Riding in the dark

Aren’t you glad is Monday? Me neither but I hope that our weekly Monday post will bring some cheerfulness to your day and in case it doesn’t, drink more coffee, I do.

One of the things that I avoid as a bicycle commuter is cars, riding in the rain and riding when is dark. Rain is not much of an issue in Southern California but darkness is unavoidable. Why don’t I like riding in the dark? Well, because the most popular response by a driver when they hit a cyclist is “I didn’t see him”.

This time is going to be different, I am going to venture doing my train-bike ride when is dark but I will be preparing myself to see and to be seen by doing the following:

Light up!
Can’t tell you how many riders I see on the streets without any sort of front or rear lights. Front and rear lights vary in pricing and in my case I rather spend a little more for lights that I know will allow me to see and be seen.

My choice for a rear light is going to be the NiteRider Sentinel rear light that we reviewed early this year.

For my front light, I will be riding with the NiteRider Lumina Micro 600 that we just received to review.

I will also ride with “side blinkies” on my wheels. These reflectors are motion sensitive and light up as I’m riding. Unfortunately these are no longer available but there are a lot of choices out there such as the Monkey Light Bike lights by Monkeylectric and other inexpensive spoke lights.

Reflect!

Although my Showers Pass Gravel shorts come with reflective accents, some of my “commuter” jerseys do not. A company called Brilliant Reflective happened to follow us in Instagram so I went ahead and checked out their products. They sell Iron-on and stick-on reflective strips so I went ahead and ordered their iron-on strips pack. More on that later.

Am I being a little paranoid? Probably, but I certainly do not want to give any driver the excuse that he could not see me.