Some additional thoughts:
– With painted DY and reflectors, night rides are almost easy. The reflectors light up beautifully like a fiery ribbon, and you can totally see the twist and turns of the road far ahead. Some of those white reflectors on road side markers light up like light bulbs! I charged up a mountain road like that to stay ahead of, and pull away from, cars and had a blast. With the visual help of center line reflectors, I was turning and banking so effortless without seeing the surroundings, it felt like playing a computer simulation. When I thought about that ride afterwards, I realized that I was being reckless, and totally forgotten about watching out for road hazards like possible gravel, wet spots, debris, etc. Nevertheless, it shows that cornering can be so easy when you have clear visual cues, and when you’re smooth and relaxed.
– Without reflectors, the painted centerline works as a fair visual aid in the headlight.
– With no painted center line, and no reflectors, the twist and turns are much harder to follow and predict in the headlight. Light and shadows play tricks with your eyes, and you have to concentrate hard to understand what you’re seeing. It’s like trying to solve a constantly changing visual puzzle. Many times I thought the road would turn one way, and it ended up going the other. I learned to use the outline of the hill as visual aid to see which way the road’s turning, and I enjoy the game.
– I hate stopping in pitch darkness. Couldn’t see a thing outside the headlight, and you get that vulnerable feeling like something was lurking just behind you.
– After an hour of riding in total darkness, seeing city lights in the distance was a great feeling.
– I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do, other than what I already do at night (slow down, look hard), when I see a sign like “deer next 10 miles”… I’ve seen deers a number of times on the road in my headlight on the low speed twisty sections, when I was going like 15-20 mph, and that was no problem. I just hope they don’t charge into me (like you see on YouTube) when I’m in the straight sections at 40-50 mph.