Cycling at night-your comfort level & speed

[shootingstar]

Even with my bike lights on at night, I usually prefer to only cycle shorter distances and honest, sorta hope that I've already done parts of the route at some point during daytime. Particularily if it's a route that I seldom cycle and it's well over 20 kms. long with some steady stream of road traffic in sections.

And my speed cycling at night is slower. I just can't anticipate the bumps and potholes. Or maybe it's not feeling confident of my night vision. Maybe it's in my head.

I just found out we got tickets to Olympics women's speedskating shorts in evening in a few weeks. So I'm just hoping..it won't be heavy rain. That is worse, cycling at night in heavy rain on a route I seldom do. No, the worst would be black ice. (And no, during the Olympics, bikes are not allowed on our light train commuter lines due to crowds.)

Am I an overly cautious mouse or what? I should be this super confident woman cyclist by now..