If you’ve taken the CyclingSavvy course, you’ll recall the video of John Alexander’s bicycle ride across a huge highway interchange. At less than 10 miles per hour, on an Elektra Townie bicycle.
If you haven’t seen the video, watch it here, and relax. John’s bicycle ride was boring, not daring.
John — and Keri Caffrey, riding behind him with cameras to record it all — had the road almost entirely to themselves, through thoughtful choice of lane position, and by taking advantage of traffic-signal timing.
My own gnarly bicycle riding challenge
I face a similar situation later this month. I have two doctor’s appointments about a mile apart. By far the shortest route between the two doctors’ offices passes through a similar huge highway interchange. I could take a much longer way there, and this longer ride would also include backtracking on a poison-ivy-infested sidewalk.
On Monday, I checked out the route in a car, with a dashcam running:
OK, here’s a challenge for you:
How would you ride this?
Would you ride it at all?
Have a look in Google maps
The image below shows my route, from right to left, in Google Maps. (When I drove, I went straight through on Route 9 rather than turning into William Street. That doesn’t change anything important.)
Google will let me share the location but not the route information. Here’s the location in Google Maps. You can play around with Google Street View and get a closer look.
Not familiar with Street View? If you’re using a computer, click on Google Dude, the yellow fellow in the lower right corner of Google Maps. Drag the green fog under his feet to any street that lights up in blue, release the mouse button, and there you are.
You can move around using the the keyboard’s arrow buttons. The right and left buttons turn you around. The down button is your reverse gear, up button moves you forward. Or click on the image and drag with the mouse.
Once you’ve dropped your Dude, there’s a “compass” in the lower right corner that also makes it easy to turn around:
Once I dropped Google Dude on the road, I spun the compass to point Dude in the direction I’ll be riding next week. I clicked on the street to move forward, and stand with Dude in the middle of any road.
The arrow in the black box at the upper left corner of the screen takes you back to the overhead view.
On a tablet or smartphone, you can tap and swipe the screen to access these same features.
This bicycle ride is possible!
I have discussed this route with a few other people and found at least two, maybe, three different ways to manage it. I don’t consider the ride difficult even for a novice cyclist, but savvy strategies can make it much more convenient. (Hint: see my description of John Alexander’s ride above.)
Please post comments and suggestions. I’ll get back to you in a couple of weeks with video of my ride.
I love to ride my bicycle, but I have my limits. Arriving at the doctors’ offices drenched in sweat during a pandemic or with rain would exceed those limits! If necessary, I’ll ride the route on a different day to shoot the video.
Your turn now.
I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this ride.
https://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Route-9-fallback.jpg395702John Allenhttps://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CS-logo_xlong-header.pngJohn Allen2020-08-14 11:55:362024-01-03 17:50:01Would You Ride A Bicycle Through Here?
Have you been out walking or riding on your local shared-use paths? Has use been a bit heavier than usual? It certainly has been where I live.
The Orlando metro area has over 100 miles of shared-use paths. I’m an avid user, both for walking and cycling. But with increasing use, it becomes apparent that a lot of users don’t have a good grasp on safety, or how their behavior affects others — more so as new users seek fresh air and sunshine during a pandemic.
This is part one of two posts about how to be safe and considerate on shared-use paths.
Path Etiquette: ensuring you and your fellow path users have an enjoyable time.
On roads, pedestrians are required to walk facing traffic, so they can see cars coming and step aside. Stepping off the road is not always necessary, but pedestrians can easily do it when it is.
Pedestrians should never be expected to step off a shared-use path or a sidewalk to make way for another user, and so it doesn’t make sense for them to walk on the left.* Doing so causes both the pedestrian and an oncoming user to have to stop whenever passing isn’t possible due to opposite-side traffic. When all users keep right, faster users can simply slow and wait for the opportunity to pass. BTW, if you cannot keep your bike balanced at walking speed, you probably aren’t ready yet to be on the path (more on that below).
Take it easy!
That brings me to my next point. When an obstruction is on your side of the path (or road, for that matter), YOU yield — whether it’s a fallen branch or a slower user. If there is oncoming traffic, wait until that traffic has passed. Don’t thread the needle! This is disrespectful to both the person you are passing and the oncoming person. A crowded path isn’t the place to set speed records. If you have a need for speed, you should use the road instead. When you do pass a slower user, move over! This is my chief complaint as a walker. I can’t tell you how many times a pathlete has blown past my elbow when there were eight feet of path to her left. Why would you do that? You know you hate it when motorists do that to you on the road.
It’s also nice to say something. I personally prefer to offer a gentle “good morning” vs screaming “ON YOUR LEFT.” Some people may react by moving left! Some are listening with earbuds and may not hear you. Startling them by yelling doesn’t necessarily help you pass safely.
So even if you say nothing at all, moving over as far as possible and passing at a reasonable speed is fine. In this pandemic time, social distance is about more than only common courtesy. (See our recent post about riding in the pandemic.) Along those same lines, when you are riding side-by side with a companion (these days, a member of your household, I’d hope!), it is polite to single up in order to give a slower user more space when passing. Oftentimes two cyclists are so engrossed in their conversation that the left rider doesn’t even move left and the rider on the right brush-passes the pedestrian (me, yes, this happens a lot). Please be present.Similarly, many older shared-use paths are not wide enough to remain side by side when there is oncoming traffic. Without a centerline, some users don’t recognize this. The additive closing speed of both users can be disconcerting.
Shared-use path courtesy when walking
When walking or jogging with family/friends, do not spread across the path requiring every other user to have to ask you to move in order to pass. I’ve walked many path miles with my dog. I trained her to walk on my right. She does this by default now, so I never have to worry about her wandering out in front of someone. A well-behaved dog makes everyone’s life easier on the path. It’s very alarming for bicyclists to have a dog on a retractable leash run across in front of them or wander toward them while the owner appears distracted. Dogs can cause a crash! Some people have a fear of dogs due to having been attacked. Having a dog lurch toward them can cause panic.
Another point on retractable leashes: they can cause cuts and burns to both pets and people.
Brush up on skills
Though it may not seem to make sense, the path is NOT the place to learn bike handling. You need a set of simple skills before you ride on the path, especially a well-used path. To be safe around others, you need to be able to:
start and stop easily,
balance at very low speed,
ride in a straight line,
look over your shoulder while riding in a straight line (particularly if the path goes alongside a road, more in part 2).
This is true for kids as well. Please don’t bring your kids to the path to teach them basic skills. Children (and adults) tend to have target fixation when learning basic balance on a bike. A kid will literally ride straight into an oncoming bicyclist instead of steering away. A kid will also ride off the edge of the path and then fall, trying to steer back over the pavement lip.
Skills can be developed in a parking lot or quiet street. Or in a CyclingSavvy Train Your Bike class.
Using shared-use paths in the dark
Most shared-use paths are technically “closed” from dusk to dawn even though they are not physically closed. Many of us use them anyway, either for commuting or early morning exercise. And you know what, they were built with transportation funds, so… that’s a rant for another time.
Rule 1. Use lights! Head-on collisions between unlit users are a thing—they can be a deadly thing. Don’t count on well-lit cyclists to see and avoid you, either. It isn’t easy to detect an oncoming ninja outside the range of a headlight, and closing speed can make the range of a headlight too short to react. I’ve learned to look for the tiny glint of pedal reflectors, which is how I saw this guy coming:
The burden of care rests with faster users — bicyclists — but pedestrians also do well to carry a light and wear reflectorized items. In a few places, this is required by law.
Rule 2. Aim bright lights down. I love that bright headlights have become so affordable. I’m old enough to remember when a 300 lumen bike light cost more than a bike. Now you can get 3x that for $30. But with great brightness comes great responsibility… to not blind your fellow users. The old “be seen” weak headlights needed to be aimed straight out at the horizon for maximum visibility. Today’s 900 lumen LED lights should be aimed toward the ground ahead of you. This is not only to keep you from blinding other people, it helps you see debris or pavement issues that could cause you to fall. The best bicycle headlights have a flat-top beam pattern to cast the beam farther without glaring into people’s eyes.
Rule 3. Don’t flash! When it’s dark out. that bright headlight should stay on steady mode. First of all, a flashing headlight is blinding and annoying. It keeps other users from being able to gauge your speed and location. And most importantly, it can cause an epileptic seizure in a vulnerable person. You could literally kill someone with that thing.
If you want to have a blinkie to catch attention, there are lots of little low-powered lights you can pick up for a buck apiece and strap onto your helmet or bike. Here is some good advice on headlights.
Next: Safety
The next post will cover safety concerns. We’ll look at some path hazards, and discuss intersection safety.
Have fun out there!
* Yeah, there’s always some dumb law out there. This is no exception. Rhode Island requires pedestrians to walk on the left on shared use paths.
https://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/path-etiquette-feature-702x373-1.jpg373702Keri Caffreyhttps://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CS-logo_xlong-header.pngKeri Caffrey2020-05-30 09:00:022020-07-20 22:10:40Shared-Use Paths, Part 1: Etiquette
In 2019 Great Rivers Greenway contracted with American Bicycling Education Association to create this lunch & learn-style presentation for St. Louis-area law enforcement officers.
The contractual agreement includes allowing any CSI to adapt and present CS for LEOs in their markets. Download P...
So. You probably saw this dashcam video of a cyclist escaping the wheels of a double tanker truck, while her bike was crushed.
I’ve seen a number of other videos from dashcams or security cams where the outcome was horrific and heartbreaking. Those I would not post. This video is a good teaching tool regarding safety around trucks, because it’s not graphic, and the outcome was good. I posted it on our Facebook page.
Cyclists being crushed by trucks is a recurring tragedy. And it’s one that’s very personal to me.
My point in posting was not to criticize the cyclist. I lament the fact that our culture does not value education enough to ensure that cyclists — really, all road users — understand how to avoid the risks posed by large vehicles.
Cyclists being crushed by trucks is a recurring tragedy. And it’s one that’s very personal to me.
Forget about blame.
It doesn’t matter who’s to blame. We cyclists can keep this from happening to us. This is an empowering revelation, to me. And yet it seems to trigger some cyclists. I want to talk, again, about how to prevent this crash. I also want to talk about how the defensiveness surrounding crash prevention holds us back.
I’m not criticizing the cyclist. I lament that our culture does not value education, and what cyclists need to know to keep themselves safe.
Here’s what I found most fascinating and instructive about discussion on this video — not just on our page, but in other parts of the interwebs as well.
In the video, the cyclist catches up and begins to overtake the truck as it is moving again from being stopped at a red light. For a few seconds, she’s visible to the camera. Then she disappears alongside the truck. Eight seconds later we see her again, as the cab of the truck turns to enter the driveway.
Life or death, in eight seconds.
In those eight seconds, many video watchers “saw” her pass the truck and the truck speed up and overtake her prior to the turn.
Well.
I found the location of the crash on Google maps. Using the measuring tool and the landmarks in the video, I measured the distance the cyclist traveled while she wasn’t visible. It was about 195-200 feet. The truck was a double trailer. Looks like British Columbia regulations allow up to 27.5 meters (90 feet. See Appendix G). Here’s what that looks like on the map (click image to enlarge):
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact location of the cyclist because of her size and distance from the camera, but a reasonably accurate estimated position is possible.
There was not much speed differential between the truck and the cyclist. The length of that truck could have been almost a quarter of the distance she traveled. It is not possible that she passed the truck and it passed her again in the eight seconds she is hidden from view. She caught up to the truck and began passing as it was leaving a stop at a red light. Then it probably matched her speed and she was trapped beside it when it got to the driveway. She may have been in a blind spot — I have no idea what kind of mirrors or cameras the driver had at his disposal.
So what can you do in that situation?
First, if you know a stopped truck is going to pick up speed again, stay back and do not try to pass it. Never, ever pass near an intersection!
If you do pass a truck and then find it is pacing you, hit the brakes. Let the truck get ahead of you as quickly as possible.
If all else fails, do exactly what the cyclist in the video did. Take evasive action, jump off the bike and get away.
Offering these steps to protect yourself in this situation is controversial. Apparently.
This controversy is bigger than safety around trucks.
For some people, it’s unacceptable to say anything other than reassure that the truck driver is guilty and the cyclist is blameless. The truck driver IS responsible for clearing the bike lane before turning. OK? But ALL road users are responsible to use due care to prevent crashes.
Fault is a concept for civil litigation. It’s not a countermeasure.
It’s certainly in the best interest of cyclists to avoid getting squished. But they can’t protect themselves if they don’t know what the risks are.
I get it. Advocates are sensitive — with good reason — to feeling like bicyclists are blamed wrongly for crashes. Pay attention to cycling news and you’ll soon hear stories about the miscarriage of justice.
The most egregious has a name and acronym: Single Witness Suicide Swerve, or SWSS. That’s when an overtaking motorist kills a cyclist, and then claims the cyclist swerved in front of him.
Dwelling on injustice is so intoxicating that entire websites are devoted to cyclist victimology. They get a ton more traffic than sites that promote education and empowerment.
Yes, we must address traffic justice.
I’ve written about it myself. But today and tomorrow — and for the foreseeable future — individual cyclists don’t benefit from outrage and finger-pointing. We benefit from knowing how to avoid becoming victims.
Individual cyclists don’t benefit from outrage and finger-pointing. We benefit from knowing how to avoid becoming victims.
We have exactly zero control over what a truck driver can see, or how well he scans his mirrors. What we do have control over is not putting ourselves in compromising positions.
But in order to have that control, first you need to have the knowledge. You have to be aware of the danger area and understand the risk. We as a culture — and specifically as advocates — have a responsibility to teach ALL cyclists that.
We can argue all day long
that the driver should have scanned more vigilantly before crossing the bike lane.
He had been stopped at an intersection that was 200 feet from his turn. There was plenty of time for a cyclist to catch up and begin to pass the rig. When operating around bike lanes, truck drivers need to be aware of this as much as cyclists do.
But I can only imagine the horror that driver felt when he got out of the rig and saw the crushed bicycle. What might have happened is likely to haunt him. It would certainly keep me up at night. Hopefully, it will make him much more vigilant in the future.
Anyone who has driven a truck knows that workload is high in the cab of a large vehicle. There are more things to pay attention to than what might be coming up from behind.
No one is infallible.
Our system works because we compensate for each other’s mistakes.
Knowledge saved my life. That’s why I’ve dedicated my life to sharing it.
We do it all the time. A couple of weeks ago, I avoided being T-boned by a red light runner, because I looked left before I entered the intersection when my light turned green.
Other drivers have certainly prevented crashes by compensating when I screwed up. I’ve had a few close calls that would have been totally my fault. I’m grateful the other guy was sharp and quick.
This cyclist compensated, too. She made an evasive maneuver and managed to get off her bike and away from the rig. She must have been very shaken. It was a much closer call than my tractor trailer experience — which I’m getting to, I promise.
Let’s save some lives.
My wish is for bike advocates to get beyond the kneejerk need to blame or defend.
There’s no good to come from “othering” truck drivers, either. Making a mistake that kills someone is horrible. It causes massive psychological damage. It pains me to read comments demonizing the truck driver. He’s a person, too.
If we want to save lives, let’s ask: What can we learn from this? What can we teach other bicyclists — and our children — so they don’t become victims of their own, or someone else’s, mistakes.
The majority of the time we spend on the crash-avoidance section of CyclingSavvy is on avoiding the consequences of other people’s mistakes. We don’t focus on blame. We simply recognize the immutable reality that humans make mistakes.
With motorists, those mistakes are amazingly predictable. You can get hung up on being mad about that. I prefer to be grateful. Predictable mistakes are so much easier to avoid! No amount of chest-thumping or demanding justice is going to make people stop screwing up (that includes you and me).
Years ago, motorist errors plagued my existence.
I complained constantly. I insisted there had to be a way to change their behavior, and generated a lot of negative energy around it.
Then one day, in my perennial search for how to fix motorists, I happened upon some educational content for cyclists. It told me ways that I could change my behavior. I wasn’t looking to change my behavior, darn it! I honestly didn’t think it would work, but I tried it. It not only worked, it changed my world and my worldview.
The motorists didn’t change. They still make mistakes.
The difference is, I’m very rarely in a position to be affected by those mistakes anymore.
Now I’m going to tell you why I’m still alive.
I might have died here.
Eleven years ago, I was riding north on Magnolia Avenue through downtown Orlando. I was in the bike lane. I had turned onto the street a few blocks before the big intersection at Colonial. A block before Colonial, I caught up to a slow-moving truck in the right lane. I slowed and hung back.
As we approached Colonial, the light was red. The bike lane continues to the intersection to the left of the right-turn-only lane. The truck remained in the lane to the left of the bike lane, slowing to stop at the intersection. There was no indication or expectation that truck would turn right on Colonial.
But I have a very strong aversion to riding alongside a truck. I know how wide they turn. I’ve seen them turn right from a left lane. I refuse to take a chance, no matter how remote.
I left the bike lane and pulled into the left-tire track of the thru-lane, to stop behind the truck.
Just as the truck reached the Colonial intersection, the light turned green. At that moment, the driver turned on his right-turn signal and began to turn right.
He turned across the bike lane and the right-turn-only lane.
The truck driver was as wrong as he could be.
He didn’t signal until the last second and he turned from a thru lane with no warning (there is an approach setup for this type of turn). He may have checked his mirror for cars in the turn lane, but he probably would not have seen me.
If I had been there, I would have been caught by surprise, and in all likelihood, killed.
I passed the trailer on the left as it completed the turn. I recognized what would have happened had I made a different decision… if I had not known what I did. I wondered how many other cyclists would have made the same decision.
What never occurred to me was to be angry with the truck driver. Maybe I was too busy being grateful (and pleased with myself).
Knowledge saved my life.
This was a pivotal moment. That’s why I’ve dedicated my life to sharing the knowledge that saved it.
I’ve been working on this program for almost ten years now. In that time, I’ve seen too many heartbreaking stories about cyclists this information did not reach in time.
Will you help save lives?
The video below is an excerpt from our online course. You can also link to it here, or on our facebook page. There is also a web infographic of the poster on the right. The button below will download a PDF of the poster for you to print and distribute.
https://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/admin-ajax.jpeg400400Keri Caffreyhttps://cyclingsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CS-logo_xlong-header.pngKeri Caffrey2018-07-11 11:30:342018-08-23 01:21:17How Knowledge About Trucks Saved My Life
I hope you’re reading this because you’re thinking about taking a CyclingSavvy class. Or perhaps you’re considering the online course, because workshops aren’t yet available where you live.
Ideally you’re thinking:
Who are these people?
Why should I trust them?
What makes CyclingSavvy worth my time?
A peek into Boot Camp will answer your questions.
I hear disdain from the founders: We offer nothing called BootCamp!
CyclingSavvy is new. Currently 99 people are certified as CSIs (that’s the acronym for “CyclingSavvy Instructor”). Ask any of them about their training, and you’re likely to hear these words: Hard. Intense. An ass-kicker.
Keri Caffrey uses “Chalk Talk” to illustrate an idea for CyclingSavvy instructor candidates
Ryan Scofield, a new CSI from Bonita Springs, FL, summarized his training beautifully in a Facebook post:
“Keri, Lisa, and Karen did an amazing job of simultaneously scaring the crap out of us and invigorating us.” He’s referring to CyclingSavvy founder Keri Caffrey, instructor trainer Lisa Walker, and me. (I’m learning how to become an instructor trainer. That’s another story.)
“It’s a big deal to design these courses and teach classes,” Ryan wrote, “and it’s not to be taken lightly.”
CSIs are entrusted with a solemn responsibility: Teaching people how to ride safely anywhere. This naturally includes riding on all kinds of roads. (Click through on any of our videos, and you’ll understand why we throw away the vast majority of our footage. It’s boring.) If you’re going to show people on bicycles how to take their place in traffic and love it, you’d better know what the heck you’re doing.
“Taking a CyclingSavvy class is easy and fun,” observes CSI John Schubert. “Taking the instructor training is difficult. The difference is because the instructors have to know a lot to make the class easy and fun for the students.”
Yep, he’s that John Schubert, affectionately known as one of “The Johns.” In the United States a group of men named John have helped untold numbers become better bicyclists through their books, essays and advocacy.
An article that Schubert wrote for Adventure Cycling Magazine inspired me (a Missourian) to travel to Florida to check out CyclingSavvy.
“I am well aware of the bad rap education has received,” Schubert wrote in that article. “Visualize a middle-aged guy with a pot belly filling out his jersey spending way too much time explaining gearing to a bored audience before launching into that overly sincere ‘bicycles are vehicles’ speech.
“Now imagine the gearing lecture all gone and the speech replaced by interactive teaching methods that truly engage the students.”
How to engage people: That’s what boot camp instructor training is all about. At every step in the process, candidates are exhorted to put students first. “The most precious thing people give us isn’t their money,” Lisa Walker told the candidates. “It’s their time.”
John Allen is perhaps best known as the guy who wrote Bicycling Street Smarts, with more than 300,000 copies distributed in multiple languages. Keri credits him with being one of her first teachers.
In an exquisite turn of events, John was an excellent student in Keri & Lisa’s March 2017 training. Here’s another thing we CSIs have branded into our skulls: We are always learning. We learn from each other. We learn from our students. We are always looking for ways to make what we do better.
About halfway through the training weekend, John Allen said something that stopped us in our tracks. We were working in a parking garage on a chilly Saturday in Downtown Orlando, learning how to effectively teach bike handling skills. Suddenly this national bike safety expert marched over to Lisa and pronounced:
“I’m humbled with what I’ve learned that’s above and beyond what I already knew.”
After a intensely gratifying moment of silence, Lisa responded: “Thank you, John! I want to hug you for saying that.”
And she did.
CyclingSavvy Instructors in Orlando, March 2017. From left: Karen Karabell, Shannon Martin, Yvonne LeFave, Steven Goodridge, CyclingSavvy founder Keri Caffrey, Esther Lumsdon, Instructor Trainer Lisa Walker, Dan Carrigan, John Allen, Ryan Scofield & Katherine Tynan.
On May 19 & 20 John Allen and Charlotte, NC’s inimitable Pamela Murray are leading Boston’s first CyclingSavvy workshop. John reports that he is loving spreading the word to folks in Beantown. “Why?” he says. “Because I have something positive and engaging to offer people.”