Night Moves

Aint it funny how the night moves
When you just dont seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

All apologies to Mr Bob Seger for taking his song "Night Moves" out of context but I thought it was the perfect lead on for today's posting.  I still consider myself a green horn when it comes to riding so my range of experience is not as broad as others.  I always considered night riding on the "dangerous" side of riding, I have had experience riding at twilight, which is definitely great and even some short distance with it dark, but never have gone  far with it completely black.  The other night I was at home and the wife and kids went out to a book store at Providence Place in Mt Juliet when I get a phone call at 7:30 PM from my wife telling me the tire on her van was flat!  Earlier that day I had to take my car out and it was having issues (poor thing has 250, 000 miles on  her) so I informed the Mrs for me to get there I will have to take the scooter and that it will take a bit for me to get there.  I suit up and head out.  

     My first thought is how am I going to get up there?  So I drew my little mental map of my route and hoped when I started going that I would not miss any turns and end up somewhere I did not belong!  I found out very quickly things do not look necessarily the same when you are out at night.  I had ridden the route in my car and parts of it on my scooter but never the full route, say the least I was a little nervous about doing this at night.  Another thing I realized is that I am not as visible at night as during the day.  My jacket is treated to be reflective and of course the bike has all of its lights.  You develop a paranoia and you think every driveway has a car ready to jump out and get you, well maybe not but I think you get the picture.

     Now I am well on my way heading down the road and I am in the Percy Priest area when I come across this ominous warning

 

and I am thinking about what will one of these

do to me and my little bike!!  I have read the stories about these long legged rats crashing into bigger dual sport type bikes and the massive amount of damage they can do to bike and rider.  Now I not only have humans in big cars to worry about but now I have deer!!  Nerves are now on edge, riding through dark woods danger lurking in every deep shadow but I had to keep going, knowing my family is waiting for me, in a comfy bookstore safe from things that want to bump into me in the night.  Onward!!  I am now getting closer to my destination but quickly another issue comes eye-to-eye with me.  My face shield is quickly coming covered in bug splat!!  Bugs look a lot different when they are a couple of inches away from you, they are a lot bigger and messier!  Yuck!  So now I have bug juice, cars and deer all gunning for me at the same time so my comfort level is dropping considerably.  On top of having bug guts all over my screen I am now having to deal with oncoming traffic, and the glare of their lights so in a rare move I pull my face shield up just so I can see and fortunately for me I am no more than a couple hundred yards away from where I need to be!! Yea!  So the short end of the story the tire is changed and we both make it home safely.

Things to do before going out at night.

• Make sure you have the right gear on, no black jackets and black helmets, you need to be visible
  
• Know your route, things look different at night.
• Check your bike, are all the lights working correctly?
• Is your face shield clean?  Mine was before but it is a bug magnet, be prepared  to clean if it gets very bad.
• Let someone know you are going and give them a time when to expect you back
• Enjoy the night!!  

The nights map....

View Night Rider in a larger map

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in
Bob Seger "Night Moves" on his album Night Moves