I agree with 96_12V. I'm also a Cummins fan (yes, I do own one that does "roll the coal") but I do ride, too. It also upsets me to read stuff like this. On the road, everyone has to make sacrifices, and that includes cars/trucks too along with bikers. I do agree that bikers should find reasonable spots to pull over and stop if they have to, but sometimes its not possible. Seeing as how you started this thread, I am sure you have no idea of the amount of pain there is on some long climbs. Sometimes you've just gotta stop.

And for the person that referred to bikers thinking they own the road, try riding on a windy mountain road or in a city with traffic. You'll learn REAL fast that bikers do not own the road, but the crazy people driving on them do. Its crazy dangerous these days for bikers out there.

I'm sure you felt like a real man smoking them out. After all, I'm sure that putting on the brakes and then moving your foot to the smoke pedal was MUCH more difficult than the climb was for the biker. He was probably just lazy and tired anyway .

It sure is nice to see that atleast someone else here (96_12V) has enough of a brain here to see what is really going on.

 

another cummins driver and cyclist here!

this display of ignorance is unfortunately not rare. first you state the road is narrow with no shoulders.

then you complaint cyclist are riding single file 1-2 feet into the lane. so just where do you suppose those cyclist should ride? there's no shoulders, no where else to go.

if it was me riding in that exact situation.... I'd take up the entire lane.
this tactic forces vehicle behind me to treat me like another vehicle, by passing all the way into the other lane.

if another car in front of you was going slow... this is exactly how you would pass.

most folks don't realize a tiny tap from say... your mirror could send a cyclist to the hospital. I know of several cyclist that's been ran off the road and either killed and/or sent to the hospital. true story... a group of cyclist got ran off the road in Tulsa (sent two to hospital). rest of cyclist got tag numbers. driver got arrested and thrown in jail. driver was lucky he didn't kill a cyclist. it'd been vehicular manslaughter.

unfortunately I've been passed more times that I can counts by morons that come within inches of me. on purpose of course, why do these morons do this? any contact at speed from a say a 7,000lb truck could easily kill someone.

don't get me wrong... there are some real moron cyclists out there. picking rides on the heaviest traffic streets. sure they have a legal right to ride there, but they also increase their chance of getting killed.

but if it's a country road in the middle of no where with little traffic. why in the world do you need to pass cyclist at 80 mph? greatly endangering their lives. who's the moron?

 

Being a Biker (I twist a throttle, not a crankset) I have smoked cyclist or two also.
But only after a toot from the 130 db airhorn fails to wake them out of their Lance Armstrong fantasy.

 

I have a bicycle too but I'm smart enough not to ride on a windy road where people are known to drive a bit fast as it is a shortcut around a bad traffic point. The whole point is that bike riders should find safe spots to ride. There is a parkway not 3 miles from there where they spent millions of dollars making a bike path that follows the entire length of the road. Is it so hard to ride there????
You guys think what you want. Just cover your face if you hear me coming up behind you.....

 

I also have a bike but it was never meant for the road. It belongs on the dirt. I get twice the work out and cleaner air riding up and down trails then I do riding on flat street. I'm not sure what road riders get out of shearing the road with cars and trucks? ( Give me some insite in to your world )It's just not safe for the rider or the driver. Just a thought. Get a stationary exercise bike.

 

theres a reason roads have speed limits, and its not so everyone goes slower than the speed limit, its so everyone maintains the same speed to avoid traffic problems. It makes me mad when bikers ride up to the front of a red light, then roll right through it like they don't have to obey the law or something.

if you are going to ride on a road designed for cars, go the same speed and obey the laws or get on the sidewalk. just my opinion although I keep my foot out of the throttle when passing.

 

Where I live, we have a lot of those granola-eating-spandex-wearing bicyclists too. So many that many years ago the city paid all kinds of money to convert an old abandoned railway track into a nice paved bike path, probably a good 10-15ft wide. Now the (one) road in and out of town is narrow, curvy, lots of blind corners, lots of traffic, and is about 25ft away from the bike path (which runs parallel to the road). These stupid cyclists (and they are stupid, there are many that aren't, but the ones who ride on this road are) insist of driving on the curvy windy busy road, endangering not only themselves, but everyone else on the road. And of course they have to ride side by side. And the bike path is 25 ft away to the right. I always give them a big smoke cloud, and I see a bunch of other diesels doing it too. Now for all you cyclists who are about to get butt-hurt, calm down, I myself am a cyclist too, but I mountain bike, not road bike. If I'm doing some XC or on the road, I'll use the bike path, or the shoulder. If there's no shoulder, I find another route. Plain and simple. I don't even know WHY they would want to put themselves in danger like that. Some are polite and move off the road when they see a car comming, but the ones that want to ride side by side and give you dirty looks.............................(edit edit edit edit edit edit edit!) lol

 

Ride where you have a bike lane, and ride single file. Why put yourself at risk, just because you have a right too. If you can't do the speed limit, get off the road. I love the bikers who never respect a stop sign, but get aggrivated at vehicle divers as the bikes cut in and out of traffic and run stop signs at will.

 

First off - I want to apoligize for putting this in my first post. It wasn't a fair thing to say, I don't think it's a good idea, and well, it's best not to get so emotional with a post at 1am. I DO NOT support use of anything as "self defence" while on the road. The brain works best.

Seems there's another camp or two chipping in here now. First, to mountain bikers - being a fellow mountain biker as well, it's great fun off-road. But there's nothing like a real road bike on a nice level road with little crosswind. The "insight into this world" really does not happen until you've tried it. It's incredible, and it's best experanced rather than explained.

As to the Motorcycle camp - believe me, with even the adventures I've had so far on my 1985 Nighthawk 650, my heart goes out to daily-riders who are all but forgotten, or even looked down upon by the general car driver. At least, if there's anything positive to say, it has seemed in my limited motorcycling experance so far that SOME pickup-truck drivers try to pay attention to motorcycles, perhaps due to a few more of them being riders themselves. Again, this is a generalization I realize, but you all face a lot of challange everyday out there. Just know that others do try to recoginize and respect you.

 

Last year I passed two guys on there bikes about 200yrds form a stop sign. I wait a few seconds for a couple of cars to get buy and start to make a right and out of the corner of my eye I see one of them coming up beside my bed in the middle of the road and strated to go around the front of my truck turning to the right....what a bunch of idiots who think they own the road. I cussed them for eveything the were worth. Now I dont have a proplem for people who ride and stay to the side of the road but the ones who ride in big pack and take up the whole road bug me to no end.

 

Exactly where I'm coming from too, 96_12V. I am not currently much of a bicyclist, but there have been times when I was commuting 20-30 miles a day on a bicycle. I too have been annoyed by some bicyclists' lack of common sense and indeed some of them can be just as big of jackasses as some diesel truck drivers.

I had the misfortune once of driving my truck towing a boat trailer down the same road where a "critical mass" ride was taking place. Some of those riders were aggressive, hostile, rude and just plain wrong about where they had the right to be. But even in that situation, being rude back just makes me look as lame as they were.

But being rude and disrespectful and deliberately blowing unburned fuel at bicyclists like that on purpose, just for fun, is inexcusable in my mind. And then everybody likes to complain about the new emissions regulations.... anybody see the possible connection here?

I have always thought the "I smoked out a bicyclist/pedestrian/convertible driver today" threads were pretty lame. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

 

Yup, I think this topic exposed the other one of you.....


I'm just kidding. I really had no choice but to go fast to get around these guys because it is a very windy road. My truck just smokes now due to one or two mods. Those are just the breaks for whoever happens to be in the right lane as I go by....

 

I have been deliberately run off the road by a truck once. He certainly saw me, and certainly had enough room to easily get around, no blind corners or hills involved, a nice wide road with lots of visibility and room. He squeezed me over and into a parked truck mirror which I wasn't able to avoid. I ended up in the middle of the road with the bicycle on top of me. If there had been traffic close behind him I could have easily been killed.

I'm sure he thought it was hilarious.

and that was only one of many close calls I had in two years of commuting by bicycle.

I agree that it doesn't make sense for bikes not to use parallel routes that have less traffic on them. That has always perplexed me. But legally, bikes do have a right to be on the road, and they are a lot more vulnerable that a guy in a big truck. You drivers who delight in gassing out and swerving at bicyclists could stand to use some of the same courtesy you think the bikers are NOT using.

 

I would never deliberately run a biker over or off the road. Its just do you guys like being dead right or safe. I'm sure the person that hits or kills a biker is scarred for life. Think of the driver for a change.

 

Um.... sorry, when the driver is deliberately running me into parked trucks for a laugh, I am most definitely NOT thinking about him first! I was trying to think as fast as I could about how not to die.

And I was not trying to be a righteous militant, I was commuting back and forth to work, trying to save money by not driving. I never travelled on main thoroughfares unless I absolutely had to, preferring quieter side streets.

And of course, most people are not deliberately harrassing cyclists for fun, but many do and many brag about it and when I hear it, it ticks me off just the same as militant jerk cyclists tick me off when THEY are being rude and disrespectful. But I have cycling friends in the city who know more than one friend killed or maimed by careless and disrespectful drivers. Including one who was hit by a drunk (0.25 BAC!) who dragged the body of the cyclist under his van for blocks. This in a city where shock jock radio announcers were encouraging drivers to harass cyclists.

ahem... I'll go take my meds now! this topic hits a sore spot with me...