robertj298 

There are several reasons I like riding at night I live in a very small town surrounded
by farm land. The reasons are pretty simple, peace and quiet, usually cooler, usually
calm and next to no traffic.

CliffordK

I used to at least not mind it. But, I need to do some light upgrades.

I'm still awaiting a Lumos Ultra from Indiegogo, but unfortunately it has been slow in coming.

It is interesting some of the noises one hears, but never sees along the road in rural areas.

OTS 

Night time is the right time if it's before dawn.
Typically less traffic (vehicular & pedestrian), light winds (we are a wind farm mecca of sorts ), cooler, quieter,
and for me the best time of the day to fit in my ride.

steelbikeguy

I do enjoy a night ride... that's one aspect of my bike commute that I miss ... but being retired is still preferable.

The dusk or sunset hours are my favorite aspect of night riding. Excellent lighting for photos, great sunsets, and the various critters are active (and waiting to jump into your spokes).

a few favorite photos from evening rides....















Steve in Peoria

squirtdad

Normally only ride at night on way home from work (back when I went in to work) after daylight savings time goes away

kroozer 

I never ride on highways at night if I can help it, but it's my favorite time for urban riding: quiet, low traffic, cool, no blazing sun.

nlerner

Commuting home in the winter after sunset (which is around 4 pm in the Boston area) has some small pleasures and is mercifully short.

tacreamer

I do. I’ve 8 of my bicycles setup with dynamo lighting. Also, I’m a Randonneur #3501.


Alex Meade Stainless Steel Randonnuer

1984 Miyata 1000 with SON dynamo light system

SurferRosa

Prefer gardening
.

steelbikeguy

very cool!!
One of the local fellows got a stainless rando frame from Mr. Meade. A great bike that can handle some abuse and performs well.

Steve in Peoria

majmt 

I posted this in another thread but I think it fits here as well. The eight-mile loop road through the East Saguaro National Park near Tucson during a full moon, after the road is closed, with no lights is pure magic. I went to grad school at the U of A in the mid-eighties and a small group of us would do moon-lit rides when we could. A fun empty road through a tranquil and dimly silhouetted landscape like no other place on earth. Stopping occasionally, laying out on still warm rocks to listen to the night sounds of the desert and embrace the solitude. I don’t know if people still do that but, after nearly forty years, it’s my favorite.





https://www.arizonahighways.com/expl...onal-park-east

.

sd5782 

Nope, as a motorcyclist for nearly 50 years, I want to know more about the road surface than a bicycle light can provide.

rumstove

I like riding at night for many of the reasons mentioned above already. Less traffic, quieter, and cooler temps are the big bonuses. I usually stay in town and I don't really head out on country highways at night.

seedsbelize 

I used ti ride at night, frequently. But then my chosen route became too heavy with traffic, particularly buses, on the narrow road, Not a lot of other options.
I have two dynohubs, unused atm.

squirtdad

I ride with a pair of 1100 lumen cygo lite.... they light up total blackness (trails with no lights) really well

SoccerBallXan

The temperature here only drops under 100 after 10 PM. Riding in the evening light, without the scorching sun, is definitely the best time.

Being inside all day definitely encourages a night ride!

sovende

The only time I ride at night is when I set out on a late afternoon ride and ride a bit further out from home than expected🙄 @nd it gets dark before I get home. I do have lights for both the front and rear of the bike but they are mostly for motorists to see ME! The county roads in my area prolly have less traffic mid-day than they do in early morning and late afternoon/evening.

clubman 

Alex Meade Stainless Steel Randonnuer

Great picture.

Bigbus

I ride out on a road that runs parallel to the ocean with only campers and occasional ATVers buzzing along it with NO lights. I have very bright lights frt and rear plus blinking lights on my helmet. It's the best time to ride if you live in a touristy area like the one I currently find myself.

1simplexnut

How about 3.30 AM ?
Do a 5 km trip 5 days a week to a part time job sorting parcels for a couple of hours .
Very peaceful apart from the odd scurrying possum which can be a bit ununerving .

gugie 

Commuting in the PNW means riding at night. In early JanuaryI leave my house when it's dark, by the time I get to work it's light enough. In the evening it's dark all the way home. Since I take the same route all 4 seasons, I know the road well enough, and where there's traffic there's plenty of street lighting.

But that deosn't really count. @northbend has been doing full moon rides fairly regularly. I met up with him last year to do a McKenzie Pass climb from Sisters, which isn't really epic unless you do it after the sun goes down!


Matt at Dee Wright Observatory

GrainBrain

So awesome waking up and riding at 3-4am mid summer. So, so tough to wakeup and get enough sleep! Sunrise is the best.


(Wind turbines)
Riding into night is great also, a lot easier to ride from 8 - 11pm then early morning.

The rechargable light I use gives plenty of light for the three hours of darkness I'm in. The thought of deer worry me!

Insidious C. 

I like the quiet of riding late at night. When I worked away from home I would sometimes not finish my rides until after midnight. You can put in a lot of miles when there is nothing else to do!

northbend 

I used to have a great commute before I retired. Using battery powered lights and lots of reflective materials, I really enjoyed the early morning rides in the dark but once the days got too short to ride home in daylight, I'd quit riding to work and drive instead.
It was just too hairy out there during the evening commute. Folks are tired, impatient and you are just in their way. Mornings had a different vibe altogether - much calmer.
I used to bike at night with friends back in those days, riding single track in the woods at night in the fall - really fun! But I don't ride MTBs hardly at all these days...

Nowadays, like gugie said, I like to ride during the full moon.
I thank mountaindave for getting me started:
Going to the Sun at night
Under the right circumstances they are something very special.
I choose full moon rides carefully - clear sky, remote areas up in the mountains, chance of traffic has to be low, little or no forest canopy for much of the ride, and preferably a route with an East-West aspect.

There's a small chance of encountering bears, cougars, deer and elk where I ride and that is constantly on my mind. Senses are on high alert.
It is intensified if I'm alone. It is not an abstract fear but once it gets a hold of you, it can snowball into something that is abstract as I have mentioned before in writing about this topic..
Like when you would get scared as a kid and run away and the faster you run the more scared you got...

Here is a write up I did a year ago that I never posted here on BF about riding alone at night up Stevens Canyon in Mt. Rainier National Park. It left quite an impression on me:

Rode Stevens Canyon to Paradise last night

"Checked off a bucket list item last night. This one, a ride through Mt. Rainier National Park at night during a full moon was inspired by my friend, David Cummings who had invited me out to Montana a few years ago to do a moonlight ride on the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier N.P.

I had tried to get someone to go with me but got no takers so I did it on my own which made my wife Robin nervous but I negotiated with her and compromised by promising to start farther up Stevens Canyon Road by the Box Canyon where it opens up from the dense tree canopy of Backbone Ridge providing better light and sightlines for safety.

I drove down in the early afternoon and found a nice camp site in the La Wis-Wis campground on the Nisqually River set back a mile or so from the intersection of Highway 12 and Wa 123. After setting up camp, I walked some trails nearby, made dinner and tried to wait patiently for it to get dark. I got impatient after a while, got the bike ready and rode off twords Packwood around 7:30 with these two little imaginary angels standing on my shoulders. Bad angel was telling me to keep rolling on through and do the 60 mile “RATROD” loop route that has you get into the park at Longmire from Skate Creek Road. As I was nearing Packwood, the good angel reminded me that I had PROMISED Robin that I’d start up by Box Canyon. Bad angel tried his best to keep me going but in the end, I turned around, went back to the campground and tossed the bike in the car for the drive into the Park via the east entrance just as I had promised.

Driving over Backbone Ridge on the way to Box Canyon, the sun had dropped below the horizon and the sky and surrounding hillsides were painted in muted pastel hues of pink and blue, just past the ‘golden hour’ photographers call that time of day.

Night was beginning to take hold when I pushed off from the Box Canyon and through a short rough hewn tunnel that marks the beginning of the climb up Stevens Canyon proper. Several cars passed me early on going the other way but none going in my direction. It was so quiet and in the dim lighting, my eyes played tricks on me as shadows sometimes do in twilight making me ’see’ large elk or bear up ahead on the road shoulders only to vaporize into large rocks or tree snags as I got closer. The 1st view of Rainier on the climb up is after going around a hairpin turn on the bare rocky scree slope a couple of miles from Reflection lakes. The sky was now a dirty violet and sprinkled with a few bright stars. The moon hadn’t risen yet and the mountain was just a dark silhouette. I was beginning to wonder if I had started too early. I am back into the trees for a while on the other side of the ridge from Reflection Lakes and it is much darker. I head almost due north up the final climb to paradise and the air begins to get a little chilly. Not enough for a jacket because I am climbing but it does make me glad I brought it for the descent…

There is one final pitch before you reach Paradise where the Mountain looms over your left shoulder and you begin to see the tops of the Visitors Center and the Guide Hut that is your goal. As I reached this point, the moon in all it’s glory - big and fat appeared directly in front of me just having cleared the eastern horizon. I pulled over and stopped at one of the picnic tables outside the Visitors Center. The parking lot was empty, no other people around. I hung around and ate some snacks I’d brought watching the moon get higher, smaller and brighter in the sky. The Mountain began to illuminate displaying textures and hues of violet against a sky of dark indigo decorated with stars. Above the moon, two of the brightest objects in the sky were Jupiter and Saturn (or so say the local tv weatherman). The sound of a large low flying helicopter approaching from the east snapped me out of my moonlight trance. It was a twin rotor US Army Chinook probably en route to Joint Base Lewis McChord. Time to put on my jacket and head back down…

Rounding the bend just below Paradise Lodge I drop into the Paradise Valley and immediately I’m overwhelmed by a microclimate of cold, moist air fueled by the Glacier and the river it spawned above me. I shiver violently and have a hard time controlling the bike. It was kind of spooky - like I had just ridden into an army of ghosts because it had happened so quickly. I stopped several times in the next mile just to warm up.

The intense chill disappeared when I turned off the Paradise Valley Road and onto the Stevens Canyon Road.
Moonlight overhead illuminating the route ahead, the temps rise as I lost elevation in Stevens Canyon which is great because you need full control of the bike descending on that tortured mountain road surface at night.
The road is pockmarked with craters, cracks and frost heaves as nature does it’s best to obliterate it every winter. It’s in a constant state of repair.

I finally reach the car at Box Canyon and drive back to camp around 1AM happy that I had gotten the chance to do this.

At this point in my life, I feel it’s important to do the things you really want to do while you still have your health. I just wish I had some ride partners to share it with.
Riding at night in the mountains is very cool. Your senses are on heightened alert and my imagination takes me places I haven't been since I was a kid.
Now I am thinking of other full moon rides to do in the future. Mckenzie Pass in Oregon and Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn. N.P. immediately come to mind......."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The next moon cycle Gugie n I were riding over McKenzie Pass.
Last month, I re-visited Stevens Canyon with a friend - this time doing a 60 mile loop called RATROD.

I can tell you night riding with a friend is much easier on the mind and the imagination.

Pcampeau

If you come around the lakes of south Minneapolis, late at night or early into the wee hours of the morning, you might catch me sitting on the dock at Lake of the Isles after a nighttime ride. I take a beer and a different bike with me and go at least a couple of times a week. Less often in winter but it still happens. Night riding is irresistible to me. I love it out here and I just don’t don’t want to go home.

78 Raleigh Pro

72 Schwinn Paramount

85 Raleigh Prestige, the only bike I currently own with dual beer cages.

1960 Raleigh Lenton Grand Prix

Tonight’s ride is my 74 PX10. It’s been hazy here from the Canadian wildfires, downtown is not visible lately like it is in the previous photos.


Good night Minneapolis!