I either ride on very very quiet lanes or in a group with the club, generally 2-3 times a week with the club and 1-2 times solo.

Our chaingang goes on main roads, but because you are 10-20 riders it is like a driver having to pass a lorry. That said the group is often passed by an irate driver held up for valuable seconds.

Commuting is a lot easier if you aren’t riding flat out all the time. Took me a while to learn that, and it takes some effort from a competitive person such as me to back off and not try and chase the buggers down in parts of London.

but because you are 10-20 riders it is like a driver having to pass a lorry.

Don’t do many club rides but the few I’ve done recently were pretty scary due to some of the crazy impatient overtaking manoeuvres. Much safer solo.

I nearly got taken out by an Uber driver on my mixed road/towpath ride today. He was too busy working out which side of the road to pick up on. It was pretty close to a full sideswipe but I managed to stop in time.

I actually enjoy it on the road, but I just assume everyone is a dick.

I started road biking in February after 10 years of mountain biking – I was scared at first and had a massive chip on my shoulder/ sh*t bricks at the sound of cars coming up behind me but i think (hopefully) now i’ve mellowed out a bit. Maybe If you’ve had 10 years off it might take you a few months to mellow out again? I assume everyone is a bad driver and i’ve learned not to hug the kerb, that way drivers have to take more notice and overtake properly instead of trying to squeeze past.

At this time of year especially It’s really important to be visible so use front and rear lights and reflectives for when it’s dark or overcast, high viz does absolutely jack sh*t in the dark.

As most people have already said just plan routes that avoid main roads, that way you’re not battling rush hour desperadoes and football mums in 4 x 4’s.

And yeah low sun is a killer 🙁 Stay visible, stay safe!

All the roads around me (Hindley near Wigan) that go anywhere are all very hostile

I ride through there a fair bit. The roads are fine. And you have some spectacular riding on your doorstep. Winter Hill etc

I commute every day on busy hostile roads. I find drinking helps

No idea how people around London cope. Up here in the grim north you just pick quiet roads. Once I leave the city and head out onto the hills there are very few cars if you stay off the biggest a roads

In the new forest waiting to join a road and a chav dad driving towards me encourages his prob 9 yr old kid to chuck their recently eaten bag of McDonald’s crap at me, hitting me in the face. Lucky I was stopped as I might have fallen off. Luckily I remembered the ref no and dreported it and he got ticked off.

It seems it’s easy to “hate” cyclists especially given the clarkson, daily mail types winding everyone up about being held up for 2 minutes on their way to the shops.

I ride through there a fair bit. The roads are fine. And you have some spectacular riding on your doorstep. Winter Hill etc

It’s a constant stream of traffic on any of the roads which go anywhere, until you get to the Rivington area. Unless you went very early in the morning.

I don’t ride for “pleasure”, but I’ve been commuting pretty regularly since 1990. Only knocked off once (and I could’ve avoided that). Yeah, there are close passes, the odd left hook, but it’s not really that dangerous, just intimidating. So don’t let yourself be intimidated.
One thing I tell myself when I’ve had a bad run – it’s a damn sight better than being in a car amongst the morons.

It depends on a lot of factors, time of day, route etc. It’s not necessarily the case that quieter roads are worse. There’s a big NSL road I go along daily for a couple of miles on my way to work, never had a close pass except going into roundabouts as it’s wide enough to pass comfortably even with a bus or truck coming the other way.

There are a couple of narrow sections where I’ve had people cause oncoming traffic to leave big long skid marks because they can’t possibly wait until they’re around a blind corner to overtake. I took one of these around 3pm instead of my usual 7-8am/6-7pm and despite similar levels of traffic, every single car was absolutely desperate to get past, one even got up next to me around a blind corner going down hill (NSL, twisty, I was doing 30+ which is often faster than the cars go round the corners as it’s only a short stretch before a T junction) before giving in to common sense/oncoming traffic. A couple had already squeezed through in potentially dodgy spots. Usually that only happens once a week or so.

There will always be a couple of idiots on any road, of course. But riding a bit further out etc. does help a bit.

I mostly cycle on quite roads ’cause there’s not much traffic on the back roads of Fife, but for the occasional busy one I just pay attention and make sure I’m pretty aware of what’s going on. It’s just easier if you are prepared for the idiocy as then it’s not terrifying, just predictable. If you assume that people waiting at junctions haven’t seen you, cars coming up behind you will pass with minimal clearance and so on then there’s just less OMFG moments.

It’s a bit sucky and I’m glad I mostly have nice quite roads so I can largely zone out from this sort of thing.

I find drinking helps

Before, during or after?

Pick your route, ride sensibly, keep an eye (and ear) out at all times. But I’ll be honest having ridden all over the UK, I’d say once out of the cities things are generally okay except for the odd knob head.

cars coming up behind you will pass with minimal clearance

I got the garmin rear radar thing recently and must say it’s pretty damn good. Won’t stop someone driving into you obviously, but it does make you a lot more aware of what’s behind you and how quickly it’s approaching and you can plan and position yourself accordingly.

Maybe its the area i live

This is probably a large part of it. Where I live I can have some extremely pleasant road rides and rarely have issues with cars. I can get a good ride in and hardly see any traffic despite being in one of the most central parts of England.