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?
blinking rear light
Blinking lights are my pet-peeve with cyclists. Cars don’t have blinking lights - neither should bikes.
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.
You can easily spot a car at night, but not a cyclist.
In Europe blinking bicycle lights are allowed (white front, red rear).
Front blinking lights are illegal in Germany as they should be, don’t ever put fronts on blinking mode.
Studies have shown that blinking lights improve reaction time to bikes on the road. The most common issue is determining the distance to the bike. This effect is more pronounced during night.
That’s why I use my bike lights all the time set to blink with a multi-second on phase. It makes me more noticeable and easy to estimate distance.
Also cars do have blinking lights these days. The newer car models like to blink the center brake light for a second before going static. Motorbikes have also long had rear blinking and “breathing” front light.
A silver spear to protect from werewolves and other supernatural predators.
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.
A slightly less ugly alternative to amber reflectors between the spokes are reflective clips that wrap around each spoke:
https://www.salzmannltd.com/products/salzmann-3m-spoke-reflectors
I’m also pretty sure that lights in the EU are required to also function as a reflector or that at least most modern ones do.
Go big on reflective clothing. Rather than having small reflective patches on your clothes or bike, you can get jackets where the whole garment is made of reflective fabric. When a car’s headlights hit you that jacket will light up like the sun.
Ortlieb’s high-vis panniers are similar.
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.
