riding to the limit of observation, just the limit moved some... so not too different.


Re. the misting up, pinlock visors are a godsend. Definitely get one.

As you said, making yourself visible is one thing - be aware that others may not have thought of it though, and may be riding in dark gear.

One of my current pet hates is the number of vehicles going around with faulty bulbs. They then compensate for this by giving you main beam all the time, so look for alternative reference points for where the road goes (as genie said, the cats eyes are good for this) and what might be up ahead (a cluster of street lights ahead might suggest an upcoming roundabout, for example).

Originally Posted by Gene genie

on unlit roads focus on the catseyes rather than your headlight beam, espiecially if you ride with a fixed headlight unit i.e sportsbikes. take them corners a little slower and more upright too, can't see diesel spills in the wet.

Thanks Genie - I'll add more to my post especially about keeping the bike more upright.

Originally Posted by DJFridge

"Nicely written item. ...My biggest problem, at this time of year, is the misting. I prefer during the day to wear contact lenses but they are not as comfortable at night - my vision is definitely clearer with glasses. But then I have the visor AND the glasses to mist up. I ride with all the vents on the helmet open anyway. I just end up with the visor open half an inch. Brrrrr, chilly."

DJFridge, Thanks; glad you liked the article.
I've got the same problem i.e. glasses and visor. I have two different helmets - AGV S4 black & grey and a Scorpion Exo-700 in a solid neon yellow. For the AGV got two visors exactly same except one of the visors has Fog City Pro Shield anti-fog insert. This insert and keeping the vents open in AGV really helps with the misting dilemma - with all the vents open even my glasses dont get misty.

Regarding the EXO-700 - I like wearing that when it is rainy. The neon yellow helps. In case of this Scorpion helmet - I keep the vents open and the visor that comes with it has special coating to prevent misting. And seems to work well.

AGV is 5 stars sharp rating and the EXO700 is 4 stars. But the AGV is far lighter than the Scorpion and is my first preference all the time. However in case of our Northwest US weather, so far I've never had to keep the visor open at all; the vents do their job.

Originally Posted by Ed

Good piece of writing, I enjoyed reading it

Thanks Ed! Always feels good when people enjoy reading my blog. The idea is that even a very few motorcyclists can benefit from those articles, it's worth writing