Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but it’s worth for everyone considering joining/supporting the local cycling advocacy group. Surely doesn’t have an immediate effect on safety, but putting some continues pressure on the local administration can improve conditions tremendously on the long run.
After all increasing the number of cyclist is hugely beneficial for any city, far beyond just cyclists. Sometimes it just takes a little (or a lot) of convincing.
Route planning is key. And car traffic is always the #1 consideration. Where you want to go is always a very distant 2nd.
If you are not doing group rides and learning routes that way, consult Strava heat maps to get the collective knowledge of the local cycling community. Often very small changes can make a huge difference in avoiding scary-risky stretches and if you have a lot of local cyclists, they’ve already figured out all the good routes and little tricks.
Time matters. I have some routes that are great on weekends but are suicide at 5:30 on a weekday (but fine again at 7:00). And never ride by a grade school or soccer field when frazzled parents are active . .
And get over the whole “boring” thing. A 3-4 mile loop with no cars done a bunch of times always beats the view on a 20 mile out and back that scars the crap out of you once or twice every ride. Life would be great if you could ride different routes every day but in many places, that’s a recipe for disaster.
I love those bar-end mirrors. I usually only keep the left one on (US driving). You do have to be a little careful as laying the bike down at stops can cause the mirror to fall out. In fact I lost mine just like that a couple weekends ago, and the last few rides I keep finding myself looking down and being frustrated it’s not there. Paried with a radar unit, it really helps the confidence if you can watch the car approach.
This one swivels and can be removed, but it never pops out. The swivel feature makes it quick and easy to adjust mirror based on bike position (climbing versus low&aero), or when riding near sunset with sun behind me.
I bought a pair of Cycliq cameras to ride with. It doesn’t really make me safer, but it gives me some evidence and support that will help deal with incidents with vehicles.
Here’s my experience on my first ride with the Varia. Gravel roads, 15-20mph headwind/crosswind and I was wearing an earbud (curbside). The beep was loud enough to get my attention with each vehicle (numerous trucks and several dirt bikes). I run an Edge 830 and I could see the white dot (vehicle) move up the side of the screen. Since I don’t ride with a mirror I peaked over my shoulder to see the location of the vehicle. In all cases it picked up the car, truck, etc a long ways out and giving me enough time to react. On the rare occasion that this ride took me into pavement it was able to pick up multiple cars and track them at the same time.
Now that I have it I won’t ride without it.
Awesome typo!!
I actually just purchased a mirror (Third Eye Pro) before making this post. Picked it up today. What style of mirror do you have? It’s going to be trial and error to see what works for me…
Which cameras do you have? I’ve done wayyyyyy too much research. Still trying to find the best solution all around. All of the options seem to have big pros and equally big cons.
I have this one, but it seems hard to find now. I know we used to get them through QBP, but aren’t available there either.
https://www.trekbicyclesuperstore.com/product/cycleaware-reflex-helmet-mirror-242551-1.htm
Many of the other helmet versions should work similar to mine.
Here is what I like to do while riding, whether it is on a city street or rural road.
I stop at all of the stop signs, a complete stop. A red light and I wait for it to turn green. My theory is why enrage drivers by acting like I own the road. We are supposed to share the road and obey the traffic laws, the same as cars. I see a ton of cyclists run stop signs and lights. I think this is more than just a safety issue, but as a cyclist when you stop at a stop sign and allow for normal traffic patterns you are sending a message. The message I hope they receive is hey this cyclist just stopped and waited his turn I’ll move over for the next cyclist instead of getting too close. I am not saying this will happen, but it is my hope.
The other thing I do is I give a little hand wave when cars move over and give me plenty of room. I’m hoping they see me and continue to do that for other cyclists.
I also purchased a Varia last summer and won’t ride without it. I have a flashing light on the front, too. Another plug for RoadID.
Shane Miller did a great unboxing/road demonstration video of it. Garmin Varia RTL510 Cycling Radar/Tail Light: Unboxing, Installation, Road Test - YouTube
Skip to 11:00 for the road demonstration. As I stated in my original post, the Varia is a game changer. They just announced the 3rd gen version today (only slight changes from the 2nd gen). I’d HIGHLY recommend it. In fact, I darn near think it should be a mandatory piece of equipment for all cyclists riding on roads…
All excellent points, thank you. Most of these I already have ingrained by cycling throughout the years. Despite the measures I take, at times I still have a high level of fear, to the point it is admittedly nearly irrational. I realize there is a point where I should feel I’ve done enough to mitigate the risks, but sometimes it feels like I can’t do enough (that’s what I struggle with) and my mind goes down all different paths of negative possibilities. The infamous question comes to mind… “How safe is safe enough?”
The one thing I definitely feel a lot safer with is riding in groups, but have not been able to do that with social distancing in effect. As things start to loosen up and group rides start back up, that’s one thing I’ll definitely be doing more of.
I’m on board with all of the above. I also load up on garish rear lighting concentrating on staggered or conflicting flash patterns with at least two individual lights. I don’t want to just be visible. I want to be SEEN. Its not uncommon to have drivers comment on my rear lighting protocol at stoplights which tells me I’m making the desired impression.
Something of recent development that I find scary are those drivers who, in trying to be “considerate of cyclists” try to offer me a right of way that clearly does not belong to me. Just this week I had a guy stop in the middle of his oncoming lane waving me across to complete my planned left hand turn. I always refuse with unmistakable directness which some of them, in turn, consider unappreciative. No other driver going in either direction can really know what the first driver is thinking. For me to agree to the “favor” requires that I assume everyone else on the road is like-minded and in full agreement. I’m not gonna go there!
The replies here are terrific with everyone’s experience obviously dependent on the area where they live. @Pasque’s comment about the Netherlands is really a comment about the need to deal with US drivers who are too often not held to account for their actions and traffic laws that are viewed as nuisances.
On riding in the shoulder, a comment by @mwglow15, that depends on where you are. In my area, I find it annoying as a driver to see a cyclist near the car-bike dividing line when I know the shoulder is perfectly fine. It’s where I ride most of the time to put distance between me and the cars, which I do to make it that much harder for them to accidentally hit me. And I live in a place where cars and bikes co-exist generally very peacefully.
On riding in groups, I’ll admit that when I rode with groups in areas where I didn’t trust the traffic, I stayed in or on the front. (If I didn’t trust the group, like when I was riding with a bunch of triathlete who would insist on riding aero in a group on a busy road with debris in the shoulder etc, I’d ride far off the back, which also meant I wasn’t drafting, which they were for some unknown lazy reason, or I’d ride on the front so I could get onto my aero bars without being concerned about the other riders…)
Signalling and positioning are two awesome tips above.
Make eye contact with drivers (albeit through sunnies), smile, thank them, show with your arms and road position exactly what you are doing.
Around where I live amongst my group of friends we show cars it is unsafe to pass by using primary and holding a hand behind to suggest they wait. When clear move to secondary and wave them through, thumbs up as they pass and maintain visual contact if safe to do so.
I’ve given up riding in groups of more than 8 or so as no mater what is legal it just antagonises drivers, anything like that rightly or wrongly brings out the worst in people.
To be honest my comment was more a brag about how amazing the Situation is in the Netherlands regarding to cycling. I can cycle to any point anywhere in the country exclusively using cycling paths. This means I don’t have to deal with bad drivers at all.
Furthermore, since bikes are so ubiquitous in the Netherlands, car drivers are a lot more used to them (especially since pretty much every car driver is probably also using their bike sometimes). So cyclists are not as invisible in traffic as they seem to be in other countries.
This information probably isn’t particularly helpful. But it is worth noting that all of this started off in the 70s when cars became hugely popular and widely available. So the Netherlands was on it’s best way to become a car society like the US for instance. As a side effect many people (including many children) were killed in countless traffic accidents, which sparked a lot of protests and activism. So the governments started investing in safer infrastructure, like building up cycling paths and closing of city centers for cars… Fast forward 50 years and now I’m living in cycling paradise.
(Now I only wish someone could plonk a big mountain somewhere into the Country, but I fear that’s impossible 
)
This was kind of my point by saying that a lot of the time the shoulder isn’t the place to be. The law varies state to state but wherever I’ve ridden the cyclist is fully allowed to ride “on the right edge of the roadway when safe to do so“. Legally the shoulder is not considered part of the roadway. You shouldn’t be annoyed by a cyclist exercising their rights to ride in the lane.
Also in a car going 35+ mph you can’t see all of the gravel, glass, nails, etc that gets pushed into the shoulder as well as you can on your bike. As I said in my previous comment, I think it is safer to ride in the lane most of the time so that you don’t ever have to swerve to avoid that debris in the shoulder so that your movements remain predictable to drivers. Frequently, I will move into the shoulder for a couple seconds to let a car pass to be nice but I’m not hanging out there. I also said that I depends on the specific road/area you are riding in.
I’ve used these for the last 4 years. My only one essential piece of gear. The ONLY caveat for the Varia is that it’s not for use in the city/urban areas with lots of traffic.
I’ve used with Garmin units and the Wahoo. The Garmin units offer more control (they see the unit as 2 entities, a light and a radar so you can control functions of both of those) but on the Wahoo the beep is louder.
My 2 use cases; Spokane, WA which is a city but for the most part I ride on less traveled roads and a local MUP. Cambridgeshire UK where I am now is mostly rural and this thing is indispensable. I’m using my Wahoo and the beep is loud enough that I can hear the beep (before I hear the car behind me, because it has a long range of detection behind you) even when riding fast downhill with lots of wind noise.
Action taken? Well, the roads in this part of the UK suck. No edge/shoulder so I tend to be about 36 inches from the edge so when I’m out there and Radar goes off, I move to the left to hug the edge of the road (depending). I’ve used it riding with others as well and if we’re riding abreast, the beep tells me slot in behind or in front of the person I’m riding next to.
There’s 2 types of people when it comes to the Varia. Those that have tried it and will never ride with out it, and have an almost universal love for it. And those that have never used it.
And thank you for not saying that stupid eye rolling condescending snarky comment about being “notified that you’re about to be hit” or “it won’t stop a car from hitting you” like lots of half-wits out there like to do when they’re attempting jedi hand waving this thing away.
YMMV.