To expect cyclists to keep their hands on the handlebars?

I'm not sure I understand cyclists avoiding dedicated, good quality cycle lanes either, gillybob, but I have a feeling it may be to do with the cycle track markings (the ones equivalent to road markings); I have found that most of them make bikes give way where other road traffic does not have to give way. This is what I meant in previous comments: cyclists on cycle lanes are often subjected to road rules that don't apply to them if they are on the road. Naturally, they find this annoying, as you would if you commuted by bike.

Please qualify your statement about cyclists being a menace with the word "some", gillybob. It is true, of course, but menaces occur in all circumstances and I do not think it is fair to portray cyclists as a menace species, flattering though it is to distinguish them as so noticeable.

As I said up thread, my own suspicion is that the proportion of bad cyclists is equal to the proportion of bad drivers and, I would add, bad pedestrians.

The Cycle lanes to which I am referring are really very good and very well maintained too. We are on a popular tourist route from the North Sea Ferry so quite popular with cyclists from Germany, Holland etc. it is the day to day commuting cyclists who seem to have an aversion to them preferring to use the narrow main carriage ways, jump the lights and criss cross etc. we had a very bad fatal accident recently where a cyclist using the main carriage way ran straight over the road infront of the main port entrance and was literally crushed by a truck. Had he have been on the dedicated cycle lane this could not have happened. The town had a huge campaign but it hasn't made a tiny bit of difference. They are a menace to other road users and pedestrians too. I just can't understand why they don't use the lanes provided for their safety it's as though they are sticking two fingers up to other road users.

You're wasting your time Baggs. I spent hours drafting long, well-researched, informed posts on a thread a couple of years ago, but it's all gone in one ear and out the other. The usual suspects are all back with the same anti cycling rants that I refuted before. I suggested they go and read Cyclecraft, but you can bet not one of them has done.

I can see that your sister's death has affected your view of cycling safety, monica, as of course it would. I'm sorry it happened. Knowledge of this sad event was not available to me when I first posted so I could not know that even mild humour was not appropriate from your point of view.

Quite often cycle lanes are not perfectly good. Quite often their surfaces are really appalling compared to the road.
I do agree though that when they are perfectly good it's weird when you see cyclists not using them.
There are other considerations though. For instance, sometimes they are very badly designed, presumably by non-cyclists, and so anyone cycling on them would have to be braking every half minute or so for house drives and so forth. There were some like this in Oxford where bikes were supposed to give way to everything and everybody. That really isn't practical so cyclists didn't use them or used them but 'technically' incorrectly (though in a perfectly reasonable way in actual fact). They were really no use as cycleways.

I think one has to have cycled every day for a good length of time to understand the difficulties cyclists have because they are, for the most part, just add-ons to all the rest of the the traffic including pedestrians. Planners just didn't think about cycling as a mode of transport—obviously or there wouldnt, have been such ridiculous cycle paths in a place like Oxford! I think that attitude is improving now.

What I can't understand is when there are perfectly good cycle lanes provided so many cyclists choose not to use them.

Sorry, Baggs, but there are times when humour is misplaced. As I mentioned twice my dearly loved sister was killed when she came off her bike.

A lorry clipped her rear wheel when he was turning right out of a T junction, probably travelling at little more than walking pace and looking left for oncoming traffic. The reason he did not see the cyclist was because he was turning into a tree lined road with cars parked nose to tale. She was coming from the right, but hidden from him by the cars and foliage. The driver was driving neither recklessly nor carelessly.

When you see how fragile cyclists are in situations where no-one has done anything stupid you have scant sympathy for those, drivers or cyclists, who risk their lives by acting stupidly.

When you see and suffer the grief that goes with a death like that, elderly parents brought low, friends and family devastated and know how the families of even those cyclists who bring disaster upon themselves will suffer. I am afraid a sense of humour leaches away.

Nanna I read that article myself this morning...sounded quite horrific injuries that she died from! and the arrogance of that lad!

I thought I was just chatting. I also thought that what I said was relevant in a chatty inconsequential way which I believe is allowed even when the OP might not have foreseen that.

Given how often I've remarked on the sensibleness of your posts, how often I've agreed with you, and how often I've deliberately been a bit of a mischievous tyke of Gransnet (and everywhere else), I'm surprised you took it the way you have.

The no hands on handlebars really isn't as dangerous as it looks, you know. I've fallen off a few times (ice and stuff like that) and been knocked off by cars (and a bus once) when my hands were on the handlebars and I wasn't doing anything wrong but I've never had a mishap with balance steering. Just saying.

Texting while riding does sound iffy.

Yes, but I started this thread to talk specifically about an occasion when someone was cycling without their hands on the handle bars and texting in a situation where it was dangerous for them to do so.

Discussions about where cycling like that would be entirely permissible are not really relevant.

I have not accused your DH of anything or sttacked him in any way at all, monica. I merely pointed out that what he did is what drivers are supposed to do and good for him.

And I conversed about cycling without hands on handlebars in places where nobody is in danger from anything else.

Stop assuming I'm criticising.

Oh, for heavens sake Baggs. DH was obeying all the rules. He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Motorists and is a careful driver. The nature of his work means he has driven 20,000 miles a year here and all round the world for nearly 50 years - and is still working and has never caused an accident and I can only remember him being in one, when someone drove into the back of him at speed, and admitted that DH was not at fault.

Why be so picky about minutae about the driver when it was the cyclist who was at fault. I was not complaining about the cyclist causing us problems. He didn't. As an IAM driver DH handled it as he would any other hazard on the road and overtook safely.He was leaving the legal recommended space between him and the cyclist but rapidly increased it when he noted how dangerously the cyclist was behaving.

Let me repeat, we have suffered a cyclist death in our family, I would hate to see any other family suffer as we did and particularly when they knew that their cyclist caused his own demise. W,e at least, were spared that.

We have a lot of cyclist in our part of the world, lycra-ed young men commuting by bike on country roads at high speeds and almost all of them are exemplary cyclists, except, as another poster noted, from their disinclination to use cycle lanes, even when they are newly built and in excellent order.

This idiot, was, I assess, in his 50s, cycling along a village road with parked cars dotted along it intermittently, apart from anything else, if he had miscalulated or not lifted his head in time he could have ridden at speed into the back of a stationary car and that sort of accident can very easily be fatal for a cyclist, even one wearing a helmet.

Maybe this is slightly pertinent - read it on my newsfeed this morning www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/cyclist-charlie-alliston-accused-over-kim-briggs-death-posted-it-was-her-fault%E2%80%99-court-told/ar-AAq5rt0?li=AAmiR2Z&ocid=spartanntp

The thing that stood out for me was this comment by the cyclist :*“It is a pretty serious incident so I won’t bother saying oh she deserved it, it’s her fault. Yes it is her fault but no she did not deserve it.*

“Hopefully, it is a lesson learned on her behalf, it shouldn’t have happened like it did but what more can I say.”

Its hard to see how she would have learned any lesson as she's dead !

For those not interested in the link , he was riding a bike without front brakes which is illegal anyway.

I have found some cyclists seem to think the rules don't apply to them just as some car drivers to be fair.

Cyclists are legitimate road users, as are pedestrians when there isn't a footpath.

If they are cycling three abreast you have to stay behind them until you can overtake leaving a car width gap. If such an opportunity doesn't arise thrn you just have to stay behind just as you would behind some other vehicle that didn't allow enough room, or if there were lots of bends in the road.

When cyclists near us cycle three abreast, or even two abreast, most will go into single file to enable overtaking but one might have to stay behind them for a mile or two even then.

So if they are cycling 3 abreast you have to allow 3 cars width! There is barely room for one car on our roads here!

So, in answer to the thread title, no it's not unreasonable to expect cyclists to keep their hands on the handlebars.

But it is unreasonable to get stressed when they don't but are not making overtaking them any more difficult than it usually is.

Have people got the point yet? You have to leave the same amount of space for a bike as you do for a car. If you don't you aren't driving safely.

Oh yeah, and the reason I ever did it was arthritic pain in my wrists and shoulders. I used balance steering in suitable conditions (that seems to need stressing) for a bit of relief. I wasn't doing it to show off.

It was fun though ?

Oldwoman, I guess you haven't cycled in the conditions to which I was referring. Yes, there's an added risk of falling off a bike if you are steering by balance rather than with your hands on the handlebars. But that doesn't mean it's more dangerous than many another activity that humans engage in, nor that it is a silly thing to do. Try telling unicyclists and circus cyclists that .

Cyclists do steer by balance as well as by the handlebars, you know. Some people are good at it, some aren't. Most never do it at all.

Also, it depends, as I said, on the circumstances and conditions. Nothing I said advocates steering by balance on a road where there is other traffic. Nothing I said advocates doing it on a road at all, in fact. I merely commented that it's quite easy. I've had several bikes and one of them was better for it than the others. On some of them I found it impossible.

The thing is, there's nothing in the OP to suggest that the cyclist was causing a danger to anyone else. The OP just found the sight of the cyclist alarming and described what her H had to do when overtaking. I said overtaking drivers should do what he did anyway, at all times. So I don't agree that there was anything to get stressed about. That is all.

There will now follow more rants about bad cyclists, who probably occur in equal proportion to bad motor vehicle drivers. This is possibly because most cyclists are also car drivers so maybe all bad cyclists are also bad drivers or maybe it's the bad drivers who are bad cyclists. Take your pick.

We have cycle lanes galore in our town and surrounding areas. In fact I could use a cycle lane from almost my front door right to my place of work which is in another town. The fact that they are there makes not a fig of difference as the majority of those "hell for leather cyclists" don't bother to use them. They seem to prefer causing a backlog of traffic on the main road while the cycle lane (designed for their safety) goes ignored.

Sorry Baggs but cycling without holding onto the handle bars is just stupid and dangerous - no matter where you are. Whilst most cyclists are sensible there are many who consider themselves kings (and queens) of the road and everyone must make way for them. The things which scare me are the ones who cycle with their eyes fixed on their front wheel and those who ride at night without lights.

I live in London and today I was pootling behind a cyclist because it was not safe for me to overtake. I had a feeling that when we came to the traffic lights which were on red he would speed up and belt through which is what he did. No helmet and if he came off his bike his thin T shirt would not have saved him. A total idiot.

I've seen one with headphones on and using both hands to text! So many without lights at night, too, especially in autumn. I call them - suicyclists!

*Baggs, We are always very careful around cyclists, my sister was killed when she was knocked of her bike on her way to work. DH was already leaving falling room for one cyclist but he actually ended up leaving enough space for three cyclists riding abreast to fall over. The speed of the cyclist was such he could have been thrown quite some distance if he had come off.

'It is quite easy to cycle no hands in certain conditions' but I do not think these conditions include when you are cycling at speed on a potholed road while texting.

By any standards this was dangerous and negligent cycling and if a police car had come along he would have been stopped and ended up with a charge rather than just a warning. If it is illegal to use a phone while driving it is surely illegal to use a phone while cycling.

It was to rest my hands/wrists, in case anyone's wondering.