livedarklions

In my state, I actually feel safer on a 55 mph road with broad, well-paved shoulders than I do on winding 2 lane roads with rolling hills and much lower speed limits. Those never have shoulders, and there's nowhere in the lane where I feel confident that a car coming around a bend or cresting a hill will be able to see me until it's too late. I also don't find people pay that much attention to the speed limits on such roads.

I've always believed that our knowledge of our local conditions is our best defensive asset, which is why I end up in a lot of arguments with people who want to lay down universal "rules".

livedarklions

No, I haven't noticed anyone arguing against Varia.

I have noticed that people such as yourself take someone saying that they don't use something as an argument against using something (which it's not), so yes, I have noticed that people who say that they don't use something often don't have direct experience with something.

GhostRider62

I use a varia and like it on my upright but the beep isn't loud enough on my recumbent due to much higher speed and further distance to my ear. The Varia battery life is also too short but overall, it is a good safety adjunct

Varia with the Italian Mirror on the barend and there are no surprises. If a car passes me without me knowing and verifying they have moved over, I was asleep at the switch

prj71

Maybe you are over complicating it?

None of those situations exist on the shoulders of the roads I ride. People don't park their cars on the shoulder, we don't have drainage grates on the shoulder and we don't have shoulders that stop and start frequently with rumble strips.

This is what the majority of roads looks like that I ride near my house. With the exception that some of the roads that have been re-paved in recent years the shoulders have been made wider than what is shown here or some other county back roads (very little to no traffic) that don't have a marked shoulder but are wide enough for both car and bike traffic.

GhostRider62

Almost none of my roads look like that.

Mine have 3 foot drainage ditches on either side. Broken and irregular chip seal everywhere. No lines. But also very low traffic volumen

If it is a busier road, there will be a center yellow line but the white fogline is right at the edge of the pavement. Riding at the edge and you compete with mailboxes, bushes, and tree branches. It really isn't simple to compare one states roads to another

prj71

Wow that's crazy. I live in a rural area in a town of about 10,000 people. Even the town of 100k+ about 20 miles south of me...the roads are like that if you get out of the city limits.

livedarklions

Just to give you some idea of how much these kind of roads vary, some of them in my state would actually have bigger shoulders than that, while others have little or no shoulder at all, and certainly nothing useable. The white line is often the point at which the crumbling pavement starts.

Every road presents its own case, general rules need not apply.

GhostRider62

I just did 209 mile ride in New York on very popular cycling roads

Nothing but broken pavement patched over a million times with terribly inconsistent shoulders with huge potholes everywhere and traffic buzzing by at 50-70 mph.

Ride the TransAm thru Kanas. The small shoulder is obliterated by rumble strips, forcing you out into 70-90 mph traffic although the limit is 70 mph, they freakin fly.

prj71

Sounds like my state might take care of it's road systems a bit better is the vibe I'm getting here. Not that we don't have broken pavement, patches and pot holes in some areas, but for the most part a very high percentage of the roads are in great shape for riding. Even the gravel roads are nice with the right bike and right tires.

urbanknight

Let me get this straight. You're on this thread telling others how to ride on the roads they ride based on the roads you ride? If you can't see the narcissism and inherent flaw in that, then there's no point in continuing with you.

Edit: reading your comments later in the thread, I may be wrong and you did see the flaw in your logic.

rsbob 

Best practices when there is no shoulder?

- If you can, avoid riding during rush hours since you may create backups and pissed off drivers wanting to take it out on you.
- Ride so that overtaking vehicles are forced to cross the center line to pass. They do this for garbage trucks, tractors and postal vehicles so they can do the same for you.
- Ride predictably. Don’t dart in and out of parked vehicles but stay seen and use hand gestures to signal your intent, like turning.
- Never ride opposing traffic. This is illegal in most jurisdictions since bikes are considered vehicles. the likelihood of being taken out by someone turning right and not looking left (since your not supposed to be there) goes up exponentially.

I will keep to the far right to let cars easily pass when there is no opposing traffic. But when there is, I don’t want to get squeezed so I take the right tire track of the vehicles.

there’s a whole thread on this already: https://www.bikeforums.net/vehicular...r-cycling.html

prj71

I travel all over the midwest and used to live in MI and I make a trek west every year (WY, CO, MT area) fishing and I see roads like the ones near my house all the time and people biking on them. Guess I thought that was typical in most places other than highly populated city areas.

urbanknight

Sounds like I need to do some riding in MI, WY, CO, or MT.

CheGiantForLife

Those shoulders photo are too thin for me to comfortably ride.
I would not ride those roads personally

GhostRider62

95% of my roads are like this or narrower and bumpier. The edges are broken because if two vehicles pass, both need to put the right wheel onto the edge of the road or over it. But, volume is very low. Ditch on either side for rain water to flow.

prj71

Damn. That's narrow. We don't have anything around here like that unless it's a gravel road.

GhostRider62

It was 34 minutes into yesterday's ride before I saw a car.

Usually only weekends or when kids getting picked up from school might a car from rear and front happen at the same time. I will take the lane but it only takes 2-3 feet from the broken edge. On a fast descent? I take the lane. I would say my speed is probably higher than a car anyway.

i guess my original thought was it is very hard to generalize about roads and the least risky way to ride them. I'd love to have your roads.

I am sure there is an analysis out there somewhere but traffic volume has to be a large risk factor. I feel perfectly safe riding on a 8-12 foot breakdown lane on an interstate IF there are rumble strips and it is out west like wyoming, az, colorado, etc. Back East? No way. Would I voluntarily chose such a road? No. But sometimes, such roads get chosen for you on established routes or rides.

Daniel4

So it sounds like very few cars use this road. Why not make it a car-free zone? Parents can pick up their kids by bike.

livedarklions

I take it you've never lived in a rural area. Literally, about the dumbest suggestion ever.

urbanknight

The one prj71 posted? They're definitely narrower than I prefer, but as long as I can get my entire self on the right side, I'd feel pretty confident that any driver who can stay in their own lane can avoid touching me.

GhostRider62

How would farmers get to the fields? Residents have to go to work in the morning and come home, too.

I doubt 1 in a 100 parents or children would be able to ride the average 5 miles and 300-400 vertical feet.

It would be nice in an alternative Universe So, that is my response to your question.

Daniel4

Aren't you the one describing how few cars were on this road? And it sounds like it's also too narrow for the few cars who do use it.

So in the spirit of motorists who criticize bike lanes that have so few cyclists on them, we can make that narrow road more safe for users who can use them.

GhostRider62

Let me know when you plan to widen them.

I'd love it if the washed out bridges from a year ago could be replaced. Or potholes fixed.

I'm not calling for anything, I am merely saying in this thread that it is impossible for a one size fits all approach to minimizing one's risk on a bike. Closing a road for just cyclists is stupid. Yes, stupid. Cyclists have to pick their roads carefully and use tactics appropriate to those roads.

CheGiantForLife

Rode my cheap $300 Giant in Montreal. Loved the bike lanes. It's legit transport, not spiderman speedo time.
Rode in jeans and boxers. No problem. Also rode directly in traffic, when needed. City traffic is slower, so it feels safer to take up a lane.

koala logs

The only cyclist I ever collided with was riding salmon. I had near miss with another salmon rider. It both happened in a blind corner.

Makes me fear blind corners due to these morons.