How do you protect yourself on two wheels?

Lumen

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Nil Carborundum Illegitimi

Nothing grinds bastards?

Type 17

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”?

(Nil illegitimus corborandum)

droidus

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Any advice on dealing with two lane roadways?

I take the Finglas Rd. In each direction it has a bus lane, a driving lane and a mainly footpath mounted cycle lane of poor quality with a number of places where you are exposed to crossing traffic.

I took the bus lane for some time. Vehicles routinely squeeze past with inches to spare. If they can't pass they beep, pass on the outside lane and then swing back in with their rear ends sweeping towards me so i have to swerve to avoid them. Complaints to Dublin Bus about its drivers doing this are simply ignored.

I ended up using the cycle lane but it's less than ideal and I feel like an accident on it is only a matter of time. Is there anything I can do to safely use the bus lane?

I had a similar experience and changed my route to go round Hart's corner/Botanic road/Glasnevin hill. Slightly longer route but much quieter and less perilous. Might be worth trying if at all possible.

Alternatively, stay on the cycle paths when going uphill out of Tolka Valley and take the lane when going downhill in the bus lane.

blackbox

Crock Rock wrote: »

I got into cycling lately after being an absolute prick of a man towards our two-wheeled friends beforehand. I have seen the error of my ways and have repented. I hope all is forgiven :pac:

• I wear a high-vis (I know this is a touchy subject, but I just feel safer. I'm not trying to persuade others to do so.
• I have a light front and back which are on always, even at daylight.
• I wear a helmet.
• I'm thinking of investing in a cheap camera.

I'm a regular driver and an occasional cyclist - mostly in rural areas and in daylight. From my experience as a driver I wouldn't feel as safe cycling (or walking) without a hi-vis vest on country roads,

I personally think the type of bike makes a difference to my safety. I believe that I have much better all round vision when cycling an upright type bike rather than a racer with dropped handlebars - albeit at the expense of greater wind resistance at higher speeds (or lower speeds for the same effort). Obviously if you're cycling competitively a racer is a no-brainer.

CrankyHaus

droidus wrote: »

I had a similar experience and changed my route to go round Hart's corner/Botanic road/Glasnevin hill. Slightly longer route but much quieter and less perilous. Might be worth trying if at all possible.

Alternatively, stay on the cycle paths when going uphill out of Tolka Valley and take the lane when going downhill in the bus lane.

Thanks, alternate routes is an obvious one that I just didn't think of. I had a look just now. The best in terms of distance is to take the Royal Canal Way from Summerhill to just past Broombridge. Does anyone know what condition this route is in and how many scaldies need to be dodged on it?

Skrynesaver

I prefer the North Circular, Belvedere Place and Whitworth Rd and then on to the canal or versa vice.

From there it's fine in the winter but starts to get a bit off putting as the sun comes out and flagon weather is upon us, that said, I've never had any grief on that stretch.

The surface is fine until the railway bridge before Broombridge station when it starts to get a little bumpy but once you cross the old Ratoath rd the surface is grand again.

Lumen

Type 17 wrote: »

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”?

(Nil illegitimus corborandum)

Notwithstanding the irony of debating mock latin, that would be "Illegitimi non carborundum". Nil = nothing, non = not.

CramCycle

Lumen wrote: »

Notwithstanding the irony of debating mock latin, that would be "Illegitimi non carborundum". Nil = nothing, non = not.

While we are at it, carborundum is not Latin AFAIK

tomasrojo

It has its own Wikipedia page,of course:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum

Taxuser1

Crock Rock wrote: »

I got into cycling lately after being an absolute prick of a man towards our two-wheeled friends beforehand. I have seen the error of my ways and have repented. I hope all is forgiven :pac:

• I wear a high-vis (I know this is a touchy subject, but I just feel safer. I'm not trying to persuade others to do so.
• I have a light front and back which are on always, even at daylight.
• I wear a helmet.
• I'm thinking of investing in a cheap camera.

Everyone is giving advice on what to do on the road but can you actually ride a bike safely? Should you be near a road?

What I mean is, can you look left or right behind you without wobbling off course. Can you clip in without looking down. How's your balance?

If you're new to cycling maybe for your own sake work on your bike skill. You could start with figures of 8s in your estate or an industrial park. Or practice moving off safely , clipping in, clipping out, looking back, taking a cycling bottle out, taking food out, switching a bottle between hands, placing a bottle down. Have you cycled in the dark?

tomasrojo

Taxuser1 wrote: »

Everyone is giving advice on what to do on the road but can you actually ride a bike safely? Should you be near a road?

What I mean is, can you look left or right behind you without wobbling off course. Can you clip in without looking down. How's your balance?

If you're new to cycling maybe for your own sake work on your bike skill. You could start with figures of 8s in your estate or an industrial park. Or practice moving off safely , clipping in, clipping out, looking back, taking a cycling bottle out, taking food out, switching a bottle between hands, placing a bottle down. Have you cycled in the dark?

I have to say, I assumed the OP was primarily a commuting cyclist so I didn't really think of bottles and clipless pedals and all that.

Taxuser1

tomasrojo wrote: »

I have to say, I assumed the OP was primarily a commuting cyclist so I didn't really think of bottles and clipless pedals and all that.

Bottles were mentioned in the context of practicing balance on a bike, commuting or otherwise. it's a brilliant exercise to focus on keeping a straight line while multitasking or being distracted.

tomasrojo

Fair enough. I thought you were envisioning the OP training and doing long spins or something like that. To be fair, maybe that's what he or she has in mind.

Lumen

blackbox wrote: »

I'm a regular driver and an occasional cyclist - mostly in rural areas and in daylight. From my experience as a driver I wouldn't feel as safe cycling (or walking) without a hi-vis vest on country roads,

Bike lights are much more useful than hi vis when walking on a country road at night, as they can be bounced off the road surface so that you can be seen around corners.

tomasrojo

Lumen wrote: »

Bike lights are much more useful than hi vis when walking on a country road at night, as they can be bounced off the road surface so that you can be seen around corners.

Especially now we basically can have hand-held photon-cannons.

Here, I got you a jacket with some reflective stripes.
Now you have $300 million and 70.

Crock Rock

Taxuser1 wrote: »

Everyone is giving advice on what to do on the road but can you actually ride a bike safely? Should you be near a road?

What I mean is, can you look left or right behind you without wobbling off course. Can you clip in without looking down. How's your balance?

Of course I can Why wouldn't I be able to?

tomasrojo wrote: »

I have to say, I assumed the OP was primarily a commuting cyclist so I didn't really think of bottles and clipless pedals and all that.

Nope, just a leisure cyclist, my commute to work is 21 km (a good chunk of which is on a motorway). It'd take a while to build up the level of fitness to do that journey.

Crock Rock

I started wearing a high-vis recently. Here's why. I was cycling on a roundabout close to where I live, it's a bitch of a roundabout where cars "cut the corners" of the roundabout if you know what I mean :P
Basically, cars in the right lane seem (for some reason) sometimes to swerve into the left lane and cars in the left lane swerve into the hard shoulder.

I was cycling in the hard shoulder. It's hard to miss a 171 cm, 71 kg man with a blue helmet and strong LEDs front and back in a white t-shirt. It was during the day btw.

A car swerved into the hard shoulder as I was in it and clipped with the wing mirrors against my handlebars and I wobbled. I regained my balance. A girl in her early 20's immediately behind pulled in to see if I was OK and offered to put the bike in her boot and drive me wherever I was going. So happy for the offer but I was happy to continue cycling and thanked her profusely for coming to my aid.

At work the next day I told the story at the breakfast table, there were 6 other people at the table. One of them asked "did you have your high vis on?", I said "No". He replied, "Well, you would have been seen and they wouldn't have entered the hard shoulder if you were wearing a high vis". I tried to argue that drivers always swerve in and out and lazily use the roundabout, but others at the table just kept nodding and agreeing with him saying, "yeah, you should have had your high vis".

No matter how much I insisted that they should be holding their own lane, wouldn't sink in. They said if I was hit, it would be considered a mitigating factor in court and the judge would rule in favour of the driver or at the very most 50:50. So I started wearing a high vis.


Here's the round about. Can someone with better knowledge of how things work embed the image please?

I was at the first lamppost that you can see immediately on the left.

https://goo.gl/maps/2LuosDNCgxj

tomasrojo

Well, you would have been seen and they wouldn't have entered the hard shoulder if you were wearing a high vis

Plenty of people wearing hi-viz are hit by drivers. What statistical evidence there is doesn't strongly support the idea that your chances of being in a collision are lower if you wear hi-viz(*).

I would say that, were I in your position, given your difficulties with this roundabout, I'd change my route to exclude the roundabout, rather than how I dress.

Maybe it's not practical, but if a roundabout is that bad, I would stop using it.

(*) Your colleagues are probably right that if there were a legal case consequent to you having a collision, how you were dressed would be brought up. But wearing hi-viz, helmets, spinal protection, robot exoskeleton, whatever, just means they move on to the next concocted reason as to why it's your fault that a driver can't see what's right in front of him in daylight.

tomasrojo

(If this turns into a tributary of the mighty Hi-viz Mississippi, I apologise in advance.)

magicbastarder

that roundabout is known to several boardsies. i suspect they will have advice on how to approach it.

but your experience does remind me of the (rather trite, but still funny) observation that being a cyclist is like being a woman.
if you get in trouble, people will say you are to blame because of what you were wearing, and you must have done something to bring the misfortune on yourself.

CramCycle

You already explained to your colleagues, broad daylight, lights etc. Hi Vis in this scenario would categorically have made no difference. As for the "mitigating" factor stuff, IMO, it gets brought up in cases where the victim did not have it and ignored in cases where they did have it. It's a red herring by legal eagles, Nothing more.
It says alot about your colleagues if their first reaction was, were you wearing Hi Vis rather than, are you okay? If they didn't see you as you described, they were never seeing you. You colleague sounds like an imbecile or a sheep.

cdaly_

Crock Rock wrote: »

I started wearing a high-vis recently. Here's why. I was cycling on a roundabout close to where I live, it's a bitch of a roundabout where cars "cut the corners" of the roundabout if you know what I mean :P
Basically, cars in the right lane seem (for some reason) sometimes to swerve into the left lane and cars in the left lane swerve into the hard shoulder.

I was cycling in the hard shoulder. It's hard to miss a 171 cm, 71 kg man with a blue helmet and strong LEDs front and back in a white t-shirt. It was during the day btw.

A car swerved into the hard shoulder as I was in it and clipped with the wing mirrors against my handlebars and I wobbled. I regained my balance. A girl in her early 20's immediately behind pulled in to see if I was OK and offered to put the bike in her boot and drive me wherever I was going. So happy for the offer but I was happy to continue cycling and thanked her profusely for coming to my aid.

At work the next day I told the story at the breakfast table, there were 6 other people at the table. One of them asked "did you have your high vis on?", I said "No". He replied, "Well, you would have been seen and they wouldn't have entered the hard shoulder if you were wearing a high vis". I tried to argue that drivers always swerve in and out and lazily use the roundabout, but others at the table just kept nodding and agreeing with him saying, "yeah, you should have had your high vis".

No matter how much I insisted that they should be holding their own lane, wouldn't sink in. They said if I was hit, it would be considered a mitigating factor in court and the judge would rule in favour of the driver or at the very most 50:50. So I started wearing a high vis.


Here's the round about. Can someone with better knowledge of how things work embed the image please?

I was at the first lamppost that you can see immediately on the left.

https://goo.gl/maps/2LuosDNCgxj

In the context of that roundabout, travelling north, I would occupy the centre of the left lane right up to the point where it straightens out and would then cut left into the hard shoulder. There is a pedestrian underpass at that roundabout also but I'm not clear on whether it goes where you want to.

OTOH, to avoid that roundabout, you could consider going one road west starting from Swords main street and heading north on Balheary road.

Crock Rock

Thanks for all the contributions here.


Another colleague of mine is an experienced cyclist. He said I just need to work on my confidence and that I should "take the lane or use the lane". I can't remember his exact phrase, he basically tells me that I should assert myself and cycle in the centre of the lane, rather than on the edge of it to prevent myself being passed too closely.

tomasrojo

Crock Rock wrote: »

Thanks for all the contributions here.


Another colleague of mine is an experienced cyclist. He said I just need to work on my confidence and that I should "take the lane or use the lane". I can't remember his exact phrase, he basically tells me that I should assert myself and cycle in the centre of the lane, rather than on the edge of it to prevent myself being passed too closely.

There's a lot in Cyclecraft, the book discussed earlier in the thread, about correct road positioning and taking the lane.

Again though, avoiding the roundabout altogether, if it's practical, would be better.

Multilane roundabouts and high-velocity slip roads are the work of the devil.

I'm not dismissing the importance of road positioning though. It is very helpful. But it does carry a different risk, which is the motorist going bananas with you for not keeping left and for "cycling in the middle of the road". So I'd try to find a route where "taking the lane" isn't a major feature.

07Lapierre

Crock Rock wrote: »

Thanks for all the contributions here.


Another colleague of mine is an experienced cyclist. He said I just need to work on my confidence and that I should "take the lane or use the lane". I can't remember his exact phrase, he basically tells me that I should assert myself and cycle in the centre of the lane, rather than on the edge of it to prevent myself being passed too closely.

Your friend is correct. As you arrive at the roundabout, you need to be in the middle of the left lane. Stay in the centre of the lane as you go around the roundabout and gradually move to the left as you exit the roundabout.

If you can do this "at pace", drivers behind you won't get as frustrated, but they won't like it and you could end up as the subject of a YouTube video as an example of a "bloody cyclist cycling in the middle of the road!" enjoy your 15 minutes of fame!

Saw an older man this evening I encounter now and again on his bike when I was out with the dog do a text book example of this. Not a big roundabout single lane entry and little traffic at that time of night but shoulder check and middle of the lane he went about 25-30 meters from it car that came up behind had no issue with him and treated him like another car waiting at the roundabout.

100% down to experience.

The 2 lane entries are f'n **** show though, and I am always switched on navigating them even in the car. Combination of people not using them correctly, not indicating or just being feckless.

Taxuser1

Crock Rock wrote: »

Of course I can Why wouldn't I be able to?





Nope, just a leisure cyclist, my commute to work is 21 km (a good chunk of which is on a motorway). It'd take a while to build up the level of fitness to do that journey.

Lots of cyclists think they're great cyclists, yet can't master the basics. Your thread starts with how you can be safer. starting point is look to your own skills first, then your presence on the road. I've no idea of you can look behind you whilst not moving off your line. I don't know if you look first before indicating which way you are going to move. Maybe you can. Plenty cannot and I've the same type of commute which shows me this daily. By motorway did you mean dual carriageway?