tips for new cyclists: survive the road

After riding to work just about every day, rain or shine, for the past three months, I’ve picked up a few tips you may find helpful if you’re planning to start commuting by bike and don’t have a lot of experience on the road. Don’t let this post scare you off commuting by bike. Ditching the car and taking up cycling has been one of the best lifestyle decisions I ever made, but don’t kid yourself, roads are potentially dangerous places for cyclists and every second you spend on them you need to be making safety a priority. If you are reading this as an experienced road-rider, please feel free to reply and add anything I may have missed, or respond to anything you think I’ve got wrong.

Before I start – a short note about footpaths; Unless there are no alternatives, you should pretty much forget about riding on them. It’s generally a bad idea. Check your local traffic rules on this. In many localities you are not even allowed to ride on footpaths. In Brisbane you are, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Most footpaths are too narrow to allow you to comfortably share them with pedestrians who, if they are moving, are doing so at a speed profoundly incompatible with yours. The very first time I took my road bike out I was apprehensive of riding on roads and stuck instead to footpaths. It only took that one ride – trying to squeeze past pedestrians ambling down narrow paths, almost colliding with them when they randomly stepped out in front of me – to cure me of wanting to ride on footpaths.

I’ve arranged these tips into two sections. Firstly, things you can do before you set out:

• At the risk of stating the obvious, the best safety tip I can offer up front is to avoid heavy traffic. Whenever you can, look for less busy side roads. This may take you slightly out of your way, but it will definitely make for a safer ride. Also, where possible, use roads that have a designated bike lane painted onto them. Regular drivers will be used to sharing these roads with bikes and make the appropriate allowances. There are resources on the web to help you find streets that are more bike-friendly than others. You might like to read this post which contains some tips about planning your route.
• Wear a helmet. You may be old enough to remember a world before bike helmets – that was a world where you were far more likely to fracture your skull when you came off your bike. You never know when you’re going to have a fall, and when you do you’re going to want your head protected, so wear a helmet when you ride.
• Also, in order to have some idea of what may be coming up behind you, don’t wear earphones. In traffic your ears are almost as important as your eyes. Riding in traffic is not a time you need entertainment. It’s a time for you to be focusing on what’s going on around you, and using all your senses to do so.
• Be seen – try and wear something bright and, if possible, reflective, especially if you’re riding at night. If you don’t own any reflective clothing, white is the next best thing. Black may be cool, but light, bright colours will get you seen. Also, have reflectors and lights – front and back, with charged batteries in them. Running out of headlight on a dark road at night when you’re still kilometers from home isn’t fun. I know – it’s happened to me. Also, lights are not just for night-time. If you’re riding in the early morning or late afternoon/dusk, your lights should definitely be on.

Secondly, some tips about what to do while you’re riding:

• Ride with the traffic, never against it.
• Many bikes naturally orient their riders to be facing down, looking at the road just in front of the handlebars. Generally, sharing a road with heavy traffic is not a great time to have your head down. You need to be aware of everything that is going on in the 180 degrees in front of you, and in the medium to long distance, not just the foreground. So when you are riding in traffic, keep your head up.
• Beware of cars in driveways, or side streets, waiting to come out in front of you. They may:
  a) underestimate your speed
  b) not see you (especially if the sun is low in the sky and behind you from the driver’s point of view).
  c) Be crazy and just think that because you are on a bike you don’t matter.

… and any of these scenarios could cause them to suddenly, randomly pull out in front of you causing you to either stop, or hit them. Be ready. Also …

• Make eye contact with drivers that could potentially pull out in front of you – This enables you to be sure the driver knows you are there.
• Anticipate places where you may need to stop suddenly (like approaching junctions), prepare by unclipping your cleats. When crossing a junction, never assume there will be no traffic on it, even if it is a junction that is usually pretty quiet. Make sure you have had a good look in every direction traffic could potentially come from before you commit to crossing.
• If you are coming up behind any cars waiting to make a left turn, assume they don’t know you’re there. If they are ahead of you, wait for them to complete their turn before you come forward into the junction. (note to non-Australians – we drive and ride on the left side of the road. If you don’t, then read “left” as “right”).
• Don’t ride close to parked cars. Some drivers don’t look before opening their doors. Of all the perils on this list, this one has come closest to being my undoing. Leave enough space between yourself and parked cars so that if someone opens a door it won’t collect you. If this means you need to ride in the car lane, then this is what you need to do. According to the road rules (at least in my locality) a bike is every bit as much of a legitimate vehicle as a car and you have a right to travel in car lanes when you need to.
• Use hand signals before turning. Drivers need to know what you are going to do. This may seem difficult at first, but don’t let that stop you from persevering – this is a skill you need to master.

Well, that’s about everything I can think of. Again, let me say that I don’t want to scare you off commuting by bike – and looking back at the imposing list above I can see how you might find it off-putting. But look: the reality is that no driver wants to run into you. That would really spoil their day. The majority of drivers are out there doing what they need to do to avoid running into you. But accidents do happen, without anyone intending them to – that’s why they’re called accidents – and when you are riding in traffic you need to minimise your chances of one of them happening to you.