Commuting in the dark of night.

[snorri]

I want to keep up my commute through winter and I have no issue with cold and wet and ice and snow. But it does worry me that I won't be able to see where I am going and that others won't be able to see me.

I think you are worried about the least of your problems, lighting is easily resolved, rain, ice and snow less easy to deal with, and wind!.

 

[Sharky]

Hi viz in daylight, but reflective at night time. Slap bands on the ankles are really effective.
Two headlights. One focused a long way ahead to pick up the bends in the road and one focused more in the near ground to pick up potholes etc.

On quiet country roads, ride almost on the centre white line. You soon know when there is a car behind and you can move over.

 

[cougie uk]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

 

[classic33]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

Use lower pressures in your tyres, ride slower and keep an eye open for any odd patches of road in front of you(which will slow you down).

Should you hit ice, make no attempt to change speed or direction.

Snow, try and ride in fresh snow, avoid the tyre tracks of motor vehicles. Especially if it's frozen since the tracks were formed.

For both be mindful that any slight thaw may leave a track of water that is hidden from your view.

Contrasting colours being worn rather than just the one colour. Saturn Yellow can all but disappear against snow.

 

[Lovacott]

No, it just does nothing if no lights are shining at it. Have you seen how many motorists have wildly misaimed lights or even no lights?
There's no substitute for a back light with a big surface area and good side visibility.

I've got two LED lights on the back and an 8" wide dynamo light/reflector combination. I stressed the importance of Hi Viz because in the unlikely event of a total lighting failure, I would still be visible.

 

[Lovacott]

I worked for a while in Taunton and lived out in the countryside about 15k away, so my commute dropped into darkness at the edge of Taunton and stayed thus until I reached my home town; this was in 1995; the days of halogen lights with mahoosive batteries. I was on narrow category 3 roads most of the way, so no lights whatsoever.

I know that area reasonably well. I have relatives near Wivvy.

 

[Lovacott]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

Because all of my commute is within five miles of the sea, ice and snow are pretty rare. The last snow we had was over two years ago and work closed down for two days (it's in a very rural location and nobody could get near the place).

I used to commute in London on a racing bike and I found that I had better grip on the roads than any of the cars when there was snow on the ground. Maybe something to do with the point loading on the tyres?

The worst of the conditions I will experience will be heavy rains and flooding. Some of the roads I use are pretty shocking and I would loathe to drive on them with a car. I'll take a picture of one of the bad stretches tomorrow and share it on here.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

What @classic33 said, plus spiked tyres: they are heavy but the bike handles like it is on dry tarmac, in fact the biggest danger is that I stop on sheet ice thinking it is dry and my foot slips when I put it on the ground...

 

[steveindenmark]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

I ride down to minus 10. When it comes to ice and snow, I drive. In the last 3 years I have probably driven half a dozen times. We just dont seem to get winters anymore.

 

[Tom B]

Out of interest - how will you cope with ice and snow ? For me they're a no no but I don't have to cycle to work

I commute via bike day or night sun, rain, wind, snow or ice. I haven't used the car for nearly 5yrs.

I set of anything from 5am onwards and can finish anything up to 3am, dependent on shifts. I work.in suburban Manchester and live in outer suburban/semi rural. My route takes me over town roads into country A-roads though I do alternate my routes and have a no respect in the working week rule. The alternative routes are some single lane rural roads and some off road cycle paths.

I much prefer cycling at night, the later the better, there is less traffic and generally less risk of people stepping out etc. In the early hours I can often get out of town then not see a car for 20mins.

In terms of lighting and seeing where you are going, don't worry about it. The human eye adjusts massively and you'll see lots simply by moonlight. Streetlit roads are absolutely fine. Of course you will need lights and I recommend and run a cateye 1200l jobbie on the front and a lezyne stripdrive on the back. The front light runs at 400lumen low setting on the road and under streetlights and I turn it up to 800l on the unlit country roads and only really need 1200l on the paths.

One thing I will say is make sure you have at least 1set of back up lights because a time will come when you've left them on or forgot to charge them. I have a couple of alpkit tau one on my bag one on the back of my helmet and another front stripdrive. I also have a spare set of battery lights in my locker just in case.

In short seeing isn't a problem, it's being seen that I worry about and to that end I make sure I wear bright or reflective/retroflective clothing. I follow a guy out of town quite often hes ALWAYS dressed in head to toe black and has a couple of weedy lights that point at the floor. He can be hard to spot on a dark wet day amongst the rain and when looking into a stream of headlights.

In terms of snow and ice, I have a spare set of cheap junk wheels with Schwalbe winter spiked tyres on. I use them on the work icy / snowy days. They really do help with traction and grip, (as long as the snow is not too deep I can get up stuff that many cars struggle with) but as others have said are heavy I'd guess I use them 10 -15 days a year and hardly at all last year. They are heavy and noticeably harder work.It is surprising what grip is out there especially on salted roads especially once traffic gets going.

 

[MontyVeda]

seriously , bearing these two comments in mind, leave earlier , ride slower

It's not rocket science is it?

One of my former commutes took me up over the hills which were the first place to get icy in winter so i planned for pushing the bike up these bits by setting off five minutes earlier. I only ever had to walk over the icy bits once but it's a worthy consideration, as is having time to fix a puncture if need be. My employer was a time-keeping fanatic so I'd rather turn up 15 minutes early than 5 minutes late.

 

[Lovacott]

I don't commute, but I do use some roads very frequently. I have recently reported 12 potholes on these roads through the council website, not expecting much. To my amazement all 12 have been filled within days.

If I do a Google maps directions search from my house to work, the car option is 13.8 miles with ten of that being a busy A road with some four miles of suicidal dual carriageway.

If I do the same search using cycling as my mode of transport, I get a 17 mile each way trip utilising a very flat and scenic coastal cycle path followed by about 3 miles of very dangerous and winding Devon A road.

But if I set the route option to walking, I get 9.8 miles door to door on country lanes and that is the route I cycle.

The first five miles of road have pretty decent surfaces but there are no white lines or signs.

The second half can only be described as farm tracks which were tarmaced maybe fifty years ago and are not adopted by the local authority.

If I had my way, I'd ride a road bike along the first half and then get my butler to hand me an lumpy but sturdy steel framed MTB for the last 4.8 miles. Trouble is, I can't remember my butlers name so I can't ask him.

 

[Lovacott]

It's not rocket science is it?

To put things into context, I start work at 8am but I have been arriving at 6.40am since I started cycle commuting.

I allow plenty of time for all of the reasons you have mentioned.

I built in the "contingency" time originally to allow me time to recover (to stop panting and sweating) but I don't arrive in that state any more.

I have still got some time to play with.

 

[winjim]

Pedal reflectors.

 

[MontyVeda]

To put things into context, I start work at 8am but I have been arriving at 6.40am since I started cycle commuting.

I allow plenty of time for all of the reasons you have mentioned.

I built in the "contingency" time originally to allow me time to recover (to stop panting and sweating) but I don't arrive in that state any more.

I have still got some time to play with.

So you don't need to hurtle down that hill in the dark.