And this is the central issue with your entire premise. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that a motorist's or cyclist's interests are not solely limited to the legality or illegality of the conduct of those with whom they share the road.

It's mind boggling to think that you actually need someone to make that clear to you.

You seem to have a lot of difficulty with reading comprehension.

First, about this thread there is a saying in law: bad facts make bad law. In this case, I'm afraid that the personalities and details about the PCH are obscuring good points about the defensive riding you propose.

Second, I tried it a bit yesterday because your comments and Billdsd comments about stress in riding hit home with me. After an hour ride, I'm liking it.

Gotta have a mirror to do this. Gotta be dork. I used to use a big Blackburn mirror. Then I got a small one for end of my drop bar. The small one sucked so I stopped using it. I thought to myself, "the fast guys just hug the edge and don't worry, so I'll do the same." Riding was always stressful. So yesterday I bought a Blackburn 2.5x3/5 oval mirror. It dorks up my bike. But it was great. Glance down and see that no was behind me for half a mile and I could ride in peace, knowing that I'd glance down in about fifteen seconds. Been a long time since I had peace like that while riding.

I only rode two lane roads in residential areas. No shoulders. The hairiest road has speed limit of 35 but cars go 45-50. I had a bit of a hard time consistently staying in the middle of the lane because of my habit of hugging the line, but rode in the middle mostly. When cars came up to within 200-300 feet of me, I moved to the white line. I was passed maybe 10-15 times. Everyone gave me plenty of space. First time I can remember not getting buzzed at least once. I waved as they passed me. In a weird way I felt there was a different communication with the car drivers, like they understood me saying, "I'm here. You see me? Good. I'll move over to give you some room, please give me room when you pass." Also in general I felt much safer riding in the middle because I didn't have to worry so much about cars coming out of obscured driveways on the right so much. Limited sample, I'll keep trying it.

But I do not think that anyone should take the middle without using a mirror. If you are going to claim to have a right to the road, then drive like all the other traffic does, with a rear view mirror. I think that one thing that frustrates drivers is not knowing whether the guy on the bike in front of them knows they are behind them. If the driver sees a mirror, it establishes a more personal connection. If the rider on PCH in original thread had a mirror, Duffy wouldn't have had to worry that the guy might get rear ended. If the guy had a mirror he'd be able to swerve to the shoulder if someone was about to rear end him.

Get a mirror Fred.

You seem to have a lot of difficulty with reading comprehension.

You say that you acknowledge that he has the right but that it's stupid for him to do so and you're clearly very angry about it.

But somehow, you can't see that that is a contradiction. If you really accepted that he had a right to use the lane, then you wouldn't be angry about it.

Wow. You don't live in the real world, do you?

You have the right to burn a flag, but I'll bet a bunch of people would be angered by your exercising that right, even if they believe that right exists.

Duffy has the right to call you an idiot, but I'd bet you wouldn't be happy about him doing so.

Well, we were using the word "business", not "interest". I don't want to play semantics, but there is a big difference between something being none of my business and it not being an interest of mine.

If you want to reword that as my premise, then it would be something like: "Assessing the safety of LEGAL conduct of other people using the road is none of anyone else's business." (and in this case it was not Duffy's business to assess the safety of the cyclist's legal conduct).

Here's that pic of that shoulder that day…

Also, maybe you guys should change your kits to something a little more visible. Darkish blue isn't the best choice.

But the main benefits of this approach are not with traffic approaching from behind, but with the for more likely cross-traffic threats ahead of you.

Right, but you really have to find pretty extreme examples to make this point. Like believing in the right to free speech but still being angered by a KKK rally.
Those are edge cases that we use test how much we really believe in those rights.

But guess what? Even though we're angered by flag-burning and racist speech, we understand it's not our business to lecture people engaged in such activity.

If that conduct extends to threatening safety (like yelling "fire!" in a theater) then it becomes illegal AND when it crosses that legal line it becomes our business.

But if the legal line is not crossed, it is not our business, even if we believe safety is threatened.

You have the right to burn a flag, but I'll bet a bunch of people would be angered by your exercising that right, even if they believe that right exists.

You know, I think Bill's point might stand up to this example anyway, especially in the relevant context.

Consider an outraged citizen who calls the police because of the flag burning. The police show up and what do they do? Nothing. Why? Because while they (presumably) don't respect the flag-burning, they respect the right to burn the flag. They would be wrong to lecture the flag burners. It would be none of their business.

If they did get angry and did start lecturing, that would indicate a lack of respect for the flag-burning right, wouldn't it? Just like Duffy's honking and lecturing indicates a lack of respect for the cyclist's right to ride in the lane.

I felt much safer in this regard. I had much better visibility and view as to blind drives, pedestrians, etc. And of course they of me. Also for me, riding often with no shoulders, the edges are the gutters with the road hazards. Getting out of the gutters was nice. Crazy to think about it. Eighty to ninety percent of the time on my rides I don't have anyone behind me yet I've been dealing with the anxiety of riding on the edge.

I also see the whole dynamic changing with drivers. But when I'm riding (none too peacefully) on a two foot shoulder, I'm subliminally telling them: "I don't belong on the road, and I am not part of the traffic." And they accept what I'm telling them. I must fight my tendency to do it myself when I'm driving. But if I'm in the road, drivers have to accept that I'm part of the traffic and deal with it. They might not like it, but they have to deal with it like they deal with a slow moving tractor, a mailman, a garbage truck, etc, and they have to ask the subconscious and conscious driving questions like how fast is he going, when and where can I pass, etc. When I'm on the edge (or narrow shoulder), I get buzzed by maybe 1/4 of the cars and I think they don't even think about it.

I have a feeling that taking the lane will help with another component of cycling safety: the fact that drivers don't appreciate how fast bikes are traveling. Something on the edge or shoulder is assumed to be going slow -- it is not part of the real traffic. If you are in the middle, I think cross street drivers (and overtaking drivers) are more likely to take me as real traffic and make better judgements about my rate of speed. Of course I will always ride defensively and assume that the driver will make an error, but reducing those errors has to make things safer.

C'mon, I thought we went through this already. Yes, this still photo shows a very wide shoulder that is great for riding a bike. I have acknowledged this. I have also pointed out that there is more going on down the road, none of which is captured in your still photo. Please see post #220. There are pavement fissures and most importantly some really pain in the ass trees at the bottom of the descent, neither of which are captured in your photo. Seriously, take a step back for a second. Do you really think an experienced rider would choose to leave the smooth, wide shoulder shown in your photo to risk it out in traffic for no reason?

Look, here is an overhead photo of a stretch of Paris Roubaix. But just because this photo shows a wide open freeway (presumably some pretty good pavement!) doesn't mean there aren't cobbles ahead in the Arenberg.



You really haven't explained how you had a hard time seeing a cyclist on a white road bike with pretty conspicuous kit who was right smack dab in the middle of your lane (your words, he says he was a bit off to the right) but that you were able to scan the shoulder of the road all the way down the hill and tell us all that it was free of the shit that the cyclist says was there and which I and others who frequent that stretch typically encounter there. All while doing 55mph, merging with traffic, in the #2 lane... really now, you're going to tell us that you are 100% certain that the shoulder is just as your single photo indicates, all the way down to the bottom?



Like I said in my first post, this guy is not on my club or team and never has been. And here is the kit. Seems pretty conspicuous to me.



Again, to be clear, I don't think for a second that your intention was to harass a cyclist. I truly believe that you thought you were doing him a favor. But I also think it is possible that you might not have seen and known the condition of the entire shoulder all the way down and that maybe, possibly, the cyclist made a decision that made more sense to him than you because he was operating with some information that you didn't have (and which in fairness, you can't be expected to have given the fact that you were in traffic behind the wheel of a car doing 55mph in the #2 lane).

on side note, need a permit these to burn things so it would be illegal :)

That's very nice, but since nobody has mentioned or suggesting that anyone should have called the cops to deal with the cyclist in Duffy's situation, it's basically another irrelevant tangent.

Yes, if they got angry, it would indicate a lack of respect for flag burning. It would not indicate a lack of respect for, nor an inability to recognize, the right to flag burn. The conduct and the right to engage in conduct are not the same thing, which is something you have proven unable to understand during this thread.

Duffy, I have a question for you. If the City of Malibu had installed Bikes May Use Full Lane signs and sharrows on this section of PCH, would that have affected how you reacted to the cycling using the full lane? Would you still have honked and said something to him? The same thing?

In my opinion your friend was almost killed. In my opinion if he keeps doing what he did he will be killed, probably fairly soon.

BTW, the #1 lane is the left lane and the #2 lane is the right lane.

Man, you are really dense.

So indulge the dense guy. Answer the question.

That's what Duffy exhibited when he chose to honk and lecture his opinion at a cyclist on the road!

I have been criticized for accusing others here of exhibiting anti-cyclist bigotry but "There is a time and a place to ride that road, and mid-week morning rush hour is not the time or place" has got to be the most blatantly bigoted statement I've seen here yet. As is typical of bigotry, it's likely to be subconscious. But believe me it's there, perhaps deeply rooted in your psyche.

Wow. Do others agree with that remarkable statement or is this an anomaly?

Do others agree or disagree that this statement is bigoted against cyclists?

This thread is starting to wear me down. I'm going golfing.

Militant attitude about always being "in the right"? That's what Duffy exhibited when he chose to honk and lecture his opinion at a cyclist on the road!

I have been criticized for accusing others here of exhibiting anti-cyclist bigotry but "There is a time and a place to ride that road, and mid-week morning rush hour is not the time or place" has got to be the most blatantly bigoted statement I've seen here yet. As is typical of bigotry, it's likely to be subconscious. But believe me it's there, perhaps deeply rooted in your psyche.

Wow. Do others agree with that remarkable statement or is this an anomaly?

Do others agree or disagree that this statement is bigoted against cyclists?