TBH you should be cycling around 1m from the curb normally anyway, and if you are at about the speed limit then cycle in the right hand side of your lane (like motorcyclists).
Coldean Lane in Brighton's like that - I was always overtaking cars there - you can easily reach 80-90Kmph down there. I also overtook a Police Car late at night in Burgess Hill once - they stopped me later on but only to find out what bike I was on...
The problem that a lot of non-cycling motorists fail to appreciate is that the reason many cyclists feel they have to ride 'like idiots' is due to painful experience - in any collision with another vehicle, the cyclist comes off worse - and being human we aren't simply going to be chased off the roads that we have every right to be on - we therefore ride more defensively, take up more room, 'filter' through traffic more aggressively so as to encourage motorists to acknowledge the fact that we're actually there...
I've lost count of the number of near-misses I had when I was a regular cyclist and the actual impacts were well into the teens (always causing damage to me and my bike) - usually caused by motorists not realising how fast I was going and pulling out in front of me, or simply not seeing me at all...
I tell you what though - when a motorist gets a £5,000 insurance claim for a busted race-bike, he soon realises that not all cyclists are the same...
If you cause a cyclist to be knocked off, damaging his bike and possibly injuring him/her into the bargain, it's your no-claims you lose, not the cyclists - the damage a cyclist causes is insignificant anyway, hence no legal requirement to have any.
Most of you know I'm into big, noisy cars, but those years on a bike made me a better driver, I think - I have a better appreciation of what it's like out there...I have no problem at all dawdling along at 10mph behind a bunch of touring cyclists (there's lots of them in Germany in the Summer and they're really, really crap at keeping a line), even if it does keep me from enjoying a particularly challenging set of hair-pins...
Learn some patience and slow down - we all get there safely that way.
this attitude is why cyclists are so un popular - and they are sorry but it true. If I drove around in an area heavy foot traffic in such a way as I was repeatedly having to jump on the brakes, or drove up behind people hooting or shouting I'd be an ignorant fool, but for cyclists for some reason that sort of things OK?
More like driving along a main road out of town, if you had to keep stopping for pedestrians standing in the middle of the road (when there's a perfectly good path next to it) nattering would you not get annoyed? I know for a fact a lot of car drivers get annoyed at a lot less and beep as they go past. The only difference with me is i'm not likely to kill someone, and only do it on rare occasions, so please get off your high horse.
Obviously if the cycle track is going through a busy area I wouldn't do that, I cycle slowly and weave/trackstand, if you don't you're an idiot, and probably going to get yourself seriously hurt in a very short period. Which is what car drivers forget, cyclists can't just bump into something and drive off again, they actually get injured at even slow speeds...
all meant with a big smile and not on my high horse at all.
Many drivers do forget that - you're right but not all do. I dislike drving lots now and tend to walk or train/tube if I can just cause of the number of idiot motorists there are.
The issue as I see it is that cylists forget that in a collision with a pedestrian both will be equally hurt, and expect the pedestrian to get out of the way. I also think with many cyclists there is 'little man syndrome' going on now - the car driver have bullied me so I'll bully the pedestrians and shout about how hard I am afterwards. Sorry that does come across a little in your posts
Hugh
However it is a real issue in my town, and it's not like the cycle tracks are tacked onto the side of a path, they are a seperate mini road system which is why I get slightly riled up about it, "just because you're only a cyclist means I can wonder all over your road". There have been more than a few times however when mopeds (legally allowed on them) have bashed a few pedestrians due to them standing in the middle of the road round a corner. I even saw a couple almost run over yesterday by a council "buggy" using the road (although that was 50/50 fault, the buggy was going far too fast).
