Why I am no longer a cyclist
 

I just read this article and can relate a lot to the author. His story is a lot like mine except that I have not, and dont think that I ever will, give up riding. However, it raises some key points on the difficulties we all face.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...9607?p=1&tc=pg

I can relate, and many of those reasons drove me to stop riding motorcycles. BUT they will have to remove my bikes from cold dead hands because there is no way I will ever give up cycling.

I agree with you. The exercise and fresh air really help me but if I have a bad interaction with a driver it tends to ruin my day.

The guy that is the author of the article, in the OP's link, is the kind of commuter I hate. I know that is a strong word to use. But if you will notice in the article, he not only gave up on cycling. He did a complete 180, going out and buying an SUV.

I also, never feel after a ride, like I want to give it up, as my transportation.

Sure, I will encounter a 'close pass', daily.

But did it ever occur to anyone, despite all the laws regarding distance when passing a cyclist, that a motorist can only guess the distance from the other side of the car. Also, I 'take the lane', consistently. I don't 'hug the curb'. So, I am letting motorists' know I won't be bullied off the road.

Because, In countries where people drive on the right side of the road, their car has the steering wheel on the left side of the car. In countries where people drive on the left side of the road, have the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

In both those situations, a motorist has to mentally gauge the distance, since they cannot look on the opposite side of the passenger-side door, in order to see the distance at which they are passing a cyclist.

I understand his feelings. But I disagree with them.

Do you disagree with his feelings, as in, why does he feel that way? Or, do you disagree with the solution that he has chosen in order to deal with his feelings? Sorry to be picky, I am just curious.

Remember though, that this guy is in California. I don't know if you've ever been there, but I was born there and finally fled in 1996. I've been back because of family a handful of times and I wouldn't ride in traffic with the ******bags that drive in California. It's wild enough in a car, let alone a bicycle.

I grew up in Sacramento CA myself and have toured the entirety of the west coast. I think CA has more insane drivers but they still do not make up the majority. The nice thing about CA though is that most towns have relatively good bicycle infrastructure compared to other states I have been, or Michigan, where I am now.

The whole move to SUV's was because lots of drivers felt safer in a larger vehicle. Not only are they less at risk in an accident with a smaller car - they're less at risk of being bullied on the road. If car drivers can feel like that - I find it pretty easy to understand how a bike rider might feel like that.

It sounds as if extreme paranoia and fear overpowered his main motivations for cycling which was higher gas prices and trying to live green...Now he says he feels safer in his 3000 pounds box of steel ??.. He may feel safer but is he happier ?? .It almost looks like that guy ended up with PTSD from too many negative encounters with bad drivers.

I really think it's everyplace now in the city's just not in CA. People today, it's all about me and I'm in a hurry so why are you in my way? It sucks! :notamused:I can't tell you how many times a driver has looked me right in my eye and then came right for me.:eek: Their is so many of them that just don't care anymore.

So you have to ride like everyone is out to run you over to be safe. :-( Is that going to make turn to commuting in a SUV, NO-WAY! That would be letting them win. I'm free and I'm going to stay that way.:D

I suspect he's never even been a cyclist.

This article is a great reminder to those of us who regularly commute by bike. The main reason most people do not commute by bike is because they don't feel safe.

That's why we should be advocating for protected lanes.

Boris Johnson, the ultimate libertarian mayor of England, is funding separated bike lanes in a big way.

I wonder if the day will ever come, in Canada and the US, where cycling is seen as a valid and worthy method of transportation to both reduce carbon emissions and congestion. Enough for separated lanes to be built throughout the city.

Not holding my breath, but I can always dream.

Segregated bike lanes are nice, but something more than that is required. That 'something more' is a design that serves to make traveling by car much less easy and attractive than getting around by bike. Here's a very interesting article on a town designed to get around on by bike, but the effort to get folks out and cycling failed!

http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/stevenage/

I think the author feels a false sense of security

3,000 pounds of steel coffin are still coffins for thousands of people a year in the US alone.

I can relate to the frustrations he writes about. I'm sure there are thousands just like him who would love to get on a bike and ride more but don't because of the real/perceived dangers associated with cycling.

I have found that articles like this (in the OP) and even moreso the comments afterwards irk me more than the real life challenges on the road.
YMMV

I'm a local to the area where the article writer lives, and I am dumbfounded. Other then a few truly rural cities in the area there are some pretty safe routes across the entire county, complete with bike lanes for most of them. I ride cross county at least once a week if I can help it, I think this is more of someone with a possible knee jerk reaction, he only came to cycling because of 4 dollar gas, and then ran away once he perceived too many "close calls", although I would imagine the hand smack might rattle any of us, but as little as I like to place blame on cyclists, the first thing I do when turning left or moving to a left lane, even before signalling is to check the lane(s) behind me before taking action.
It should be noted, Amgen comes through here, people literally take vacation time to come ride their bikes out here as well. The comments on the article I was pleased to note motorists who finger point rather then simply read and accept were in the minority which is often not the case with the local news here either, surprisingly.

The author makes a number of unwarranted assumptions:

1. He assumes that driving a car is safer than riding a bike. This is unproven, and likely untrue. Remember, feeling safe is not the same as being safe. I don't think anybody has ever presented data that convincingly compares injury and fatality rates.
2. He doesn't recognize the link between his cycling style and his safety. He might be a reckless, confrontational cyclist--and driver, for that matter. Certainly two people can ride the same route, and one can be constantly "harassed" by motorists, while the other enjoys a safe and peaceful ride. My opinion is that rider personality is a more important variable than geographic location when it comes to being harassed by motorists.
3. The author may be naive or obstinate when it comes to choosing routes. It sounds like he does a lot of riding on high speed, multi-lane highways. There are probably alternate parallel routes that would provide a saner cycling experience. Some riders don't know this. Others feel they must take the difficult route to prove that "bikes belong on the road."

Like the guy in the article, I started riding again when gas hit $4.07.

I think that in my area I am enough of a novelty that drivers are more astonished, than annoyed at my presence on the road.

I also find that in the winter, folks tend to give me a lot more room than in the summer (tourist season).

Those are lot of bold assumptions not having any of the actual details from the OP's story.

1) What would you rather be in if say for example a car traveling 40 mph lost control and was on a collision course with you, stopped just 25 feet ahead of them, a car or a road bike? In this example what do you think would be the safer option?

2) Out of your two cyclists, if one is a good defensive cyclist, what proof can you bring to the table that clearly illustrates that the defensive cyclist will not get harassed or hit by a car? Drivers, their actions, decisions, whims, their vehicle, and even road conditions are all factors that a cyclist, and sometimes even the driver have no control over so please try and factor that into your cycling style = safety equation.

3) Even if this were the case, did you stop to think that maybe this is the only way the OP could get to work? For me, there are only 2 routes for me to commute by bicycle to work and they are both multiple lane highways. There are no side roads, back roads, trails, dirt paths, private property, nothing that I can take to get around this. Perhaps the OP faces the same situation? There may be other routes for the OP but the route they take may be for a very good reason.

Sorry, but to accuse the OP of making some unwarranted assumptions when you do not even have all the facts and in turn are making your own assumptions, is absurd.

Not only that -- by the end of his piece, when he says "And thank goodness no one will ever have to tell my kids, 'He was run over by a texter,'” he seems to have convinced himself that being in his SUV will exempt him from the possibility of getting killed by another motorist.

I think you have touched on or even fleshed out what Roody and Elkdog were saying. My first knee jerk reaction was to say he never was a cyclist with the idea that a cyclist loves to cycle. But from both reading the article and the responses of some here I decided it was more that he was a reactionary to things around him. He thought he could fight the things that bothered him about high gas prices and a carbon footprint simply by imitating a cyclist without understanding the limitations or challenges that it would involve. When the challenges exceeded his perceived rewards he simply reverted to what he knew. It is what happens when people make decissions for political or emotional reasons and discover those reasons aren't everything they are cracked up to be. When they revert they are almost worse off then they were when they started.

Being a cyclist in the context of this forum invloves more than riding a bike. It involves a change in attitude and a learning process. At least I think it does.

By the way, AMGEN will be coming by my little Hamlet on Stage 2 this year. I plan on riding to a good viewing vantage point half way up the mountain to watch.

The fact is that drivers are becoming careless, not obeying even the simplest of rules that apply, and are feeling superior to bikers for whatever f*cked up reason. The bike lane exists for a reason. SO DO RULES. Every time someone gets killed, cyclists become more and more wary, but drivers become more aggressive it seems.

If anything, this will spark a movement to force drivers to share the lane with bikers. .While Lance Armstrong and his team isn't exactly helping with bikers' reputations, a biased thought from a driver that all bikers are dopers will send hundreds of bikers to the hospital or worse, the grave. The drivers, if biased by that thought, are the careless, hopeless, reckless, selfish, arrogant, ignorant, and damned ones.

It's a shame no drivers will read this thread...

Josh

He is correct in that riding on the streets can be intimidating and dangerous. But despite being rear-ended by a car, bike-jacked, shot, threatened with arrest by an officer of the law, intentionally run into, pushed into traffic, and grabbed with the intention of bringing me down, I'm still on the streets and ride calmly in the present. It will take a lot to take away my bicycling.