Cyclists should be banned from riding on the road. I was hauling some feed back on a road that has a 30' shoulder on it and there was a 3-person cycle(full) on the shoulder hugging the line that seperates the road from the shoulder and I have to gun it in order to get by them and not cause any type of traffic problems. Not only are cyclists doing something that is unhealthy(has to do with VO2 max) by being on the road, but they show very very poor judgement as well. To top it all off, we have like 15 miles(constructing more as I type this) of variable terrain bike trails that they can be on, but are they are there, noooooooooo.

 

While I don't agree with you completely (they have every right to be there) there are a few of them that fail to follow the rules of the road and fail to show courtesy. I've seen numerous bikers who ride in packs and take up half if not the whole lane and don't move out of the way for autos. I usually give them a minute before I give em a honk to get out of the way. Then I have no choice but to gun it to get by them which leaves them in a cloud of smoke.

But how is cycling unhealthy?

 

I don't mind cyclists who can keep up with the flow of traffic and stay mostly out of the way, its the ones that can't maintain speed on a slight decline and are all over the lane that really bother me,

 

NO they don't have the right to be there!! I pay taxes with every gallon of diesel fuel I buy.. more than a gal of gas i might add. I pay for a tag, and inspections there is a 2% tire tax here in NC that I have to pay too.

They don't pay for crap!!

My 4 wheeler has more right to be on the road than they do. because i payed the tax on the fuel.. but that seems to be illegal (but i do it anyway i might add)

 

The only time it really grinds my gears is when there is a nice bike path right beside the road, but they insist on being on the road obstructing traffic going 60+ km/h

 

When the county that you live in spends millions(I mean millions) of dollars into primo bike trails and I would say 10% of the biking population here uses them and they want to be right in the road with vehicles and act crazy, no I don't think they should be there. I could take my horses out onto the road and do the same thing that cyclists are doing. I wouldn't because I would be the same type of hazard as the cyclists are(even worse).


Your lungs are at what is known as Maximum Volume of Oxygen(VO2 Max), which means your lungs are at full expansion, trying to get and use every bit of oxygen that it can while you do your workout. Now the expansion is different depending on your level of workout(just starting to do workout, or having been doing it for years etc), but your lungs are trying to get all the air that it can to do the work. I can promise you having your lungs try to use all the air while big rigs and other vehicles are having to smoke by you in order to avoid some type of traffic accident, your going to be enhaling some stuff that isn't going to be healthy. Think of it as a type of second hand smoking. If you do this regularly, your just asking for problems.

 

I never thought someone would be so ignorant, cyclist have every right to be on the road as you. And your theory on being unhealthy is pure stupidity, I guess thousands of labs, hospitals and doctors are wrong and you must be right.

 

Tell me how healthy is it when you sucking in all that air that big rigs and straight piped diesel trucks with tuners that overfuel their rigs and covers a cyclist with soot, how is that healthy?

Riding a bike in of itself is healthy I didn't say that it wasn't. It's where your riding that bike that makes it unhealthy(how healthy do you think it would be to ride a bike thru the chernobyl site?). In this case on a public road, despite the fact that the county spent alot of money building trails to where you don't have to worry about being covered in soot. I can promise you I had to do that on a few cyclists, not because I wanted to, but if I wanted to not create a traffic problem I had to because that was a byproduct of needing to get past them before I got into a wreck with oncoming traffic.

Before you start calling someone ignorant, make sure you read their post very very carefully. Oh and those tests that labs conduct on how healthy riding a bike is etc. I can promise you that they don't simulate smoke being poured onto the cyclist when a diesel driver blows by to get past the cyclist and see how that affects, because there is no way that they can compensate for all the heavily modified trucks that might poor out more then the next one and the various combinations thereof, if they have done it it would only be the amount of exposure if the vehicles weren't moddified and all exhaust equipment was left alone.

 

The way you stated it, it sounded like cyclist should not be on any road "Cyclists should be banned from riding on the road" sorry but that is ignorant, if you meant it another way sorry. Yes highways it should be banned and is but on regular roads I dont see why they should be banned. In my area I see cyclist's, runners, and even horses every now and then and I don't have a problem with them being on the road. If I have to slow down for 30 seconds not to scare a horse or wait 2 seconds to pass a cyclist it doesn't bother me. Sorry if I got pissed about the topic, I had a friend get hit by a car because some guy though bikes shouldn't be on the road and clipped him, so I really don't find the topic funny.

 

If the road has a nice shoulder I can understand it as long as they don't hug the line that is right up against where I have to travel and if I have to worry about not clipping opposite traffic and have to worry about a guy that is cycle right on the other side, that is a problem. They also like the roads that we call pikes(which are two lane mtn. roads(if you can call them two lanes)) very curvy, hard to see and they go up and down hill and it doesn't matter what speed your going there have been cyclists killed on those roads and those are the roads that 80% of our cyclists want to be on. Which from a workout perspective I can understand, but it defies logic as to they still do it despite the huge risk(loss of life). Especially when the county built trails to copy that aspect minus the vehicular traffic and yet they are still on those roads, that is why I get pissed on the topic. We are talking about a couple of million of tax payers dollars from the county in this endeavor and it rarely gets used as cyclists(now I do like hiking those trails, they are nice trails).

I wouldn't have a problem with that either(although there are some people that didn't show that respect when I used to ride horses on the country rodes before traffic got heavy, but I do do that), however that is going to be assuming that the rest of traffic is good to go as well and in today's times around here that isn't always the case.


I can understand that, and I am not advocating clipping a cylists just because they are on the road. However, cyclists have to do their part to show good judgement as well, not all are not "thinking" but there are some that I would be willing to bet that they just don't care aboutwhat they do and that the motorist that they encounter have to deal with it.

 

One word "Choice" If they want to ride on the road, it's their choice and their right.. I'm a cyclist myself, however an offroad one, so I support their rights. I agree with you there are some idiot cyclists out there. Every group has idiots. In my personal opinion there are a lot of idiot truck drivers out there. I personally feel that folks with Diesel trucks that go around blowing black smoke because its 'COOL' are idiots. Why do you need to pollute to think you're cool? My 2 cents in justifying why there are idiots everywhere.

"Choice" is what makes this country great. I'm sorry that some idiot cyclists had to ruin it for you and to shape your opinion against them.

BuckWeet

 

I'm all for choices, but there are certain things that one must do when you make choices. You can't just blow and go and let someone else worry about it and deal with it. That is what I have a problem with and that is what I encounter more often then not from the cyclists around here. Now this is around here and not everywhere else, but around here is what affects me more then everywhere else.

 

Nicely stated buckweet, I use to ride on the road alot and it use to really **** me off when I would be 1-2 ft from the line and get buzzed by someone on propose when there were no cars on the road. Alot of times it would be 1-2 inches and I would have got hit. Like I said I had a friend get hit that way so it's not something I take lightly. Every group has there idiots that make you think what were they thinking. Around here there the state doesn't do anything so you have a place to ride if anything they are closing parks.

 

Point taken.. If they are over stepping their boundaries, I fully agree..

 

tx, for the most part, i completely agree with you. when i was a kid, i'd ride my bike down main street north of my town, and the county roads. but i stayed the hell out of the way of traffic. haven't done that in years, now it's horses. i do my best to be respectful of traffic, but drivers still have to be intelligent. i stay off of black top roads unless i'm headed across the highway for some reason. had some idiot in an f150 doing probably 60 coming at me. seen him about a half mile off, knew if he didn't slow down me and my horse were heading for the ditch FAST. sure enough, he didn't "see us". but he did stop and apologize.

i'd never ride on the roads if i had enough spots off road to ride, but alas, that ain't always the case depending on where i'm living at.