Essential Tips for Motorcycle Night Riding | Best Motorcycle Roads Podcast – Episode 011 – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvLseCFoWU

Transcript:

(00:00) two Concours 3 hours of sleep at an Ohio Super Eight hello and welcome to best motorcycle roads I’m Tom and I’m Todd together we have over 65 years of combined motorcycling experience and 30 years of planning and riding motorcycle trips we’re here to share with you everything we’ve learned over those years our goal and best motorcycle roads is simple make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be we’ll dive into technology planning packing routes and other tips and everything in between

(00:40) from essential prep to Unforgettable Roots we’ve got you covered before we Kickstart today’s Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it’s our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we’ll put a link in the show notes this segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips we call the toolkit today we’ll talk about heated grips and lighting upgrades um heated grips and as

(01:12) we talk about today riding at night it gets cold at night no matter what even if the temperature’s warm sun goes down and man there’s two great things about heated grips they keep your hands warm a little bit some guys will tell you that they’re the backup in case your heated gloves go down but uh but the other thing that it does do is it will dry out damp gloves as well so so I like heated grips it’s it’s it’s really nice in fact you got to be careful with them the bike that I’m riding right now I think has

(01:41) some aftermarket grips and I think they’re almost too big I think they actually eliminate some of the heat so at some point I may try to tweak those but uh no heated grips are just comfortable it’s it’s a nice to have not a have to have um but I’ve never had them my car has a heated steering wheel it’s like that but yeah for the bike um so yeah and then lighting upgrades we’re talking about writing at night and you definitely want if you’re going to do significant writing at night you

(02:08) definitely want to upgrade your lights that goes for the front and the back um if you’re riding a little bit of an older motorcycle you can get those either LED that plug into like the H7 bulbs or you know you can get a whole entire extra set of lights and and that’s what I I very much recommend you can spend as little as you uh um want to or as much as you want to almost um but having an extra set of Lights especially we live in Iowa it’s dear country fill in the ditches um just adding that extra little noticeability

(02:41) is always a good thing for me um we ride some back roads out here and and there’s just Critters and there’s things and then other cars come and it’s hard to see everybody at night and um so adding those those upgrades LED lights in the front are really good at night and then you couple that on the bonuses during raining times it’s a no-brainer for me and there’s a lot of great small lights you can add on that add a lot of light for not a lot of price and they’re inconspicuous they’re not so crazy no

(03:11) yeah and uh you were talking about riding in the rain uh is that for other people to see you or is it for you to see cuz I know sometimes uh when you turn on your lights in the rain snow blinding almost effect yeah that that happens or it just doesn’t light up the road because the the light just kind of reflects away um for me riding at night or excuse me riding in the rain and then riding in the night rain of course it’s the extra visibility um we’ve talked about this but when I brought this Gold Wing that I

(03:41) just bought back from from Nashville Tennessee I wrote it back four out of the seven hours was in the rain and it was never in my life have I ever experienced this on a motorcycle where people were pulling over because I was running you know in the in the in the fast lane and they would just pull over because they they could see you you know you really were being seen more and anytime that you can be seen more on the motorcycle is better now the particular lights that I have they have covers on them so I was running yellow lights in

(04:06) the rain and which again Alters that white light reflective yellow light is not a light that you normally see so I think it’s just another one of those visuals and so you can change those covers up yeah they these particular ones just have covers that slide over um great lights Clear Water lights but they’re also very expensive but they’re well worth it warranties you know all that cool kind of thing so and and I I saw you right uh a post on a on the best motorcycle roads and advice or website and uh and you were asking about the

(04:39) covers or the lights or something and man there were negative yeah I was a little shocked at that so what what’s going on so what’s going on is I want to put those Baker air wings on my on my bike for you and I both like to adjust the the wind a little bit where they mount is underneath the mirror which is where my current big big honk and LED lights are mounted right now so I thought you know before I do just kind of go on my own and do what I want to do I’m going to just ask so I went to two different uh forums out there and the

(05:06) first one was like what do you need those for well pick one pick the air wings I’m like no I’m not picking one like come on you know and that was funny and then just no answers really like why what do you want that and then another one got rude and they were just like well that’s dumb what are these what do these lights you mean like I’m like well I want to be seen when I’m riding the motorcycle you know like that’s my biggest fear probably is not being seen and then you know some of these lights

(05:35) it was like when the gold wings kind of revamped in the early 2000s the modular lights for a very short time were something people had on brand new motorcycles meaning they flashed right your your lights flashed I don’t love that like I think that’s a little much it’s too much but uh that’s what people say well you want lights that blink and modulate I’m like no I’m just I just just have lights and the ones that I have you can turn them down get intense and and dimmer yeah they went off I was

(06:04) surprised like I was just like yeah I couldn’t believe how many people didn’t even answer your question they never one guy Alejandro I think was his name thank you Alejandro yeah but the rest were all just like negative com oh my gosh and then go off on a tangent off on a tangent and they were saying you don’t need modulated lights and you didn’t say anything lights don’t modulate so what are you talking about yeah no it was interesting I kind of surprised but I think I did find some bracketry that’s

(06:34) going to mount on the engine so it’ll drop them down to what I would call maybe like knee height and I think those will actually be even even better oh yeah I got you better check your state and local laws you got to you can only have lights that are 26 and 12 inches off the ground it’s like okay I’m just thinking like I’ve been pulled over a number of times for a number of things never once did they measure my li height so no and I don’t think if I’m riding a motorcycle at night they’re going to worry too much so

(07:00) yeah you know and if you’ve got your bright lights in someone’s eyes they they Brink blink the lights you shut them off right come on yeah so yeah interesting yeah um also though with that a lot of front light talk but those back lights again in the rain at night yeah man I mean there are some motorcycles out there that have low lights in the back really low lights you had one that had very low lights yeah it was bad and so uh hopefully um just adding a couple especially now even I see some cars that are starting to come

(07:32) up with that when you hit that light the first time it gives you like a triple blink and then stays on boy is that handy um especially riding at night so yeah my my bike has some of those as well that were add-ons Y and uh it’s really nice it does they do flash they’re up high they’re kind of on the uh passengers like elbow area like on those uh armrests and yeah they I think I’m never behind myself but I know they flash they do a little repetition yeah and then they yeah but it catches your

(08:00) eye yeah totally and then what’s great about LED lights too is like yours have when you turn the turns Zone they’re yellow when you hit the brake lights they’re red you know that’s just stuff that was not possible in the same spaces that that are now so yeah it’s great stuff ridewise is the section we focus on planning and safety tips so as requested by Travis in episode 9 uh we’re talking about different types of motorcycles and one of the the motorcycles that I’ve always really

(08:26) liked uh no I ride a Goldwing and I’ve had it for 10 years or more but I’ve always really liked maybe 12 years I’ve always liked sport touring bikes yeah and so I thought let’s let’s talk about sport touring bikes and honestly I started looking them up they’re not making SP Sport Touring bikes anymore or what they call Sport Touring bikes now are more like an adventure bike what call yeah either Adventure or standard or a standard one of the two yeah and they’re not really making one um like

(08:55) what I’m used to seeing like the the concour the and the uh the Honda ST yeah 110000 1200 whatever it was 13 y i I just loved those bikes it was kind of the mini gold wi had the very um aerodynamic fairings and windshields that sometimes were electric you can move them up and down it had all the electronics it had you know the comfortable seat it had the suspension that could be adjusted it had navigation the mileage was fantastic and they had great big gas tanks on them so you could get you know 400 miles on a tank I mean

(09:31) that was only the St well the St did that um I I didn’t realize they’re not making sport touring bikes like that anymore they’re really not at BMW sort of we were doing a little research you know BMW has a couple models that I would definitely consider sport T but yeah even the ones that you had pulled up I’m like I don’t that’s not a sport touring bike no they don’t look like what I remember I don’t think they have a sport touring bike they have some crazy great breaks but none of them are

(09:56) Sport Touring that was shocking it was and said I mean they showed the last Model gear was a 23 as well so like I think I think they were the first ones with a I think the FJR is maybe the first sport touring bike you know so yeah it’s kind of end of an era yeah um I’ve had two I don’t remember if you ever a road either one of those but great machine um the ST300 7.

(10:24) 7 gallon fuel tank really comfortable um the first bike I think to have the adjustable uh windshield with your thumb um man um really really crazy I think 300 at least 300 miles to a tank if not more great bike and then the KA the Kawasaki concour um those bikes were really kind of the really like aggressive sport touring I mean everyone it was a detuned ninja 14 you know but you know that bike unfortunately never had had it had cruise control I might actually still own that bike today didn’t a lot of those foran started to take on get the you know have have uh

(11:04) have cruise control but man and these both a lot of um lot of Iron Butt Riders and we’ll talk more about what that is a lot of longdistance riders use these bikes um very common to have heated grips lights light accessories pre-wired for like extra lights um things like that so a lot of wind protection I think is probably the big thing that I when I first got the sport touring bikes that was my big notice is it really protected you um I had bought us an aftermarket windshield for my conquer that kind of

(11:34) had a lip the Lamar lip up and those were really really helpful um and man you could just sit down in there and really just not get much yeah much wind or anything so yeah yeah it’s too bad those are gone I mean if I had found one cheap uh might just buy one just to have just for storage purposes I just I think I where going put that yeah I don’t have room now but I have to get rid of a car but yeah um and just at we’re talking writing at night here too and a little a couple other things I thought in the ridewise

(12:08) section was just keeping a a a glove friendly flashlight in reach uh somewhere is good um if you have to stop unlike a car we don’t have a dome light um so like in either a tank bag or at least a pocket of your of your jacket having the little flashlight I think that’s uh clickable is good yeah um um and then um what else was I thinking oh the we’ve talked about these before but to little lights inside your if you have luggage um when you open those up at night again either you have to have the flashlight or you have to have a light

(12:43) in your luggage or you’re not going to see the thing you’re looking for so just another like things you don’t necessarily always think of when you’re riding at night get used to your controls too because again there’s no back lit on the controls so that’s one of the weird things for me when I started doing a little bit more night riding especially on some of these gold wings there’s a lot of buttons there are and I know that I’ve hit the like the kill switch Yeah uh by mistake and you

(13:07) know at night in the dark and you get on you start cranking cranking cranking it won’t start panicking panicking you know start checking am I in gear like what’s going on uh you start checking you know am I out of fuel what you know well it’s not back lit and sure enough you hit the the kill switch no that’s good it’s it’s just a different experience you think you know that bike until you write it at night you know and then so I always try as I’m think about it when during the daytime I

(13:35) like you know I’ll just put my thumb not look at the handlebars put my thumb on one of the switches that I think is is what it is and yeah you know and then it’s wrong so but yeah cor right the next segment is what we call the mile marker it’s our story segment so today we’ want to talk about um the Iron Butt I guess um and the reason why I brought this up is cuz pretty much have to ride at night if you’re riding in an iron Association ride and what is that it’s a group of people that have set up some

(14:04) rides that the minimal one is 1,000 miles in 24 hours um so I have no exactly idea why I wanted to do this but um I did and there’s a lot of work that goes into it it’s better now because of electronics and some of the GPS monitoring that allow to use but back before that which is when when we did this um in 2012 um it was really where you had to track your receipts you had to get someone to sign for you at the start of the ride and then you had to um to continue to kind of Monitor and make all your um kind of because no one goes with

(14:40) you and it’s pretty unofficial then you send your receipts in and then they they verify it so so I really wanted to try it and it was April um so the start of the season for the LD riders or the longdistance rider is really in April these people ride everywhere all the time every other year they have the Iron Butt Rally and that is usually where a bunch of riders start riding they’ll ride for 11 days they’ll do at least a thousand miles a day for 11 days by the time they get all done they’ll be

(15:07) somewhere in the 12,000 mile range so these guys are riding bikes long distance so so my brother-in-law at the time and I wanted to ride we both actually had Kawasaki concour um and so basically uh we were riding from Cedar Rapids Iowa to Ohio to Sol in Ohio to Casey Illinois that was about I think it was a,2 Miles so one of the things that you want to do before you try this is just really preparation um you want to be ready to do this and my biggest advice is is try not to stop riding your motorcycle like one of the things that

(15:43) really got us I what I would say in trouble was one so the official rides will allow you to have a certain bit more fuel so a lot of the longdistance Riders will add a fuel tank we didn’t do that we didn’t have an extra fuel tank but we were riding um in at that time the Conqueror would get about 180 m per tank I think it would get a little more but like safely so you’d ride 180 mi get gas what I would have liked to do is really just straddle get gas and keep moving the the gentleman I was with like

(16:15) to get off and then it’s a 20- minute that’s the problem we’ve talked about this before you stop and you swing the leg back over you’re 20 minutes you know it’s another 20 yeah well we had to fill up six times to get to 1,000 miles so 20 20 minutes times six times right so you get the point where you’re starting to lose you know time so we did finally get out it was um about 1:00 2 o’clock in the morning when we got to stolen Ohio hence the two Concours and a super eight because we ended up deciding we could

(16:44) sleep for 3 hours um I’m not sure I I think it was probably worth it I shouldn’t say it’s not worth it because it was definitely good to get a little sleep but it was a little bit short yeah and then you come out to the bike and you realize hey good news there’s frost on the motorcyc it’s April in Ohio right well and it’s night so then you know this is more night ring so just again good lights the concur had good lights I had auxiliary lights on it um and you just got to be um you know night riding you have to be

(17:13) a little more in tune and and kind of ready to go so that was probably the hardest part is just staying alert staying warm and uh you know just kind of keeping with it um I think we mentioned this before but I put every piece of gear I had then put the wind uh put the rain gear over the top cuz it was cold I remember riding through Columbus 28° I mean so you know it’s one of those things where um I’m super glad I did it not 100% sure I’m ever going to do it again I I think the other thing about putting your rain gear on the

(17:44) outside too besides the wind and that kind of stuff there’s always reflective tape on correct good on rain on rain gear and really shows up well at night so um you know if you’re not wearing your rain gear it’s nice to have a jack at least it has some tape on it or some I’m really glad you said that cuz if you go and look you can buy black tape that’s actually reflective so it’s black tape but at night it reflects and so if you look at a lot of little Nicks and crannies on your motorcycle that have

(18:14) black spots in it you can really put this tape into those spaces and it doesn’t really look it looks slightly different but man at night it lights it up like a like a like an electric light you know like it’s really sweet um so yeah and I think there’s different colors of it I know that there’s white so if you have a white motorcycle you can put some White Stripes if you have a black motorcycle I know there’s black too so I’m sure that there’s probably many colors great idea another one I’ve

(18:39) seen them too is they have the reflective lights on the sides of the rims of the motorcycles and those reflect a lot um so yeah anything you can do to be seen at night is always good and then getting those ditches and and areas up ahead just for people Mo other vehicles and critters um it’s a good thing yeah for sure the podcast can be found on best motorcycl roads.

(19:03) com podcast all the information you need will be there uh but you can subscribe today’s roadside Q&A comes from Melissa and she asks uh how do you balance the thrill of the ride with the Practical aspects of long-distance travel such as rest breaks and fuel stops what do you think Tom I don’t think we should ever stop it’s all about the thrill it’s Thrill Ride man I know I’m a pusher on the fuel stops like I like to ride yeah ride and ride um so that’s probably but I think we’ve talked about this a little

(19:34) bit before I think a kind of knowing the Comfort level and the rider experience you know if you’re not riding all the time even though I know Mike doesn’t quite Rite quite as much as all of us do he likes a little bit more stops than when we do you know he loves that I don’t know if it’s because of his fuel or come his backside that he likes the uh the I was thinking it was fuel but disguising so but no I mean I think it’s trying to make sure you know I think we’ve talked about before nothing will

(20:06) ruin a great trip faster than frustrations you know and things like that so for me I think it’s just that but also um just really making sure everyone stays hydrated because I think you get grumpy and sleepy and yeah it’s hard it is yeah and uh there’s nothing wrong with stopping every two hours you know I mean that’s that miles you know right there we’re never going to make an Iron Butt if you stop every two hours no no you’re right no um but yeah I mean you kind of bounce it right if we got to go a th

(20:41) miles in two days and we really do have to ride some miles though yeah and some you know what we’ve talked about this coming in the Midwest and we’re riding out you want to eat up some miles at first twoo so yeah you just got to balance it yeah that’s a good point exactly now is the last mile it’s our way to close the episode with just our reflections of the day and Todd might cry rering this but go ahead and reflect the loss of the sport touring bikes and the thing is I’ve never owned one but I’ve always wanted one I mean I

(21:08) mean some people will call the Gold Wing a sport touring bike yeah I mean they especially the new one the new ones they’re throwing that title on it a lot yeah and and no doubt they’re they’re sporty they’re fast they handle well they have all the you know luxury items you want for comfort and and safety um so I you know I wouldn’t try but I still would like to have one just to have something small a little bit smaller and uh yeah but you know that the Iron Butt thing you talked about that doesn’t

(21:39) interest me in the least um I did have an aftermarket seat oh did you uh I don’t care about getting a patch or a medal or an award or anything like that for it’s that’s not my idea of of fun or an enjoyable that was just the most minimal one I I know cuz I’m thinking more what we should probably do is the 50cc coast to coast in 50 hours yeah no I thought you were talking about 50 cc scooter ride or something well you can do it but you have to pick the right route okay no 50 cc Coast to Coast Coast

(22:13) to Coast I got you or we can do it 100 Coast to Coast back to Coast no well sometime let’s go Coast to Coast Four Corners in 48 in 10 days yeah I’m not in that big a hurry I I’m fine doing a coast to coast ride but I’m not going to do it in one or Canada to Mexico no thanks moving on um when it comes to just reflecting of the day I mean night writing I used to be a radio DJ and honestly like I love the night so I actually don’t mind writing at night but I think if you’re going to ride at night

(22:45) be prepared with the right gear and the right lights um you know there are less cars on the roads at that time I mean there’s more Critters but there’s Critters I mean I hit a deer during the day at 2:30 in the afternoon so so really I mean honestly I think it’s just fun to ride all the time but when you’re writing be prepared when you’re prepared you know be prepared before you start writing so for me it’s fun and yeah I’m a little sad about the sport terine thing too but then I’ll turn the heated

(23:10) seat and heated grips and Android auto on on the Gold Wing and I think I’ll I’ll be okay join us for our next episode where we’re going to talk about our route highlight for Copper Harbor Michigan if this episode revved up your day don’t keep it to yourself like subscribe and share it with your crew we’re all about the thr of the ride and the bond it creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive and remember bikes friends and endless roads the stories ride forever take care