On the bike again.

[sailfish]

I have been back on my old 70s bike for a few weeks now just general exercise and health, doing about 32 km ever 2nd or 3rd day. Dam it’s got dangerous on the roads now, nearly got wiped out on Friday. Some 4WD driver came up on my right, I just saw the fender when he took a left turn left into the side street. I was about level with his front fender at the time and doing just over 20 kmph intending to go straight ahead. If I hadn’t been able to react in time and go around with him, I’d be dead now. I can’t believe a driver can come up behind a cyclist in bright daylight and not see them. Is this attempted murder with a motor vehicle or what?

I am a car driver too and try to be as considerate as possible when on the bike but every ride sees incidents like this. Some drivers are clearly deliberately intimidating cyclists, running us off the road, trying to clip the handlebars when passing. Well I will just have to get in everyone’s way all the time from now on to stop the moron minority playing with my life.

Forget the long L and P plate periods, make them ride a bicycle for 3 years before they can go for a car licence I say.
Maybe setup a bike cam so the police can identify these idiots.


Ken

[tastrax]

slap one of these on your helmet

http://contour.com/

Of course there are also some bike riders that need to learn a few lessons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDAYkdlKEGI

[ninjapuppet]

And people think alpine or big wall rock climbing is dangerous???

Road cycling scares the living daylights out of me. Despite having many friends dragging me along for a ride, I refuse to get a road bike for this very reason.

Has the tour de france got anything to with your recent motivation boost?

[sailfish]

Of course it works both ways but most cyclists are also motorists so see both sides of it.

The thing that gets me is I was maintaining a little over 20 kmph. That’s 5.5 m/s so in 1 second I would have cleared his turn which means, this fellow has tried to kill me for the sake of 1 second and this isn’t a metro area, it’s the village of Eglinton outside Bathurst.

My motivation is purely health related. I have never taken the least notice of the tour de France, don’t race and never have.


Ken

[GD4Up]

Rode to work today as well - moisture from the fog accumulated on the jacket and turned to a light coating of ice... is it summer yet?

[MartyGwynne]

Hey its scary out there at times and you are in tassie where people and polite and have road manners - try melbourne drivers.
I have given up riding my road bike now just because of that. I only ride my Mtn bike now and frequently stand up on it to make myself more visible (a bit like a cat fronting up to danger).
Marty

[whatevermortal]

I ride in Melbourne daily and do long extended tours around Vic often and yeah it can be dangerous out there, but mainly in the cbd and it's surrounds. I've ben cut off in every way possible and my partner recently went over the bonnet of a SUV. Still, I'd rather be cycling than driving and public transport drives me insane. I've found country victoria to be quite welcoming, people have always given me plenty of space when passing etc.. mostly that is true around Australia, the only exception I've encountered was riding between Launceston and Deloraine last year, that was hell.