mr_bill

NOOOO! Post more, post WAY MORE. Beat that horse, over and over and over and over and over....

-mr. bill

genec

So, stay 12-14 feet out, eh? Ah yes, back to the same old thing. Good luck with that.

livedarklions

The safe distances should be measured in counties.

mr_bill

Be fair.

Though someday when there is a thread bemoning the death of the coronovirus forum, someone will be remembered for insisting that safe social distance is three acres.

-mr. bill

livedarklions

Contrails of death!

Miele Man

Stay however far out that you need to in order to avoid the door zone. It's that simple. Far simpler than trying to measure your distance in traffic. LOL

Cheers

mr_bill

Simple?

Whenever I ride out of the door zone, someone will claim I'm going to die because the DOOR ZONE goes WAY OVER THERE!

OK, still that's not completely fair. Whenever I ride on a MUP (zero doors) someone will claim that I'm going to die because, well, MUP, duh.

Still not fair. Whenever I take the lane, some VCer will claim that I'm going to die because, well, I'm in the wrong position in the lane (which is either the right tire track, left tire track, the center of the lane, the "driver's position," or some other mythical place on the road.)

Or that I will die if my DEFAULT position is not in the three inch perfect line on the pavement where all is well, all is well, all is well.

Or I will die since I'm not COMMUNICATING with traffic (directing traffic) around me, because EVERYONE understands the happless arm and hand waving.

AND OF COURSE I WILL DIE BY RIGHT HOOK! OR SIDEWALKS! OR DRIVEWAYS!

And whatever I do, ALWAYS MIRROR, or I will die. NEVER MIRROR, or I will die.

Bottom line. Cycling is simultaneously so safe yet so many messiahs come here to save us from all these DANGERS!

And each messiah argues with all the other messiahs that they are the one true messiah.

We heathens will die if we don’t ride EXACTLY as the one true messiah says so.

Why did this "VC thread" die?

Yes.

-mr. bill

flangehead

Explains why VC was a subforum.


Apologies to Alfred E. Neuman

livedarklions

See the forum below where the house sport is for messiahs to argue about the "real" cause of death of cyclists based on their interpretations of five words in a news story.

AlmostTrick

pcook489

Mr Bill speaks the truth. Think what you want, do what you can, live with the consequences.

pcook489

I can't believe it's been over a month without any comment/new post. Millennial's....

holytrousers

the law should give cyclists the right to use the whole lane. no car can safely overtake a bike on the same lane. vehicular cycling is so obvious i don't understand what are the other approaches.. and bike lanes should simply be considered narrower lanes..

livedarklions

Last point first, VC advocates didn't want bike lanes at all, and that was probably the final nail in the coffin of VC.

As to the rest of your post, given the skills of the average rider in the US, that would put an effective speed limit of about 15 mph on most roads in the US. I do a lot of my riding in a state where bicyclists have the right to take the lane at any time, and you almost never see anyone do it outside of the turn lane situations. Basically, no one seems to want to ride with a bunch of angry drivers piling up behind them.

holytrousers

thanks for explaining it to me. it's a complex issue, but from my own experience, it definitely is safer when i take the whole lane and consciously expose myself forcing the drivers to slow down than to delude myself thinking i'm safer on the right while letting dangerously wide trucks threaten my life. there is no lower speed limit so better learn to enjoy them getting angry and wave them back with a smile, after all we are doing the effort to move whereas they are relaxing and polluting the air that belongs to all of us.
so VC makes sense: unless we have a proper bike infrastructure, bike lanes will keep the mentality that we don't belong to the streets while forcing us to use them in dangerous situations, and the focus should rather be on educating cyclists to take back the streets and car drivers to be humbler and drive slower. 15mph speed limit (30km/h ?) is not such a bad idea in urba areas and maybe should be made compulsory on the right lane..

livedarklions

You're a bit late to the party. The basic problem is that the number of people who actually want to ride like that is so small that requiring it would just result in fewer bikes on the roads.

Feel free to try refighting the battle, but it was already a rout. In the real world, bicyclists don't ride much in the center of the lane and that's not showing any signs of change. In the meantime, the paths are more crowded than ever.

holytrousers

on my commutes i encounter very few cyclists, most of them are older persons riding at a very slow pace and i understand they should ride on the right where, at lower speeds, it is indeed safer. but i have never thought of requiring anything from other cyclists, and i believe VC should be considered as a guideline.. where i live there are no bike lanes, car drivers are really dangerous and never leave a safe distance so taking the whole lane is the only way to make them do so. on these roads it's the only way to stay safe and i am thankful to VC videos that i've watched when i was beginning to cycle because they have changed my attitude on the roads and feel i too have the right to use them and not worry when so many drivers insult me.
that's why i think VC is worth learning about no matter how scared people are from using the roads. there is a war going on between two opposite mindsets, if we want to save this planet we need to keep the spirits high

starkmojo

So I recently heard a podcast where they referred to VC cyclists and "the cycling equivalent of flat earthers".... which could explain why the forum is dying out. But also I think as a person who lives on a fast secondary road with zero bike amenities many VC concepts are essential when riding on the road, while the over arching theory itself has been largely disproven by the fact that whenever bike lanes are built, cycling increases. If you live or ride someplace without bike lanes being able to ride in traffic is an essential skill, and one i use all the time- but if they built a MUP past my house tomorrow I would be the first one on it, heck I would take a painted line, an actual shoulder of a damn sharrow if they would paint it. But they wont and feeling comfortable riding in the road is essential for me to ride at all. But I wont let my kids cycle on this road- actual speeds are to high, my county has essentially zero traffic enforcement and there little chance that this will change anytime soon. So I load them up to ride elsewhere.

Additionally I find VC to be ageist and reeking ableism. I can totally see why I am ok playing in traffic but I am a pretty string and confident cyclist with good insurance and a life insurance policy to boot. There is a guy at my work who attaches his wheel chair to a bicycle, how is he supposed to take the lane? My daughter is 8 and gets distracted even as she can ride too fast for sidewalk cycling (she can do 12-13 mph for 2-3 miles at a stretch.), should one mistake be a life-ending moment in traffic? Heck no. Separated bike infrastructure allows more people to ride. There is no one size law to where to ride- people need to make their own decisions on where to ride based upon their knowledge, skills and experience. I am not a fan of "you must ride in the bike lane" laws, but that doesnt mean I am in favor of getting rid of the bike lane either.

I think VC was an important concept and the tools are essential for cycling outside bike friendly areas... but as a religion it can be kind of dangerous to follow the tenants all the time.

livedarklions

I think I've finally figured out a label for my approach to bicycle road safety--"far right as visible". I acknowledge that the default position is to the right side, but only so far as to ensure I'm not in the blindspot of cars coming from behind. I take bike infrastructure as it comes--use it when it's helpful (which it often is) and avoid it when it's not. This is suitable for the fast riding that I do, but like you I recognize that discouraging the building of bike infrastructure is a self-defeating strategy for cyclists generally.

My sense is that the VC movement having essentially collapsed, its adherents now are basically giving it credit for inventing obvious things like taking the lane when doing a left turn, etc.

AlmostTrick

John wrote a book about that almost 50 years ago, (still selling 7 editions later) and practiced it long before that. It seems pretty obvious that you (and starkmojo based on everything in his post) don't have a beef with actual VC techniques as much as you do with certain VC proponents. Oh well.

starkmojo

VC techniques- yes they can be helpful in the world without cycling infrastructure. The idea that said infrastructure is "bad" is the problem. I ride on dangerous roads because I have no other choice (I call one section I ride "The Valley of Death" for the high speeds, no shoulders and ******* drivers) But I also advocate for more infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians not less.

livedarklions

Well, when me and my friends started using "VC techniques" it was about 50 years ago, and I'm quite sure none of us had heard of, let alone read that book.

In case you haven't figured it out by this point, I'm saying that "VC proponents" really have little or no influence at this point and it's a good thing, because their views on infrastructure were ridiculous. The "technique" stuff is usually just stating the obvious, or making doctrinaire statements about one lane position or another being inherently superior for all or almost all conditions, generalizations that the "proponents" can't even agree on and, in my experience, bear little or no resemblance to dealing with the instant conditions IRL.

Funny you waited a month to bump the thread by just reposting something you've already said. Sorry nobody is buying the guru bit, but if selling a few books is sufficient for you to consider a movement alive, mazel tov. Oh and BTW: currently #921,827 in Kindle Store, #1,826,601 in Books.

AlmostTrick

Thanks, starkmojo .

You should have wrote a book back then!

The "VC influence" is still very much alive. If only because there is not and can never be bicycle specific infrastructure everywhere, so cyclists will always need to know how to safely ride roads with motor traffic. That you figured it out on your own is great, but training like Effective Cycling or the LAB road courses still taught today are a much faster way to learn.

livedarklions

Funny thing--IRL, I don't know anyone who has ever actually attended such a thing. And I know a lot of people who ride bikes. Figuring it out on their own is how virtually everyone learns how to ride.

flangehead

I’ve been riding for over 50 years and as you say “figured it out on my own”. But that happened with near-misses and some hard knocks. (And I’m refer there to riding on the road, not “mount-start-turn-brake”.)

The advantages of training like that offered by LAB (or by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation for motorcyclists or the Smith System for motorists) are:

1. They provide general principles that span multiple situations.

2. They provide key physical skills training that can be practiced to generate muscle memory. (Doesn’t apply to Smith)

As with all training, the participant has to be motivated.

Training accelerates obtaining skills and reduces the chance of crashes and injuries for beginners. For those with experience, it combats complacency and helps with continuous improvement in road strategy and skills.

I’ve taken the LAB course twice in the last 10 years.