I know about the obvious stuff like a bright vest, blinking rear light and wearing light colored clothes but is there anything else that I need for when nightfall hits?
Get retroreflectors. White pointing forward, red pointing back. You won’t always realize when a light craps out, it’s best to have passive backups. Get amber-colored retroreflectors that you can put between the spokes so you have sideways visibility. You can also buy reflective tape and wrap it around the frame.
There’s retro reflective tape etc for the spokes, too.
There are also retro reflective rims and tyres
Sadly, going ‘full tuk-tuk’ is the goal here…
I recommend clear safety glasses. Especially if you live someplace dry. You don’t want dust or insects in your eyes. I hit a palo verde beetle once and it almost knocked my glass off my face.
Not clear, but photochromic cycling glasses have been a god send for me.
I can wear them all the time, including inside a store, at night, during bright summer days, or during those rides that start before dawn/dusk.
Before that, i had dedicated clear and dark glasses, but they were highly inconvenient.
You can also try yellow safety glasses at night - blocks super intensive blue laser active-matrix LEDs™
Eye protection is super important for daily bicycle use, no matter weather or time of day. A single speck of dust falling into the eye at the wrong time can cause a serious accident.
The more you ride, the higher probability of such thing happening. Not to mention wind drying your eyes, it can be serious pretty fast.
A lot of crashes are side impacts. So reflective frame tape or lights in spokes can help with side visibility. Some lights throw a little light to the side for this purpose as well.
blinking rear light
Blinking lights are my pet-peeve with cyclists. Cars don’t have blinking lights - neither should bikes.
We aren’t riding large vehicles, so we have to put more effort into being more visible.
A combination of a blinking rear light and reflective gear gives us better odds.
You can easily spot a car at night, but not a cyclist.
In Europe blinking bicycle lights are allowed (white front, red rear).Any blinking lights except indicator lights are often illegal in traffic.
Yeah, blinking lights make it more difficult to assess position and speed relative to cyclist, especially at night without street lights. At least get another one that shines all the time, or one that fades in and out but always shines at least a little, or a really good and big reflective one.
