rbent Forum - "funny bike" hazard

FlyingLaZBoy

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'16 ICE SprintX fs,
'16 Rocket, '12 KHS
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"funny bike" hazard
Sep 1^st, 2014, 9:14am

Some of you have seen this on my FB page, but I thought I'd share it here, as well...

SquareCorners and I saw a cyclist almost get killed (or at least seriously injured) yesterday morning... Daniel and I were riding on Merrell Dr in a residential section, almost finished with the GDB Airport Ride, and we had moved over to allow a car to pass, and I saw another cyclist coming from the other direction... the car/SUV swung wide to pass us (at an appropriate speed for the street), and I saw that the driver was looking at our "weird bikes" as he passed.

Meanwhile, the other cyclist, probably tired from his morning ride, had his head down, not watching ahead of him, just rolling along on his side of the street.. and the car driver had apparently not noticed him, before. At the last second (after he had barely passed us, fortunately), with a loud screech of tires, the car and cyclist both swerved, barely missing each other...

Daniel and I (and the other rider) said a few "holy crap"s... and the car continued on.

We recumbent riders get a LOT of looks from car drivers, and I usually get a kick out of it... but this is the first time it's almost killed somebody...

Keep your head up and eyes forward... cyclists AND drivers...

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Action Lad

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Posts: 1570

Re: "funny bike" hazard
Reply #1 - Sep 1^st, 2014, 3:57pm

EXACTLY.
Two cameras, (forward and rearward facing), state of the art lights totaling well over 1,000 lumens, 120 dB horn, signals and techniques to discourage spectating behavior....all to prevent this. When there is only one cyclist vs. all the cars, their behavior is always much worse, and I have hours of unpublished video of it. This is exactly why I am so serious a cyclist, and why I ignore folks who laugh at my 50 pound trike.

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mleuck

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Posts: 1105

Re: "funny bike" hazard
Reply #2 - Sep 2^nd, 2014, 10:58pm

Quote from FlyingLaZBoy on Sep 1^st, 2014, 9:14am:

Some of you have seen this on my FB page, but I thought I'd share it here, as well...

SquareCorners and I saw a cyclist almost get killed (or at least seriously injured) yesterday morning... Daniel and I were riding on Merrell Dr in a residential section, almost finished with the GDB Airport Ride, and we had moved over to allow a car to pass, and I saw another cyclist coming from the other direction... the car/SUV swung wide to pass us (at an appropriate speed for the street), and I saw that the driver was looking at our "weird bikes" as he passed.

Meanwhile, the other cyclist, probably tired from his morning ride, had his head down, not watching ahead of him, just rolling along on his side of the street.. and the car driver had apparently not noticed him, before. At the last second (after he had barely passed us, fortunately), with a loud screech of tires, the car and cyclist both swerved, barely missing each other...

Daniel and I (and the other rider) said a few "holy crap"s... and the car continued on.

We recumbent riders get a LOT of looks from car drivers, and I usually get a kick out of it... but this is the first time it's almost killed somebody...

Keep your head up and eyes forward... cyclists AND drivers...

I always thought we were noticed more because of our bikes whereas people don't pay that much attention to regular cycles.

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