Most people would intuitively guess that night riding is dangerous but with proper equipment it is the exact opposite.
I have done most of my NYC rides at night and all of my accidents on bikes were during the day.
The reason for this is that it is simply too chaotic during the day. All my accidents involved other cyclists, specifically RETARDED cyclists, that is non-athletic cyclists. I have once been taken out by a woman on a bike and once by a child on a bike - in both cases they were not traveling along the direction of the bike path when they took me out - the woman drifted to the side while the kid altogether went perpendicular to the direction of the path. Luckily with the woman i landed on the grass ( it was in central park ) but with the kid i wasn’t so lucky and landed on pavement breaking my ribs and dislocating my shoulder.
At night you simply don’t have to deal with retarded pedestrians everywhere.
Cars will often deliberately intimidate you but stop short of actually hitting you because drivers want to keep their license and that means they must pay attention to the road. Pedestrians are retarded and are the real danger.
Thankfully pedestrians and recreational cyclists and kids on bikes mostly vanish at night making night time riding safer than day-time riding SO LONG AS YOU HAVE TAKEN CARE OF VISIBILITY.
Visibility is a large topic of course. You want to be seen but you also want to be able to see yourself, additionally being seen is a matter of both lights and Reflectors.
so far i did an article on HEADLIGHTS specifically:
but i haven’t addressed any other aspects of visibility yet, so if you want to ride at night you will have to do your own research on that subject for now.
But once you can see and be seen Night Riding ( in my experience ) is actually SAFER than riding during the day. It’s just a lot safer riding on an empty road than in traffic ( both car traffic and pedestrian traffic ).
The other benefit of Night Riding is it’s a lot cooler at night. Now that is of course not a benefit in Winter but you can ride during the day in Winter and at night in Summer. Though i wouldn’t ride any time ice was a possibility as the risk wouldn’t be worth it. Personally i am moving to Orlando, Florida where Ice is not a thing.
Having done riding in a variety of conditions my favorite kinds of rides were riding trails in California and Night Time riding in NYC. i did NOT enjoy riding NYC during the day and i also never tried riding trails at night ( nor would i want to try ! ! ! )
In the city there is enough light at night that you can see where you’re going even if you don’t have any lights on your bike - your own headlight is to see things like puddles or potholes or maybe people or cats but the road itself is clearly visible with just street lighting. on a trail at night you wouldn’t be able to see ANYTHING except what your light illuminates, hence lights like NiteRider PRO that absolutely BLAST EVERYTHING with light ( for a price ) and i would want nothing less on a trail at night but in the city it is more about CONTROL of light than just blasting light everywhere.
basically ( though i never tried ) i feel like i would never feel comfortable at night on a trail with ANY light setup, but in the city i was not just comfortable at night i was MORE comfortable than during the day. granted, i had about $1,500 worth of lights on the bike ( about half of that in headlights ), but that was overkill.
realistically to safely ride at night you will probably need to spend about $500 on all the lights and reflectors combined. at that point you will be confident that you’re seen and you will also see most everything you need.
