Originally Posted by
CheGiantForLife
The ah-ha moment is that I should take up an entire lane.
It never occurred to me to do that, as it seems reckless and selfish.
But, I agree that it's probably safer for the biker.
My instinct was to take up as little room as possible, and tuck myself into the side of the road.
But, this just invites cars to cheat the pass, as you said,
So, next ride, I will ride fully in the lane, and take up my own space, and ride like I am a car, not a meek guest infringing on car lanes.
You got your first "like" from me with this comment.
The way I look at this is you really need to size up the road in order to figure out the best strategy. Roads vary so much that having only one rule to apply to everything doesn't make sense to me. I'm not going to try to ride in the lane much on a 55 mph road (I do go into left turn lanes on such roads, but I do so very, very carefully), for example. Basically, I have a repertoire of strategies I use depending on the situation. I'm glad you're going to try adding taking the lane to your repertoire. It always beats salmoning for the reasons people discuss above.