Hey Don,
I'm glad you brought this up. Until your post, I'd forgotten that last night, on my way home from a wedding, I was on a dark semi-rural road with no street lights, and I saw glowing red bicycle frame (only the frame) moving down the road ahead of me at a distance of maybe 50 yards. Before I could catch up with it, the frame turned into a dark driveway and disappeared. At the time I thought the frame must have been painted with a reflective red paint or maybe wrapped with red reflective tape, but since your post I'm not so sure. Whatever it was, it got my attention. Before you ask, I haven't had a drink in two years. And now that I think about it, the rider must have been wearing black, and I don't remember any other part of the bicycle reflecting in my headlights. All I remember seeing was the frame. I suppose that part of the answer is flat-black components and of course no reflectors. A pretty elaborate practical joke, if that's what it was.
Mark Fulton
Redwood City
California
USA