How about the cyclists adopt the primary position, drivers still don’t bother to enter the other lane to safely overtake

Then they would run them down. Just as they could run them down when they’re riding two abreast.

What’s your point?

MTB rob

Do you really think there is room for bike / car /car???

ride 50cm cm from the kerb and your safety is very much compromised – you will get vehicles attempting to pass you while staying in the lane – look at the still picture Graham posted. there is not enough room for bike / car / car IMO so hold your lane and make them pass properly.

Remeber its a30 mph limit road and you are approaching a junction – not e the slow signs in the road

…but most importantly, psychologically the drivers won’t hate the cyclists as much because despite having to make essentially the same overtaking move had they been riding two abreast…

Exactly this. I wanted to say it on page one, but really didn’t want to get involved (dammit, too late!).

It’s all about perception, i.e., the drivers’ perception of the cyclists. It’s probably much more hassle for a driver to overtake twice, but they (drivers) will be much more easier to share the road with if they perceive that the cyclists are “doing the right thing”, even if it is not the right thing.

Oh and a quick sneaky edit; if the two cyclists had been doing 18mph on road bikes and wearing ‘proper’ cycling gear, I doubt there would have been any bother.

If I was on my own I be in the secondary postion. (about .5 meter from the edge) along that road and the road been clear and fast moving traffic.

Which would almost certainly result in drivers passing you far too close because they reckon they can get past without changing lanes. In such circumstances you ride in primary to force the drivers to change lanes and therefore give you enough room. Forcing drivers to change lanes doesn’t inconvenience them in any significant sense. Allowing them to overtake without changing lanes impairs your safety.

If it’s necessary to ride in the gutter so as to avoid annoying car drivers, I suggest you all get on the bike paths and avoid riding on the road at all, as that also annoys car drivers.

TJ, No I don’t think there is room for a bike/car/car at the same time, but 96% of drivers will give me enough room on that road and pass me when no other car in the outside lane.

I was trying to point out that we SHARE the roads and riding in the Primary postion along a fast moving traffic like in the vid can be inconvenience to other driver (and I see you point we have a right to be there) but you more likely to piss drives off and have that idiot drive to close to you than if you where more in the secondary postion, they prob give you more space.

If it was slow moving traffic say through town I be right out there in the primary postion.

Oh dear riding a bike ain’t rocket science. I’d be two abreast along there. My guess is that the duo are just sh** riders. And they seem to think they can do what they want in the inside lane as there’s another lane for motorists, they’ve adopted a them and us attitude.
****wits I’d give em a kick if I was riding by.

mtb rob – its a 30 mph limit

If there is no room for bike car car then you need to get out of the gutter otherwise they will try to make room

And they said sorry, lily livered dopes. If your going to hold your ground the reply is **** of **** whilst giving the Italian salute.

Think Bike … Ha Ha

IMG_5934 by SGMTB, on Flickr

IMG_5928 by SGMTB, on Flickr

Sorry whats 30 limit got to do with it?
I am not as fit as I was, but even then I couldn’t ride at 30mph for long to keep up with the traffic.

Also there was no cars parked along the road, if there was I be more in the primary postion.

It’s all about reading the road ahead and seeing what is coming, yes granted that car drivers need to do more of this.

TJ DO you ride every where in the primary postion, town, open road country roads 30, 40 50 or 60 mph limits?

Rob – you said if it was slow moving traffic thru town – hence I pointed out it is a 30 limit.

I almost never ride within 50 cm of the kerb / edge of road. sometimes when waving cars past I will go that close. Yes I use the primary position as my default position on the roads. I control when the cars can pass me, I ensure I can see and be seen,

I don’t understand how you can accept there is no room for bike/ car/ car and still intend to ride in the gutter where th ecar drivers will try to make it so.

Which would almost certainly result in drivers passing you far too close

Would? This is not a hypothetical situation, most of us are doing this day in day out. I’ve ridden many thousands of miles half a metre from the kerb, and it’s been fine mostly. If people are going to buzz past me then they tend to be the ones that will bomb past you regardless. Moving out only tends to force them onto the other side of the road and in the path of some on-coming car. Which happens quite a lot.

I choose to co-operate wherever possible with other drivers. It might not inconvenience them to be two abreast but it’s all about perception. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, there is a bit of a PR battle going on here. Many of them hate our guts, and I don’t want to do anything to make that worse, rules or no rules.

Not going to trawl 5 pages of arguements , have skip read 3 so get the gist.
I understand riding further out in the road to force cars to do a ‘ proper’ overtakng manoevere is safer . You are less likely to disappear down a drain cover , and be more in the eyeline of the car driver .

BUT . Many , many drivers do not have the ability or simply the patience to do a proper overtake . Lots of drivers cannot judge speed v distance , or use of road position to increase the VP to make overtaking safer.
Too many people refuse to wait for as little as 10 seconds when approaching a blind corner , they just overtake and hope.

Do not pretend this has not happened to you , It will have . You will have seen this from your car as a ditherer slows , does a half hearted overtake, dithers some more , texts someone , rolls a fag , gets bored and overtakes when a bus / lorry / chav comes round the corner

On your bike , approaching the same corner or parked car you hear everything, the revs drop as they dump the clutch , then the brakes grind a little as they stop 6″ off your back wheel. then you hear the turbo spool up , just as you are in the danger zone .

You know what is going to happen when the Tesco Express Arctic comes round the corner . No driver who is terrible enough to overtake and rely on The force / luck / balls or God that someting doesnt come round the corner will take it on the bonnet. If they are that bad at driving or in such a rush 15 seconds or kill a cyclist is SO important they will never , ever have a head on collision with an oncoming vehicle . They will not have the abilty to stuff it up the kerb on the opposite side of the road.
999 / 1000 they will swerve in and hope they miss the cyclist , even if they clip the cyclist .they think its OK .
So riding 1 meter out on a 2 way raod just increases the chances of a do or die overtake, and i can pretty much guarentee who will be the one in the ambulance

don’t give a Four X knock them off and let them learn the hard way

singletrackmind – but if yo are further from the kerb you have an escape route for the do or die overtake – you can swerve left.

1m out is not the primary position anyway – you need to be significantly further out that that especially approaching a corner

So molgrips yo are prepared to put yourself at a much greater risk to avoid inconvenienceing a car driver?

Moving out only tends to force them onto the other side of the road and in the path of some on-coming car

correct – which makes it safer for you! Yo have an escape route to teh left adn you have forced them to make a proper overtake

Righteous road users spend every day being indignant and stressed out.
They usually end up having an accident.

Give and take is the only logical way to travel by road.

Those cyclists were taking too much and giving nothing.

What makes me laugh is these “facts” that always come out stating how far out you should be.

Unless you are constantly on the same bit of road, or you are such a crap rider you don’t make allowances for the conditions you are riding in… It DEPENDS. THERE IS NO HARD AND FAST RULE.

Dez – one that that is certain – riding in the gutter as some folk here think you should is increasing your danger significantly

Personally I would add myself to the “I wouldn’t cycle two abreast in that situation” camp, however that doesn’t automatically make me a gutter hugger as some would have you believe.

TJ – has it occurred to you that the people posting that they are happy riding closer to the kerb than you (and Roadcraft, the IAM etc) are, may actually have been riding that way, and be comfortable with it, having done so for years without issue? Maybe, for them, they are right?

As for “bikes are traffic”, here’s a definition:

1. the movement of vehicles, ships, persons, etc., in an area, along a street, through an air lane, over a water route, etc.: the heavy traffic on Main Street.
2. the vehicles, persons, etc., moving in an area, along a street, etc.

See the plurals there? In my view as a road user you have a duty not to impede other traffic (of course without compromising your own safety – there appears to be varying views on that 😉 )

EDIT I did 25 road miles today with a pal, 2-abreast mostly, but often going single file to allow traffic to pass. At times we weren’t aware there was anyone behind us and once a train of 10 cars was there for probs about 10m, I felt a bit selfish we hadn’t noticed and let them pass. Wouldn’t have taken much off their journey time (maybe 6m?) but **** all inconvenience to us.

Oh and hope to hear from you on the hope/shimano hub thread, you’ve gone a bit quiet there.

1 metre? that’s waaay out. Like more than a single bed in the road.

what’s wrong with half that? I ride half that far out and ride with care and finesse. On the 16th August I mad a concious decsion to ride further out and and was hit by a car.

so if that the case TJ why does the cyclecraft metion the secondary postion, would they of said bugger every one else and ride in the primary postion all the time if that was the case?

As for me saying slowe moving trafic, (30mph still not that slow) maybe I didn’t get my point over very well,
I should of said I be in the primary postion when you can keep up with the flow of trafic and that can be from walk pace to 30mph or even 40mph if the road is pointing down.

As for riding in the gutter, gutter is closer than half a meter, half a meter is the MIN I be from the side, even that far out I still have some room to move into if I need to, yes I know I have more room if I was out from the side of the road but as i trying to get across to you there is OTHER road users and we all got to try and get on.

oldgit – you’ve not been killed yet? You are incredibly lucky.

If you want to ride 2 abreast its your right. You can enjoy that fact from your hospital bed. All car drivers are to be treated as the biggest idiots ever.
Their lost packets of sweets are far more important than you.

Why you guys want to ride in a road position where you are less likely to be seen, where yo will be squeezed into the kerb and in a manner that increases your danger is beyond me

And the anti bike rhetoric from a supposed cyclists site is really rather sad.

Ride safely and defensively. assert your place on the road. ensue you are seen and that cars give you room. ~Some of you really need to read cyclecraft.

Not anti cyclist, just anti self-righteous selfish dicks.

Yes anti cylist – wanting bikes to cower in the gutter and keep out of cars way instead of riding safely

TJ, that is starting to sound suspiciously like religious rhetoric to me. Do you get all your life skills from a guide book? Like how to wipe your arse? Just asking.

You didn’t hear the car hit the horn at the other car for “swerving into the fast lane”

I wonder why?

I think this is quite telling, basically abdicating the driver’s responsibility for how he drives his vehicle to the cyclists- “look what you made me do!”

He needs to overtake them same as he would any other slower traffic, and they’re “holding him up” in just the same way that all the other traffic on the road is- after all, he’d get where he was going much quicker if they weren’t there, and without so much annoying having to use the steering wheel and the brakes.

That said, people like BoardinBob are onto something- the fact is that riding like that does wind people up, and exercising your rights all the time isn’t always the best thing to do. Personally I probably wouldn’t have ridden two abreast there. WVM’s reaction is ridiculous but sadly shows the one-eyed way drivers look at things- bet he doesn’t feel the need to get out of his van at the traffic lights and berate all the other drivers for “holding up traffic”.

Molgrips wrote: “When it’s busy I hug the kerb as much as possible so that if someone doesn’t see me at all or is changing the CD or texting or something they will just blast past me and I’ll end up with ruffled hair rather than splatted across their windscreen”

Aye,exactly.

On the point about winding car drivers up. I smile, I wave them thru when it is safe to do so, I thank the courteous ones.

Yes anti cylist – wanting bikes to cower in the gutter and keep out of cars way instead of riding safely

Again, no mention of gutter by anyone but you.

It’s like trying to win an argument with yourself.

TJ “don’t ride in the gutter”
TJ “i’m not”
TJ “don’t ride in the gutter”

zzzzz

Feefoo probably has it but

TandemJeremy – Member
Why you guys want to ride in a road position where you are less likely to be seen*, where yo will be squeezed into the kerb* and in a manner that increases your danger is beyond me

* evidence please.
** as above.

And the anti bike rhetoric from a supposed cyclists site is really rather sad.

Such as?

~Some of you really need to read cyclecraft.

One of you needs to listen to the many people here who cycle, who probably cycle as much as you and feel perfectly safe.

TJ as I live and breath, when you act like that, I sit here and I picture you with one fist raised to the world, shaken in defiance at the misguided ignorance of nincompoops, that we might have an opinion that merits considering.

This situation is not black and white as you all too often advocate situations are. There are a great many issues intertwined with this one, however here are the facts.

The people driving the cars need to be more tolerant to cyclists and more aware of thier needs, the cyclists need to be more considerate to drivers relative to the circumstances.

We need to share this resource, we need to find a common ground so that we can make what little we have go a very long way.

The issue here is why do we not have a comprehensive and intergrated cycle and road network.

You can be distracted by the right and wrongs of the circumstances, or you can say who the **** caused these circumstances and how do we go about improving the situation for everyone.

Sticking on a camera and going out to intentionaly provoke drivers 😆

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MVonyVSQoM[/video]

Jeremy.. riding away from the kerb to make drivers overtake correctly is the least of your worries ;O)

8 weeks ago you told us about the road rage incident where you played cat & mouse through the Burgh getting chased by a couple in a bmw!

“On the next block by dint of driving very aggressively the car gets alongside and surprise surprise – the rubbish comes flying out hitting the back of the bike to the accompaniment of very angry roars and offers to kick my head in. I leg it, down some side streets and away. A couple of miles later I get back on my route and get overtaken by him again – bugger – I thought I had lost him. Swerves at me very aggressively trying to force me to stop. I attempt to leg it again but crash taking a corner too fast into a housing estate – he then drives off at high speed ( I guess I was lucky at that point) But there was witnesses around including another car that stopped to make sure I was OK.”

You must have been apexing it through every street that day! 😆

Just a few of the folk who understand defensive riding

poly – Member

If I was riding that road on my own I’d be in the “L” position which GrahamS/TJ refer to. If I was “with company” I’d probably be riding two abreast, and in my opinion that is the safer option (more visible, shorter over take for following traffic, and forces traffic to make a “safe” overtake not a squeeze through). Not only were they technically in the right, I think they were actually doing the sensible thing.

scu98rkr –
But in that case there is not enough room for cyclist/car/car so it doesnt make any difference if they ride two a breast in fact it might be safer, as there is no chance of two cars trying to over take you at once.

And if there was only one cyclist they’d be best taking up the whole lane anyhow.

stumpy01
For the drivers in the inside lane to overtake safely had those riders been single file, they would have to move so far over into the outside lane that other cars would be unable to pass them in that lane anyway…..if the drivers overtook the cyclist by squeezing past and staying in the same lane entirely, that would not be a safe overtake.

stevehine – Member

I’m with TJ on this one – I’d be riding either two abreast or with a large enough gap between myself and the kerb to either prevent cars overtaking or squeezing by and forcing me into the kerb. A number of incidents whilst commuting where car drivers have attempted to squeeze past and taken evasive action whilst alongside (think flecha / hoogerland in the tdf but at slower speed) have made me realise it’s far better to take a pro-active road position than to allow yourself to be treated as a 2nd class citizen on the road.

This guy probably says it best

psling – Member

I despair for the future of cycling on the highway in this country when even bike riders on a cycling website seem to believe that the motorised vehicle is king and that cyclists should be submissive and get out of their way. What really is needed is for drivers to be made more aware that they share the highway with other users that may be moving more slowly.
The drivers of the vehicles coming up behind the two cyclists in this instance should be competent enough to see them, to slow down as necessary, indicate to move past them and pull out safely. Drivers in the outside lane should be competent enough to see the cyclists, take note of vehicles in the inside lane that will need to pull out to pass the cyclists, and give safe space to those vehicles to allow them to pass safely. The onus is on the drivers to successfully perform these tasks. At no point is there any responsibity on the cyclists to make any manouvres beyond positively maintaining their same line [edit]AND NOT[/edit!] making any unpredictable changes of direction. IMO.

It’s not workable, you will make these drivers very agitated and even more stressed out.

We need a cycle network and a new road system, reduce the kerbs by a small amount and then create a buffer zone in the centre of the road so that cars have enough space to safely pull out and over take.

If every cyclist rides like that the road system will not handle it, if we wanted to hold a mass protest at the state of the roads and demand that a new system be devised then YES, it’s fine to ride like a lady.

But to say regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what other roads users need, we will do what we like! not workable.

Anyway shit to do! Hope everyone is good and that you enjoy the festive season.

Just spent an hour practicing moto x cornering, intentionally trying to get you back tyre sliding out then your front, then bringing it all back under control, Love it! 😀

Can all the pro 2 abreasters vouch that they have never got upset with caravans or tractors when they are impeded in their cars. Or walkers who walk 2 abreast and don’t get out of the effing way.
Any takers?

TandemJeremy – Member

This guy probably says it best

psling – Member
I despair for the future of cycling on the highway in this country when even bike riders on a cycling website seem to believe that the motorised vehicle is king and that cyclists should be submissive and get out of their way.

I think most folk are saying:

the motorised vehicle is not king and that cyclists should be submissive and get out of their way ride in a way that is does not compromise their safety but allows safe transit of traffic past them.

Which is what roads are for, is it not?

Happy to hear from you TJ on the various points raised here and the hope hub thread, easier for you to ignore of course!