Road Warrior

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of your training time riding on fairly busy roads in traffic. I have found some good roads for low-traffic training on the weekends, but during the week my only chance to train comes in the early- to mid-evening time when most of the world is driving home from work.

Training in traffic can be a bit dangerous and it requires that you know what you’re doing and how to read and even dictate conditions around you. Over the past couple of years I’ve learned what does and what does not work well as strategies for dealing with traffic on my training rides and I want to share what I’ve learned on the off chance that it might help others.

Laws and Safety

Texas law and indeed the laws of most states require that cyclists ride “as far to the right as is practicable” when sharing the road with automobiles. This law is often interpreted to mean that the cyclist has to stay very close to the curb; ~2 feet or so, but that idea ignores the definition of “practicable.” As the cyclist and the one in the most imminent danger while riding, you have a responsibility to ensure your own safety according to the law. It is not practicable to invite mistakes from motorists.

There is no two ways about it; riding up close to the curb, in most cases, puts everyone in danger. Riding up close to the curb creates a vacuum of space that will invite motorists to encroach upon. If you give up almost all of the right-hand lane motorists coming from behind will believe that they have room to pass you and will pass far too close to you, creating a very dangerous situation.

Now, what is happening here is a very human thing. It is typical human behavior for a motorist to try and stay in his lane because the motorist usually feels “ownership” of that lane. If you give up 9/10 of the lane the motorist will feel invited to stay locked in his lane and transfer the issue of safety to the stupid cyclist on the edge of the road. In this situation, strong wind, a rock, bottle, or some other obstruction becomes a life-altering obstacle, as the cyclist has no room for maneuver. This dangerous situation is entirely the cyclist’s fault.

The remedy to this dangerous situation is quite simple. Pay attention to both the cycling law and human behavior and you have the answer. It is not practicable to ride so close to the curb. In order to protect both yourself and the motorists on the road you must ride deeper into your lane. When you do, amazing things happen.

By encroaching just a bit more into your lane you cause motorists to behave differently. Now, instead of trying to thread the needle, motorists coming from behind you will change lanes or almost change lanes in an effort to give you wide berth. This is what they’re supposed to do anyway and by you dictating the environment, they behave appropriately (almost all the time). The result is that everyone is safer. It should be noted that as your speed equals that of the motorists around you, practicable position becomes more central in the lane.

There are, of course, a few idiots out there that no amount of advisable riding practice will protect you from. I have been passed at less than 12″ by cars doing 50+ mph and have had some drivers use words and/or wild arm motions to indicate that I should be riding on the sidewalk instead of in “their” road. You can’t influence these sorts of idiots with good riding behavior. All you can do is perhaps take down their license plate number and report their dangerous behavior. If you get the chance, that is.

Roundabouts

On my rides I often have to negotiate a handful of roundabouts. Roundabouts are, in my experience, usually well designed with clear signage to indicate how everyone should use them. Despite the good plan, motorists turn into blithering idiots when they enter a roundabout and cyclists should beware.

Here’s an example of a typical roundabout from my training route. This figure indicates how things are supposed to work when a cyclist and a motorist enter at roughly the same time.

Things NEVER work out like this. It does not matter if the motorist sees you enter the roundabout or if they don’t see you; the typical path through and out of the roundabout is going to be like this:

Here again, most motorists think they own the road—all lanes— and a cyclist in the other lane is just a minor nuisance to be ignored while they negotiate the tiresome roundabout. What motorists don’t appreciate, however, is that a cyclist can negotiate a roundabout at a higher speed than can an automobile. So if the cyclist was behind entering the roundabout, she’ll likely be beside the automobile by the time they are exiting the roundabout.

Safety in this situation is entirely your responsibility. Just keep in mind that motorist IQs drop by 50 points when in a roundabout, so make your choices accordingly. Note also that no one EVER uses a turn signal when in a roundabout, so you’ll just have to make your best guess as to which exit out of a roundabout a motorist plans to take. Good luck with all that and be careful.

Confidence

These specific practices aside, nothing can keep you safer in traffic than confidence. Motorists, like everyone else in the world, respect confidence. Ride like you know exactly what you’re doing and that every move you make is exactly the right move. Do this and the motorists around you will behave far better and far more predictably. Here are a few tips:

Hold your line
Just as when you’re riding in a group, hold your line and keep a steady profile on the road. If you ride erratically or unpredictably, motorists around you will be 1) scared of you, and 2) angry at you. Your failure to hold your line makes life dangerous for yourself and everyone around you.

Use strong turn indications
Few things are reassuring to motorists around and behind you than a strong indication of when you plan to change lanes or turn left or right. As you near a road you plan to turn onto, indicate it with a strong arm motion and a pointing finger. Make your motion crisp and clear. A vague or weak motion is a dangerous motion.

Be deliberate and confident at stoplights
As you approach an intersection with a red stoplight, check behind you and then move into the center of your lane (if you stay to the side, you’re inviting a motorist to make a poor choice and pull up beside you!). If there are automobiles around you, behave as though you belong there in their midst. Being at a stoplight with a cyclist can be a little disconcerting for motorists, but less so if it appears that the cyclist knows exactly what (s)he’s doing. When the light changes to green, act confidently and competently to get back underway. Tentative action at this point invites poor choices from motorists and puts everyone in danger.

Changing lanes
If you’re approaching a left-hand turn on a busy multi-lane road, check behind you to gauge the appropriate moment and indicate your intention to move left with a strong, arm motion with a wagging finger pointing left. Make sure your intent is noticed and then move confidently over into the left lane. Here again, if you move safely and confidently the motorists around you will respect it. If you are tentative and appear inept you will only garner their ire.

Conclusion

The last section above is likely the most important in all of this. Nothing will keep you so safe as confidence while on the road. Confidence is universally respected, while tentativeness is universally met with contempt. And rightly so. Remember that you have great power to influence the traffic conditions and your own safety. Make wise, practicable, deliberate moves while riding in traffic and your rides will include fewer nervous moments and distasteful incidents. Good luck and keep the rubber side down.

So I’m riding along minding my own business this morning when our small breakaway group gets to Robson Ranch Rd. in Northlake. The entrance coming off of Faught Rd. is up a big, steep incline covered in dirt and gravel. I failed to appreciate how my speed and the act of turning on the incline would not set well with the debris. My front tire slid out and I promptly ended up belly-flopping face-first onto the road. I tried my darndest to keep my face up, but bounced my chin pretty good on the asphalt and did a little slidy thing on my stomach. Would have been fun on, say, the surface of a swimming pool I have no doubt.

I got up and did a quick inventory and dusted myself off. The results were pretty mild, actually. The scrapes to my body were on fleshy areas and only my right knee had a leak. My left hand and chin took the brunt of the force and though my glove was shredded, the hand was intact. My thick chin whiskers did fine duty protecting my chin, leaving only an annoying bruise and some mild swelling. My first ever crash on a road bike. All-in-all, not bad.

The folks in the group were very helpful and to my relief no one passed comment on how silly I looked or how every cyclist should know not to make a turn at-speed in dirt and gravel. By the time I got everything upright, checked out, and dusted off, the rest of the group had caught us and we started up again, en-masse. Only my bruised left hand had any effect on my riding comfort. No biggie.

Not an hour later, the group was strung out again. I opted not to stay with the fastest few, but instead just finish the ride at a decent pace. As I slowed to wait for a buddy of mine who was struggling a bit today, I looked back over my shoulder to see how far back he was and as I did my line drifted toward the side of the asphalt road and my front tire slid off the surface layer onto the shoulder. This time I went down on my left side and this scrape felt a bit worse than the previous one.

My buddy came around the corner just after to find me on my back with my fists in the air, shouting, “Really!?” at the cycling Fates. I was pretty livid at that point and just wanted to crawl under a rock. With this crash I had punctured my front tire and it was hissing at me with derision. Luke (my buddy) was kind enough not to laugh or snicker. Instead he got my bike turned over and offered me a spare tube as I was checking myself out. This was a more painful crash, with a hip pointer and some serious road rash on my inner elbow. Oh, and again with the bruised hands. Just shoot me now.

Go my tube replaced, chain back on, and then back on the road. We still had a few miles to do, but we just rolled it home at a moderate pace. Mindful of gravel and road edges, of course.

Epilogue

They say bad things come in threes. Yesterday I did the last half of my ride in low gear, as my rear durelier cable frayed and I couldn’t shift. Today I had 2 crashes so that’s 3; I think I’m set. The danger has, I hope, passed. I’m ready to be done with this little run of bad luck (or is it ineptitude?) and to get back to normality. Hey, I can hope right?.