I think its a bad idea to assume a car will see anything at any time, let alone a smaller/narrower object, and at 700ft away.

There are two assumptions made by the "Drive in the middle of the road" group that are either patently false or misguided.

1) If I'm in the middle they will see me. Sorry, simply wrong. First we all know there's a HUGE contingent of distracted drivers that wouldn't see a massive yellow barn that fell from the sky and was laying in the middle of the road. A frighteningly large percentage of drivers would simply plow right into the barn. To think they will see a narrow profile of a cyclist from behind while hitting the barn is simply wishful thinking of a group of people that want to arrest control of their rights. This again says nothing of the human failing of simply filter out what is not supposed to be there that effects us all. IOW a very attentive driver may simply not see you in the middle of the road...because most people don't think you should be there.

2) If I'm in the middle they will be forced to be more careful while passing me. While I think this *might* be a valid argument I also tend to think that if you're pissing some guy off by making him go 15 MPH in a 45 while oncoming traffic keeps him from passing, you're increasing the odds that he will pass you when it is not safe and or road rage on you and drive you off the road. IF, and that is a big if, there is any general advantage by raising general awareness by forcing them to change their driving habits this advantage has to be large enough to over ride the afore mentioned disadvantage.

but from a safety standpoint I don't understand how they can be so steadfast based on assumptions of what motorists out of their control will or won't do. It is what it is.

It's the same mentality that assumes that if a certain policy is put in place that everyone will react exactly as they intended. Humans simply don't operate that way despite others expecting them to. The mentality here is "It's my right to be in the middle of the road. Since I am rightfully here you will see me and act as I think you should." It's the classic failure to understand people will regularly not do what they are forced into doing or expected to do. In some cases this is seen as provocation and people will purposefully react negatively.

~Matt

Where would YOU ride? Would you take the right hand lane? Just curious...

Since I really don't like putting my life in the hands of drivers...I'd find someplace else to ride my bike. It may be legal to ride there, doesn't mean it's a smart idea to do so. Quite honestly if my only choice was this road or the trainer, I'd be on the trainer.

Our state is nice enough to put out maps that show you "Best roads to cycle". They combine road conditions with traffic speed and traffic volume. When I was biking alot I made sure my routes went in the safest places, I.E. least traffic with the slowest traffic speeds and best road conditions. I didn't just wake up on Saturday and say "Hey let's bike down this four lane highway".

I'm sure things are not the same all over but I'd rather throw my bike in the back of the car and drive for 30 minutes to roads that are less traveled then ride on a road like that. Most of us ride for our health, what does it accomplish if we are putting ourselves in danger while doing so?

~Matt

i just want to say that any thread that will draw matt and theforge out of the lavender room at the same time, for the same discussion, is pretty epic. carry on..

I was told to come here by the LR collective. I stayed because it wasn't about 650C vs 700C or Powercranks :-)

~Matt

we had a thread awhile back where both the michigan militia and the new black panthers showed up. no problem. the jayvee. but when you guys from the LR start wandering in, that's the varsity at work.

we should stick some LR guys on planes and send you down to clean up waco.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I live in Austin. It would take a lot more than that to clean up Waco. We don't call it Wacky Waco for nothing.

Completely agree with this. Last summer a bridge that I _must_ cross to get out of town was under construction, and went from 2 wide lanes in each direction to 1 narrow lane in each direction for only 200m. Nearly every time I crossed it, I had cars pass into oncoming traffic (with traffic actually incoming) to get past me in the short stretch that was single-lane. This was despite me riding straight down the middle at nearly-traffic speeds. If there was a head-on collision, either the passer was going to get bounced into me or he was going to swerve and hurl me off the overpass. So I ended up doing all my weekday rides online in TdG instead of outdoors. It sucked to be indoors on beautiful summer afternoons, but it was better than going through that deathtrap.


Earlier in the thread someone had a quip about survivorship bias. That's a very interesting concept that follows from the strict "take your lane no matter what" approach.
1) Suppose a club exists that adheres very strongly to "take your lane no matter what", like the carpetbaggers that visited us yesterday
2) A rear-end collision from a car is highly likely to be fatal, especially if you're in the middle (see stats from the last couple pages)
3) Thus, the club's membership will always be able to truthfully claim "none of us have ever been hit from behind or had close calls", since anyone that DID get hit from behind would be dead, or at least so injured that they couldn't cycle anymore.
4) When club members die, it'd be possible to rationalize it as "well, he wasn't truly claiming his lane", and so it wouldn't impact their beliefs (or if it did, the people that rethought their beliefs probably wouldn't be part of the club anymore)

It would be astoundingly dangerous, but also self-sustaining.

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

I'll raise your anti-cyclist bigot with one close-minded cycling militant.

Respect is a two-way street with a wide shoulder/bike lane.

I see what you did there.

We could sent Mrs. Duffy down there solo and she'd take care of it all.

She's the best!!!

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

I've heard these theoretical arguments against full lane use countless times, but never from anyone who has actually seriously experimented with it. Without a single exception everyone I know all over the country who has seriously experimented with full lane use vs. edge riding, with a mirror so they can observe motorist behavior behind them, realizes very quickly how much safer it is. You just have no idea until you ride with a mirror for a week or so along the same routes, sometimes riding on the edge, sometimes using the full lane. It's so counter-intuitive people will imagine all kinds of possibilities to reinforce their beliefs that it can't possibly be safe to ride in the lane. But it's simply remarkable how much more attentive or respectful drivers are of you when using the full lane. And the occasional outbursts can practically be eliminated with timely acknowledgments before they get annoyed.

And here's the main thing everyone has to understand about distracted driving: it's impossible. Try this: driving on a straight empty road with a passenger see how long you can close your eyes. It's a few seconds. It's simply impossible to maintain course while driving without looking up and paying attention every few seconds.

So even the most distracted driver is looking up every few seconds, in order to maintain course. And where do they look on those inevitable course checks? Straight ahead, of course.

So if your goal is to grab the attention of a distracted driver during one of these necessarily frequent course checks, where do you think you should be riding? Inconspicuously on the shoulder where you're irrelevant and they're unlikely to pay any attention at all? Or conspicuously up ahead in their intended path where all of their attention will be focused for at least a moment?

Keep in mind that while not looking ahead distracted drivers are known to drift, and all too often they drift into unnoticed bicyclists on shoulders or in bike lanes.

So you ride conspicuously to grab their attention so that they delay attending to their distraction until after they pass you. It's remarkable how well it works, but unless you try it you'd never know.

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SAVE YOUR LIFE: Know the bike-car crash types and how to avoid them

But distracted drivers are not closing their eyes. They're looking at their phone, or the radio or whatever. In their peripheral vision they see the lines on the road. If a car starts to come into view they will notice it because they are expecting it and purposely looking out for it. But with their peripheral vision able to at least partly take care of things, drivers are willing to take their full attention off the road for much longer periods of time.

Add to that the fact that when you are working at a task, your brain is searching for things that are relevant to the task at hand and filtering out those which it deems irrelevant. The book Deep Survival does a good job at explaining this. A classic recent example is that video of basketball players, where the viewer is asked to count how many times they pass the ball. While the players are passing the ball around, a guy in a gorilla suit slowly ambles across the field of view. The majority of people watching the video never notice the man in the gorilla suit. Their brain has been set at a task, and it is filtering out unnecessary information so it can be more accurate at the task it is trying to do. This is why people often just do not see cyclists.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Let's break down my lack of credibility.

Forge: "I said you don't have credibility with me because I don't know you, you are standing up for somebody who didn't have the balls to stand up for themselves and are defending actions I find disgusting."

Yes, you don't know me and I don't know you. But the simple fact that I don't know you doesn't mean that you lack credibility or have nothing to offer in a conversation. Personally, I enjoy hearing viewpoints from people I don't know. I often learn new things!

Forge: "I said you don't have credibility with me because I don't know you, you are standing up for somebody who didn't have the balls to stand up for themselves and are defending actions I find disgusting."

The best way I can respond to this is that while we may collectively be a bunch of idiots wasting our breath "debating" this on an Internet forum, there are many individuals who would prefer not to wade into our idiocy.

Forge: "I said you don't have credibility with me because I don't know you, you are standing up for somebody who didn't have the balls to stand up for themselves and are defending actions I find disgusting."

You weren't there and don't know this road or the issues that it presents. But you are comfortable pronouncing the rider's actions as "disgusting." I suppose we have reached an impasse on this one though. And to be clear, I wasn't there, and it is possible that the rider in question was acting out of character and decided to ride in traffic for no reason whatsoever. Just about anything is possible. But my intent here is simply to say that I know that stretch of road well and it presents issues. I think it is more likely than not that the cyclist was addressing those issues in good faith the best he could. Perhaps I just don't form ironclad opinions as easily as you do.

Now on to my "attack." Those who ride with me know I am a relentless wheelsucker, so being accused of an attack is almost a compliment. Let's see that compliment:

Forge: "Among your first post were attacks on whether somebody was local, when we here do know them to be local."

OK, hold on to your popcorn... here is the vicious attack in all its goriness:

Me: "Question to the OP: Are you from SoCal and do you ride "Hwy. 1 in Malibu" often? I ask this because there is not a single local rider that refers to this road as "Hwy. 1" - instead, it is universally referred to as "PCH" by local riders. BTW I am originally fron NorCal and this is one of those things that distinguishes the two regions, similar to the way those in SoCal say "the" before freeways while those in NorCal do not. E.g. "take the 101 to the 405" vs. "take 101 to 405."

I ask this not to suggest that an outsider's opinion is invalid, but instead to suggest that perhaps those that have logged thousands of miles on this road may have a certain set of experiences that result in their "taking the lane." And it is worth noting that PCH is a 4-lane road (2 lanes each direction), so as a driver you always have the ability to change lanes and move around and slower traffic occupying the right lane. Now reasonable minds can certainly differ on the proper use of PCH as a bicyclist, but here goes..."

I dunno, seems like a pretty weak "attack." Probably should stick to wheelsucking. If this came across as an attack, then perhaps my writing ability is as weak as my reading comprehension. Because my intent there was simply to establish that sometimes a cyclist who rides a certain stretch of local road many, many times, learns some things about that stretch of road that someone whizzing by in a car at 55mph doesn't get to see. It seems like a reasonable proposition to me. I even tried to soften any "Locals Only!" vibe by disclosing that I am originally from NorCal. You do know that NorCal folks who move to SoCal are basically viewed as treasonous, right? The North remembers.

Let me play out a hypothetical conversation that you and I might have if I criticized the way you were riding a road near your hometown:

Me: Hey Forge, I was driving outside ForgeTown and WTF, I saw you riding on Forge Way, 4-5ft out in the lane, when there was a perfectly good shoulder that you could have been riding in!
Forge: That shoulder has crap in it.
Me: C'mon, I saw it, looked nice and wide and open to me.
Forge: How many times have you ridden that section of Forge Way?
Me: Uhmmm, never.
Forge: Well, you know that little right hander at the bottom of the hill there?
Me: Uhmm, I don't remember it exactly, but yeah that sounds right.
Forge: Well, did you know that there is a Liposuction Clinic that caters to manorexic roadies right at the bottom of that hill, where the right hander begins?
Me: Uhmm, no. But I do know some guys that might be potential clients.
Forge: Well, did you know that 3 days a week, that clinic has a sewage pipe that dumps slimy lipo'd fat right onto the shoulder on that right hander?
Me: Dude, that sounds nasty.
Forge: Yeah, well trying to make that right hander when the shoulder is covered in greasy, slimy fat is more nasty. And you never know what days they're gonna dump that shit, so us locals always take the lane there to avoid it.
Me: Oh. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Forge: Yeah believe me, I wish I didn't have to take the lane there, but it's better than sliding out in a bunch of lipo'd body fat, ya know?
Me: Gotcha. Carry on.

In summary, if we were talking about a stretch of road with which you were quite familiar but I was not, I can assure you that I would grant you a fair measure of credibility when it came to your knowledge and experience riding that stretch of road.

Forge: "While I ultimately blame motorist for their bad behavior I blame people like you for people like me getting yelled at when I do ride on a bike route, I blame people like you when I get cans thrown at me, I blame people like you who honk at me because I'm on "their" road. I blame people like you for why I had to stop riding in San Antonio florida when I lived in the neighboring county."

You should come out (with Duffy!) and we can ride together. As long as I can wheelsuck of course. Because you'll see that I am the guy that waves cars through 4-way stops when they are expecting me to blow through my stop sign. When they insist that I go, I make eye contact and give them a big thumbs up. When a car makes extra room to pass me, I give them a smile and a thumbs up in case they are checking their rear-view mirror. Some rides, my thumb is pretty darn tired by the time I get home! I yell at fellow riders when they do dumb, unsafe stuff. I don't get yelled at too often myself but if I screw up (none of us are perfect), I expect to get called out for it. But overall, I actually have more positive interactions with motorists that negative ones. And that is here in LA, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of Road Rage.

It's almost Memorial Day Weekend. I hope the weather where you are is as nice as it is forecast to be here in LA and that you get to put in some nice miles this weekend, without incident. Duffy, Dan, Forge, we've got some great group rides you are all welcome to join. Even triathletes are welcome!

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

I do the vast majority of my cycling on the same road near where I live. It is a one lane in each direction road with a wide shoulder. The posted speed limit is 45, but most folks are driving 50-55. That is the flow of traffic normally. I always ride on the shoulder, and every week, I am passed by hundreds of cars with no interaction. We all go on our merry ways. I'm not bothering them, they're not bothering me. Is it your contention that I should instead be riding in the middle of the road, at 15-20 MPH, thereby forcing these cars to slow down until there is no traffic coming the other way, so that they can cross the double yellow line to pass me?

If so, how do you think my interaction with those cars would change in this scenario, and do you think this would benefit me and my fellow cyclists as far as how motorists relate to cyclists?

I specifically ride on this road because it has a wide shoulder. Yes, there is occasionally debris on the shoulder. I've never not been able to go around or over it. This same road, going in the opposite direction from my house, has no shoulder. I have ridden on it once in the last 8 years. The portion with the shoulder I have ridden on hundreds of times.

Edit to add: Not replying to MJuric (nice to see you out of the LR, by the way), but rather to Ninety5rpm.

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"Honestly, triathlon is a pussified version of duathlon on that final run."- Desert Dude

Anti-cyclist and pw'd. Next thing we'll find out is that you have the entire series of Mad About You on DVD.

Dang it, now why did you go and have to do that. Previously Duffy was the reasonable and kinda funny one in this thread and now you have to go and show that you too are kinda reasonable and not so bad on the funny either. Now I don't know who to hate :(

Given that set of facts, particularly the 15-20mph speed, I would ride on the shoulder 100 times out of 100. And from my thousands of miles of personal experience riding with the cyclist who is the subject of this thread, so would he. Unless, of course, he has gone insane from malnourishment since I last saw him trying to make race weight for his next big race.

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

If being married to a woman who green lighted a "take me whenever you want" policy with me is being pussy whipped, well, crack crack!

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Hate us both! Because concluding that two people can each perceive and process the same situation and reach different conclusions, each of which has some semblance of reasoning and rationality, is patently un-'Merican (at least presently).

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

I am posting this only because (1) Dan has charged me with increasing Unique Visitor Traffic and Repeat Visitors while minimizing Bounce Rate and (2) quite coincidentally (really, I promise!) this just showed up in my FB feed:

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

I didn't read your last post because I'm done with you. I don't think I can make any more clear why I think about you the way. Have a nice day.

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

Respect is recognizing that bicyclists have the same rights to the roadway as do motorists, per CVC 21200. Just like slow moving motorists, slow moving bicyclists are required to use the right hand lane (per 21654). Just like slow moving motorists on two lane roads with five or more behind, slow moving bicyclists are required to use turnouts in those situations (per 21656). PCH is not a two lane highway.

A bicyclist in the slow lane is normal and reasonable traffic. There is nothing wrong or disrespectful about it. Bicyclists are never required to use shoulders. If they would rather ride there they are allowed, but bicyclists are never under any obligation, legal, moral or otherwise, to ride on a shoulder. Can you respect that on your two-way street?

Change lanes to pass. It's not difficult. It's not unsafe. And it's not disrespectful for slow moving traffic, including bicyclists, to use the slow lane and to expect faster traffic to use the other lanes to pass. #Traffic101

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SAVE YOUR LIFE: Know the bike-car crash types and how to avoid them

Hate bill and ninety5. Reft has been reasonable through most of the thread. Those other guys are apparently social justice bike warriors and their rights will not be denied!

Thanks.

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"Honestly, triathlon is a pussified version of duathlon on that final run."- Desert Dude

teekona wrote:

I do the vast majority of my cycling on the same road near where I live. It is a one lane in each direction road with a wide shoulder. The posted speed limit is 45, but most folks are driving 50-55. That is the flow of traffic normally. I always ride on the shoulder, and every week, I am passed by hundreds of cars with no interaction. We all go on our merry ways. I'm not bothering them, they're not bothering me. Is it your contention that I should instead be riding in the middle of the road, at 15-20 MPH, thereby forcing these cars to slow down until there is no traffic coming the other way, so that they can cross the double yellow line to pass me?

No.

On a two lane road with a good shoulder like that I would use a technique called control and release. That is, I would ride in the traffic lane by default, during gaps in traffic, but I would move aside onto the shoulder to release that traffic when faster traffic approached from behind, and it was safe to temporarily move aside. Of course, as soon as the pack has passed, I would move back into the traffic lane to my default position.

Definition:
http://iamtraffic.org/glossary/control-and-release/


One of the original pieces on it, from 2009 by Mighk Wilson:
https://bighkin.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/give-and-take-control-and-release/

In most suburban areas traffic is regulated by traffic signals and tends to arrive in packs with fairly long gaps in between. If you're always on the shoulder you're likely not paying much attention to that. The gaps are probably longer than you realize.

If it's truly a constant stream that's a different story, but that would be highly unusual, even at commute times.

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SAVE YOUR LIFE: Know the bike-car crash types and how to avoid them

I didn't come here via that blog. I don't really read that blog very often -- only occasionally when someone points out a good one. His post about this incident was not a good one.He's not my buddy and I didn't say any of those things.All I've discussed is the merits of this incident.I didn't read the blog post until I saw a link to it from this thread.