Vehicular Cycling

Gear up for another bicycle related post -- no pun intended.

Have you ever braved traffic on a bike? It's a pretty polarizing experience. Usually you love it or you find it terrifying, but, as I have seen as friends come to terms with their traffic fears, it really isn't so bad once you know how to ride: like a car.

You may think that this seems to fly in the face of the ever more prevalent implementation of bike lanes that seem to be popping up in urban places. You're right it does. As drivers get accustomed to bike lanes, more and more of them seem to believe that that is the only legal space a cyclist should occupy -- far from the truth!

I wonder how many of these drivers have considered something they do many times a day: a left turn. For a cyclist bound to a bike lane, usually found on the right, it can be a chore. How are you to cross lanes of traffic, that now believe you have no right to leave your gutter ghetto, to reach a left turn lane -- or worse, wait for a chance to turn with traffic (hopefully) waiting behind you when no turn lane is present? Is the solution really to turn right and then make a U-turn?

There are all kinds of design problems in road infrastructure when it comes to facilitating dissimilarity paced vehicles, but I have come to find that by practicing vehicular cycling (read: ride like a car), many of these problems are mitigated, if not almost completely resolved.

Now I'm not saying you should be reckless -- far from it. Drivers know what to expect from cars around them, and by showing drivers you're following the same rules they are, they know exactly what to expect from you too.

If you are interested in more information of vehicular cycling, please read more at the VC Wikipedia entry.