Funny thing happened

John_Rambo

I'm a careful driver, & as an ex commuter cyclist I'm hyper aware & always give cyclists lots of room (you'll see by my past posts I'm pro cycling). Last Saturday I went to Howth to get fish. On the way home we went over the hill of Howth (in the car with the family). We were descending on the Carrickbrack road & we came across a cyclist on a road bike, he was going pretty fast so we hung back for about 2k & admired the fast cycling, the cool bike etc... There's a stretch of the road that is an incline & the biker slowed down significantly, I indicated and overtook giving him at least three metres room, I was 100% in the right hand opposing lane with no traffic ahead of me. I didn't pull back in to the lane till I was about 30 metres ahead of him and travelling considerably faster than him... All good.

Got down to Sutton cross and I stopped in traffic leaving a gap (two car lengths) in front of me as a motorist was exiting a premises on the right. The cyclist filtered by me on the left, pulled up & stopped in the middle of the lane in front of me, turned around and gave us a filthy look, mouthed something rude, raised his hand in exasperation, shook his head slowly and proceeded on, still shaking his head. He didn't see the car trying to exit the premises on the right and that motorist didn't pull out or anything, he was just looking at the cyclist, waiting for him to move on.

I can't for the life of me work out what I did wrong. Anyone have an idea? Was it one of you people by any chance, can you tell me what I did wrong?

Luxman

My first thought was that maybe he was aware that you were behind him for 2k. Depending at that speed maybe he thought you should have overtaken at a sooner opportunity. Although you thought there wasn’t an opportunity to do so safely. I know the road well and would prefer not to have a car behind for that distance. Just my observation.

CramCycle

By the sounds of it you done nothing wrong, sometimes people either see issues when there aren't any, and sometimes they are just angry. Nothing you can do about it.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120143994#Comment_120143994

That did cross my mind, but I held back a good bit, not on his tail, a good 30 metres from him, but yeah, I was on electric but there would have been tyre noise, someone creeping behind may be an issue and he may have preferred if I overtook earlier but he was hitting 50kph easily and I didn't want to carry out a high speed overtake.

*it was very windy, a proper gusty South Westerly so he was getting buffeted and that was one of the reasons I felt he needed space. He was (rightly) taking the lane for most of the descent.

I can't work it out. But I'd love to know what the issue was & correct myself.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144009#Comment_120144009

Maybe he was having a bad day, or mistook me for someone else (unlikely).

T-Maxx

If John Rambo was following me I'd also freak out.

FWIW, I wouldn't like a car sitting behind me for 2k. It's unnerving for a cyclist even if the motorist is being very respectful. Then again, with some cyclists you can never win as they will always find something to give out about.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120147802#Comment_120147802

If you don't like a car sitting behind you, just slow down for a bit and let them on their way.

Some cyclists are not the best judges as to when is best time to overtake.

Flinty997

Had a cyclist give me an earful one day in town. I was completely baffled as I'd not passed a cyclist to that point. As a cyclist is be more aware when driving.

Pulled into my destination and parked beside an identical car with only one digit difference on the number plate. Car was special edition fairly distinctive . Over the next couple of years we had lots of people say they saw our car somewhere we hadn't been locally.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120147802#Comment_120147802

He was moving fast, over 40kph, the speed limit is 60kph, it wasn’t safe to pass until he significantly slowed down.

Flinty997

Who knows. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120147903#Comment_120147903

The cyclist was only doing 40kph which is not very fast on a descent. Even halving the speed is not going to make much difference and will probably just force a pass.

I used to pull over into lay-bys when I started out when I felt I was holding people up but when you do that a few times you realise fairly quickly you are putting your own life at risk to keep others from getting angry.

The converse is the extremely thoughtful driver - often a cyclist themselves - who sits back and doesn't attempt to pass for several minutes. They think they are helping but they really aren't.

Either way, hard to know here. Could just as well have been an uppety cyclist and God knows there are plenty of those on the roads.

magicbastarder

i'd often hit about 60 on the descent down carrickbrack (especially past the cemetery, where you need to be judicious at speed); but if someone sat behind me for the whole descent, that's their prerogative and i wouldn't really have much of a second thought about it, as long as they kept a safe distance.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120149217#Comment_120149217

As stated he was travelling over 40kph, sometimes hitting 60kph & 100% taking the lane. Speed limit is €60 & there were a strong onshore gusts. I'm a good judge of speed & distance, have driven all over the world & felt it would be risky to overtake at those speeds. However, when the cyclist slowed down I overtook safely.

Don't forget 2 kilometres is a very short time at those speeds, a couple of minutes at most.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120148373#Comment_120148373

I won't! I'm not overly concerned, I'd just love to know what the perceived slight was after all the efforts to do the right things!

Flinty997

Lots of crazy people out there.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120149498#Comment_120149498

Well, it sounds like you did all the right things in that case. No point in worrying about it if you are confident there was no issue on your side.