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Night Riding Motorcycles

Night Crawlers: Smart Tips For Safer Riding After Dark

It’s inevitable. One of these days, you’re going to have to ride at night. While it’s not difficult, there’s no denying that motorcycle riding in the dark is riskier. Most bikes have only one headlight and one taillight, limiting the ability to see and be seen.

Night riding is a skill that doesn’t seem to have been covered in depth anywhere. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation devotes a whopping two paragraphs to the subject in its instruction manual, and one recently released riding skills book succinctly states, “Don’t ride at night.” Gee, thanks for the tip.

So, we polled our intrepid RoadBike staff and friends to assemble a list of useful night-riding tips. While it may not be the definitive list of nighttime dos and don’ts, we hope you’ll find at least a few tips you can use the next time you venture out after dusk.

Reflect Well

You can prepare your bike and your gear for night riding long before you hit the road after dark. Here are some modifications that won’t affect your daytime riding and will help keep you prepared at all times.

When shopping for riding gear, choose apparel with built-in reflective panels or piping. Almost every manufacturer offers gear with reflective details. They may call the reflective material by different catchy names, but the most important thing is, simply, the more reflective area, the better. Another good source for reflective items is your local bicycle shop. Bicyclists face the same nighttime riding hurdles as motorcyclists, if not more, and most bicycle shops carry an array of reflective sashes, armbands, and vests. In addition, the motorcycle aftermarket offers reflective tape and stickers that you can put on your helmet, gear, and bike. You can also pay a visit to your local sign shop to see if it offers reflective tape — you might even be able to get a special design cut for you.

Add Lights

Equipping your bike with more lights will greatly improve your visibility to other drivers. LEDs are the hot thing, and bike parts catalogs are packed with offerings. Lighted license plate frames, extra signal lights (some flashing, some not), and auxiliary driving lights will all help make your bike more visible at night. Just make sure your front signal lights don’t reflect back at you in your windshield.

It’s also important to adjust the aim of your headlight (see “Aim To Please,” page 68). Moreover, you can often upgrade your stock headlight or taillight with halogen or LED bulbs. You might also want to carry a spare taillight bulb wrapped in foam in a 35mm film case. If your bulb burns out at night, you may not find an open auto parts store.

It’s also a good idea to carry a flashlight in your tool kit or saddlebag (see “Shine A Little Light On Me,” page 72). You’ll need it if you break down on an unlit road after dark. Some lights come with straps to wear on your head, to shine light where you’re looking. And some flashlights are even small enough to be key fobs. Don’t cheap out on your batteries, either — pay a little extra now for the strong cells, and you won’t be wondering whether the flashlight will work when you need it.

Motorcycle Night Riding continued