Cyclists riding two or three abreast down country lanes.

[Roseforarose]

AIBU that it's a bit of a hazard. We've just come back from a journey and there was a bike rally or something. We were trailing behind for ages from the ones who refused to get in single file. Surely for everyone's safety they should be in single file? What do you all think?

tarantula the path in the picture is shared in theory, but because of the distance between villages it is rare tosee walkers on it except at weekends - and then not many. The nearest roundabout is about 1.5 km away, and I can only think of two within 20 km, both in small towns/ large villages. The path is as smooth as the road - possibly smoother due to lighter use. I have occasionally cycled along it (though not at speed nor on a fancy bike - if somebody needed a smoother surface the road wouldn't do either). Groups of club cyclist regularly cycle in a sort of bunch / cluster on the road parallel to the path.

15km not 1.5

Many road cyclists will be cycling to the speed limit of the road. They should therefore be on the road in my opinion. If they are doing 15MPH in a 30 and riding two a breast then this can be irritating but when they are doing 30mph why shouldn't they be on the road?

A lot of cycle lanes which are separated from the road, even in areas where there are a lot of cyclists, are not well maintained. I'm thinking of one in particular near Dorking in Surrey. There are pot holes in it and quite often broken glass.

In London it can be a real pain to be a cyclist as you will often find cars parked in the cycle lanes in the evenings or on weekends so you then have to pull in and out of the cycle lane every so often.

If they're cycling to the speed limit that's fine - they'd be winning the tour de France if they can cycle to the speed limit on the road I pictured though, as it's a 70 mph (100 kmph) one except through the sparsely scattered hamlets and villages.

On the note of headphones, I know several who Wear them as they have their satnav on, not music. They feel it is safer to have the satnav lady speaking every few minutes than it is to keep looking down to the phone attachment/garmin on their bike.

Noch - the roads I'm talking about are 20/30mph. Not sure Wiggins could reach 70mph!

Many cycle paths are badly maintained, with the surface broken and dangerous to ride on. They can also be dangerous to pedestrians (and cyclist), who often stray onto the cycle path. I would never criticise a cyclist for choosing to cycle on the road.

Cyclist should always be given much more room than most people think. the state of our roads can be awful. What you don't see in a car are the broken bits of road that would throw a cyclist off they bike if they're not careful.

I have a Transcend200 www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-DrivePro-Video-Recorder-Built-/dp/B00GRYT5QI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433841785&sr=8-1&keywords=transcend+drive+pro+200 fitted in my car. I would thoroughly recommend it to any driver. It certainly makes me drive more carefully and considerately, and would provide invaluable evidence in the event of a collision. The cyclist's head cam helped him in the Priory Lane video.

I simply don't understand why 'trailing behind for ages' is such a big problem. I quite like seeing cyclists on the roads and I find my car is perfectly capable of driving at slow speeds. I'm rarely in a hurry because I leave in plenty of time for my journey (you never know when you might encounter roadworks, which add much more time to a journey than cyclists ever do). Admittedly there are times when a cyclist does something that's actually dangerous, like riding on the wrong side of the road, but I see much more dangerous driving of cars. Seriously, I can't see why driving slowly for a few minutes is such a source of frustration.

It's not a safety problem for them though and as they are on bikes and you are in a car, they are far more vulnerable.

It's far too easy for an impatient driver to risk trying to squeeze past a rider going single file than it is two or three abreast.

Sorcha how lovely for you.

Of course sometimes it doesn't matter. Other times it is annoying - living rurally with 3 kids whose schooling and activities rarely overlap, 1 and narrow 2 lane roads the only way of getting from A to B, C and D, and empty cycle paths visible it can sometimes be frustrating - the time I got a call to pick my then 3 yo up from Kindergarten as he'd cut his head open and needed taking straight to the doctor and I could hear him howling when they called it was pretty darn frustrating. .. also when I have to get to 3 separate places several miles apart in quick succession in order to avoid anyone being picked up late or late to things with specific start and finish times but leaving early isn't helpful except for the first stage of the journey as child 1 can't be picked up before x time but also can't be picked up late; then child 2 be needs to be at place C within a window of 10 minutes because earlier and he'd have to sit in the car park but later and the lesson will have started, and child c needs to be delivered home but couldn't be left there because nobody was home, and I leave straight from dropping him to get to evening work.

A lot of my day I have time, but sometimes the schedule is tight and being held up en route is a major pita. Even with a degree of lift sharing - there isn't always/ often a compatible person to lift share with in a small village.

Of course delays like tractors are inevitable - road works not really as they tend to be scheduled and sign posted so you know to take another route. The thing is tractors have nowhere else to drive but there's often a cycle path right next to the road... The suggestion cars take motorways is facetious as that's not an indirect but fast route - it's not a route at all from one village to another - the equivalent of B roads and country lanes are the only options linking those places.

It isn't a major problem, usually it's worth an eye roll, occasionally it is really bloody frustrating, if circumstances conspire... only occasionally, but it's what the thread is about.

road works not really as they tend to be scheduled and sign posted so you know to take another route.

You live in Germany you say….

Ok, ok Merry :o

I usually drive in rural England for one 2 week period each year and I must admit every year I find I've forgotten how bloody frustrating rural UK roads are... I used to take it as normal when I lived there. ..

My friend got mown down by a group of cyclists in the lake district when we were teens ... I just remembered that apropo of nothing... They were very nice about it and she wasn't seriously injured but they came around a bend in a big cluster really fast and there was nowhere for her to go with a wall one one side and a ditch on the other - we were hiking and the rest of us ended up in the ditch. I don't think there was a cycle path in sight though :o

Sorcha how lovely for you.
Thank you.

And yes, your life sounds fairly chaotic, but you have chosen to live the way you do, and if you can't manage to be patient occasionally for a few minutes behind a cyclist maybe you should slow down a bit in general?

Sorcha how patronising. Nobody "chooses" to be in a hurry to pick up an injured child, and most people with more than one child and a job don't have much flexibility in their schedule at certain times of certain days. That's not chaotic it's just sometimes busy - chaotic is a massively loaded and inappropriate word choice. The only people who have all day to potter about are some retired people - most of the rest of us sometimes have more than one thing to do in a day

So...we are not supposed to over take cyclists now? Just at rush hour, have 50 cars all merrily held up behind two fellas on their bikes having a country ride? Fuck browines, after school clubs, appointments?

Personally If i was on a bike or tractor or anything that was holding up loads of traffic i would pull over now and then to let some past.

I am not behind a cyclist occasionally its every single day on our roads, and its usually two of them and we have loads of horses too. all, seemingly at rush hour.

No, you are supposed to overtake cyclists when it is safe to pass.

Not sure about you but I have no idea why a random stranger is using the road, whether they are in a car or on a bike.

NurNochKurzDieWeltRetten I have three kids in three different schools and work full time, so I'm not pottering about all day . Maybe I'm just a more patient driver than you are, or maybe I have a more realistic idea of how long it can take to get from one place to the next.

merry I was just explaining to the highly un empathetic Sorcha that not everybody's life is identical to hers - she expressed inability to grasp how anyone would mind at all about training behind cyclists for ages, being of the opinion that planning our junkies well in advance like her would be the solution. I don't expect cyclists to know why I'm using the road; just explaining that there can be occassions when being held up is annoying or frustrating.

Now, now! I'm not 'un empathetic' - I have plenty of empathy for those poor cyclists who become objects of people's frustration, even though they're just as entitled to use the roads as car drivers are.

Sorcha there is no holier than though prize. I haven't said I am not a patient driver - I have said there are occassions when being delayed is not the pleasure you seem to find it, especially when being delayed by groups who have a safer alternative in plain view but choose not to use it on principle. I said it happens only occasionally when circumstances conspire to mean the delay makes me late and I couldn't have left earlier because my journey has multiple destinations with fixed departure times due to 4 people's schedules - sometimes.

You being smug about never minding being held up doesn't mean you are patient, it means you never need to be patient OR you couldn't give a rats arse about inconveniencing others by being late. There is no way with 3 kids (unless old enough to get about alone in which case irrelevant to the discussion) and a job you are never on a schedule unless you never take your kids from A to B or don't live rurally so things are not widely spaced or you have public transport options.

Not being able to understand why somebody might mind being held up doesn't make you patient or superior, just narrow minded.

Actually, NurNochKurz, I don't think I'm patronising, un-empathetic, holier-than-thou, smug, or narrow-minded. And I don't think you know enough about my life to assume that I'm pottering around all day, never on a schedule, or using public transport; or that I don't give a rat's arse about being late.

In fact, as far as I'm aware, the only things you know about me are: (a) that I don't find it frustrating being stuck behind cyclists, and (b) that the reasons you give for your frustration seem incomprehensible to me.

I'm sure you're usually a very sweet person when you're not feeling frustrated by cyclists and strangers on internet forums who see the road world very differently...

Most of us have had to do that dash to school to pick up a sick or injured child and had to endure the hell of getting stuck behind slow moving vehicles. You happen to have been in a car behind a bike. I happened to have been on a bike behind a huge queue of cars. It happens to all of us and is frustrating but is not the fault of the cyclists.
I often need to get from a to b quickly for appointments, school pick ups etc. same as everyone else and in order to do so I use the best routes available which in many cases happens to be the road. My aim is not to inconvenience anyone but to get where I need to go as quickly and easily as I can while obeying the rules of the roads which includes not using cycle paths that were not designed and not suited for my purpose.

I think it's worth considering at this point all the times you've been held up on the roads, and whether the cause of the delay was cyclists or motor vehicles!

Cyclists cause a tiny fraction of the delays experienced by motorists, and I'm at a loss to understand why delays caused by bikes are so much worse than hold ups caused by routine heavy traffic.