When I hear the phrase "take the lane" it brings to mind moving well into the lane, perhaps to the middle, to discourage or prevent cars from "sharing the lane" with the rider. In the situation that Jay describes I think doing that would be unwise. Most likely it would have resulted in his being swamped on both sides. Riding on or just to the left of the fog line however, would be much better than riding on a shoulder with obstructions in it.
On Sunday, May 22, 2016 at 6:26:15 AM UTC-7, Jay LePree wrote: > > Hi group, > I am writing to ask how you would have handled this and to get a bad > action off my chest. Today, I was coming home with some baked goods after > my ride in Nyack, NY on my Rambouillet, set up with a big saddle > bag..Clearly not a race type looking bicycle. I was on a road with a > narrow shoulder and riding near the white line. I saw a pack of cyclists > bearing down on me, maybe at least 20 strong. My first mistake was to ride > inside the white line instead of taking the lane, but then again, I was not > sure how they would react and did not want to cause a pile up. They passed > me without any warning and were perhaps 6 inches away from me. There was a > sewer drain in front of me. Rather than move toward the center of the road > to allow me to avoid it, they ran me right into it. I was able to slow > enough to get over it. (One of those sunken-in type drains with oval > holes, not bicycle friendly.) As all this was proceeding, the combination > of surprise, fear of dumping the bike, and just consternation that a group > of cyclists would treat a fellow cyclist like this, I said, quite > clearly...A**h*les. (How hard would it have been to move to the center of > the road? How hard would it have been to alert me to their presence.) It > was dumb move on my part. Not taking the lane and then allowing my > emotions to get the best of me. (Nothing happened after > that....fortunately, they were too much into their ride and keeping pace > that no one stopped or challenged me back.) I confession is in order for > today I guess. > > It is an unfair question as this group was not there, but would you have > taken the lane? Would you have trusted them to react accordingly? If I > had more warning, I would have stopped and dismounted an went onto the > sidewalk until they passed; however they really were moving. I saw them > in the distance in my rearview mirror, and the then they were on top of me. > > Jay, > Demarest, NJ > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
