Bonneville America Forums Forums Rider Safety Forums Riding Technique Night Riding

Watch the "potholes" when you're out night riding, I hit one while on a HD Sportster years ago and took a nice trip over the handlebars, hit a similiar one while riding my Bonneville, it handled it a little better but still scary!

I avoid night riding period, we have tons of deer and that is when drivers are drunk. I would hap-hazzard to guess that nite riding is at least twice as risky.

Use the light from the vehicle in front of you to see what's ahead; looking beyond what the bike's head lamp is lighting up.

When riding with a friend, don't ride side by side at night. Was doing this once when I was a youngster and all was fine until we came to an intersection with the only streetlight for miles. There was some "lady" at the stop sign waiting for the "car" to pass. When we got to the streetlight, she could see that it wasn't a car at all and, because she can't see motorcycles, she pulled out in front of us.

Well I mignt be changing my name to Sally after this...but all this week(well the 3 nights I worked anyhow).I had somekind of "close encounter of the scary kind" on my way home. I have the Triumph light bar and that thing lights up the road pretty dern good. Gives a real wide view. But....

Wendsday...had to do ye old quick counter stear to avoid a dead dog in the middle of the street..that wasnt too bad.

Thurday...had the classic dear close call no time to do anthing came out of nowhere encouter...in the words of my good friend Maxwell Smart "Missed it by that much".

Friday...Almost got taken out at an intersection. By some freakin kid(I say kid because of the kind of car.one of those small sporty jobs with the muffler that makes it sound like a badly tuned 2 stroke). Kid blew threw a red light right in front of me. I saw him coming so I was able to safely abort my take off.Happend just as light was changing guess he was trying to make it through under the yellow.( maybe thats why I headed straight to the bottle when I got home).

So anyway I think I'll be caging back and forth at least until July. Buy then all the graduation partys will be over and the kids will have settled down a bit.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger..

I love riding at night - coming home from work after midnight anyway. Guess it all depends on where you live.
There's critters and asshats and roadkill and potholes, but I can honestly say I've had many more encounters with all of the above during daylight hours than after midnight.

The key is slow down and enjoy the ride. There's something peaceful about a full moon, a clear sky, and the sound of a TA meandering through the darkness.

I too like to ride at night, especially lonely back roads where I am the only one or thing around except the critters in the woods.(hope they stay there and not hop out in front of mr)

On long journeys I almost always break the golden rule and ride through the night (50/50 ratio - when at home I go out every night and therefore ride anyway).
I just love it, especially when the roads/highways are of an acceptable quality.
I am though, always aware that visibility is somewhat reduced and pace myself accordingly.
Not something I would recommend doing in some parts of Africa though (not that it's relevent on here).

I don't mind riding at night, there are good and bad points that pretty much balance out. For some examples;
Night bugs are smaller than day bugs, but there are more of them.
There are few night birds and they are usually quite small, But there are lots of bats competing for the same bugs you are eating.
There is less traffic, but what there is is usually blind, drunk, or blind drunk.
It is cooler in summer and the cool dense air makes your engine run better.

To this day one of my favorite rides of all time has been a dark empty highway under the full moon.

I like riding through town at night, say, on the way home from the GF's house. Helena is still small enough that the streets roll up at night but I can't relax my awareness. There's still a decent chance I could get clipped by a drunk teenager in a beat up Neon.

Around here, many people have their sprinklers on at night.
On top of soaking down corners, it drives the frogs out onto the road.
If you hit a frog in a corner, you slide for about 2 feet until you run out of frog.

Froggy's in the corner and we did slide, uh-huh.
Froggy's in the corner and we did slide, Uh-huh.
Froggy's in the corner and we did slide,
Too far gone and we'd lose some hide, uh-huh, uh-huh..

It doesn't bother me but I'd rather not ride at night because critters tend to move at night.

I am not an experienced rider, but I do love the cool air and less caged traffic at night. I just slow down, take an extra second at intersections and realize that life is too short to rush through it.

OT-Nice bit o'Zappa there Deon...

The best time to ride is just before dawn. Most drunks are passed out, most caggers are a sleep, and the cops are eating dougnuts and doing reports.

There is nothing finer than riding through Red Rock Canyon from Vegas on a moonlit night. My home is 15 miles from there and the ride is frantic with lots of cages until you turn off into the canyon. It is empty and beautiful with the moonlight splashed onto the canyon walls across the valley. Watch out for wild donkeys and horses and keep the speed down to 50 and you will be ok. Continue on to RT 160 and take it up to the Summit where there is a friendly tavern of decent bikers. Most of them on sport bikes but they do speak english and most of them admire our Triumphs. After a brew or two head back home and get the benefit of the cooling night in low spots through the canyon and then a ride home on empty roads to a peaceful evening. Gotta love it cuz it dosen't get better than this. When the trip started it was 2130 and about 95 degrees. The summit is at 65 degrees and 5400 feet. On the trip back the temp rises 10 degrees per thousand feet until you hit the canyon floor. There it goes from 90 down to 75 degrees depending on nature. When you hit 215 it is usually 85 or so if you had two beers or lower if you had more. Finally when you get home it is a comfortable ride at 85-90. It really cools down on a bike out here if the humidity rises. Something about heavier air is more cooling on the body at 60 MPH than when it is dry.

Around here, I don't mind riding at night because the cagers think you may just be one (or half of one) of them. I find that I have far fewer "pullouts" in the dark than during the day because in the dark all they are looking for is headlights not car.

If I lived somewhere with a lot of deer, I might be tempted to think otherwise.

The lightbar, when added to my America, seemed to cause the number of close calls to drop to almost none. More light, more better, as they say. Night riding is also MUCH improved.

I ride at night a lot, and the light bar spots help widen the view quite a bit. Makes me more conspicuous too, I hope.

Less traffic, moons, stars, planets.....bugs, deer, possums...

BLACK WIND.....