Lane Control at Freeway Ramps in Irvine California

[skoockum]

excellent display of how to suck every last bit of joy out of riding a bike... it looks more like the dreariest parts of accounting and actuarial work combined than any sort of cycling I've seen before.

[CyclistLorax]

@skoockum - So avoiding conflicts and and reducing crash risk "sucks joy"? So I take it your concept of joy is something like masochism, right? Now about the sucking part, how is it that us demonstrating best practices, is sucking anyone's joy? Seriously. Your concept is so screwed up, that it should be rather amusing to read your elaboration of the subject.

[skoockum]

@CyclistLorax oh.. you musta mowed the whole north 40 to build that straw scarecrow.... it's been my experience that biking is a eye opening blast, but you somehow manage to drag it down into bland, gray, dreary, drab, wretched, beige, limp, somber, penitent, lifesucking, funereal dirge of humdrummery.

[CyclistLorax]

@skoockum - Mowed the whole north forty? Do you also think in plattitudes? You appear to be complianing about your aesthetic experience. Frankly, I don't care if you don't get a dopamine rush by following best practices; that's your problem, and is not relevant to the efficacy of the material. And you seem to be repeating the same tired, uniformative, sophomoric, inane, boring, close-minded, tedious, immature, lame, egocentric, neurotic, whiny, drivel from your first complaint. We're done.

[CyclistLorax]

@jeries29 - Bicyclists operating in travel lanes and motorists queuing or making lane changes to pass is the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. It's clear that you have a prejudice against bicycle driving. The video clearly shows that we were not "in harms way", because motorists know what to do when they encounter any driver moving more slowly than they would like to proceed. They either wait behind, usually because they need to make a right turn, or simply change lanes to pass.

[spokehead909]

What do you do on 2 lane roads (not multilane) where the traffic does not have an extra lane to get into to pass you? What do you do as traffic backs up behind you on these 2 lane roads?

[CyclistLorax]

It depends on the road configuration. On rural roads with shoulders, I will typically use an available shoulder. if there is no shoulder, I'll control the lane until it is safe for me to move over to allow passing. Though CA law allows up to 4 drivers to be delayed (CVC 21656), I usually move over for the first overtaking driver, if it is safe to do so. Cyclist safety takes precedence over overtaking driver convenience.

[fhussain44]

The more I commute, the more I realize that always taking the lane is the safest way to cycle. It leads to the least problems with drivers and is consistent and simple to follow. Of course if you want to be treated like a vehicle then you need to equip your bike with powerful lights ( not those cheapie blinkys ), mirror, loud horn ( I use Airzound ) etc.

[2fast4all]

is that going towards back to the spectrum? I was going to try that a few times but kinda scared...

[CyclistLorax]

First part is towards the spectrum, second part is going away. - Brian

[alpha3939]

Another nice video from you ballsy boys.

[CyclistLorax]

Ballsy? Hardly, as we were just doing the safe and placid thing, leisurely controlling the through lane well in advance of the crossing conflicts created by the bike lanes to the right of right turn lanes on each side of the overpass. Ballsy would be trying to use the bike lanes and crossing traffic in right turn lanes as they enter the freeway at speed.

[cden4]

Impressive stuff! They definitely weren't thinking of bicyclists when they designed that road! Did the driver in the white SUV honk at you at all? He seemed pretty close to you guys and was pretty eager to pass.

[CyclistLorax]

The SUV driver wasn't all that close, though it was an illegal maneuver (he drove on the painted gore area separating the RTOLs from the through lanes - thus violating CVC 21651) . No he didn't honk; he just passed earlier than he should have. Impatience is not uncommon among motorists and cyclists.

[corpsbum]

Excellent work as always! Any thoughts on having the forward looking video be the larger portion of the screen? My thinking is that then a cyclist would be seeing the upcoming roadway and traffic situation, the model cyclists reaction/choices, and also have the rear cyclist view showing how the cage drivers react to the position and signals of the cyclists.

[nnmscwrd]

Good idea!