coastRbrake

Two lane roads narrow enough that when a car passes me it passes unnecessarily wide over the double yellow. There seems to be no happy medium- feeling a side view mirror blow past my elbow or watching cars go into the oncoming lane.

That and running over pieces of car or truck- muffler shields, turn signal lenses, enormous bolts and 18 wheeler tire treads.

Booger1

They most dangerous thing I do,EVER,is ride by 2 high schools in the morning.Scarier than rain,ice,hail,RV's with the steps down,logging/coal trucks,riding the wrong way on the freeway,ect.

Don't get between soccer mom and Oprah......

vol

That's dangerous for them, not for you. I wouldn't be as nervous in that situation as when a trailer is passing me on highway.

vol

I've got two similar scares yesterday when I stopped at red light. There were some vehicles before and around me. There was one pickup truck (the other time it was a car) on my left that seemed like it had been parked there for a long time and not belonging to those waiting for the green light. I was quite close to it. When the light turned green and I got on my bike and started off planning to get around that truck to ride along the left side of the one-way street. All of a sudden, that truck started moving forward!

Shifty

What makes me nervous is

1 Lousy bike riders who run stop lights, stop signs, ride the wrong way in bike lanes and pi$$ off car and truck drivers.

2 Bike advocates who do their very best to take any of the fun out of cycling. Excuse me guys, you are not as important to society as you may think.

gecho

My biggest annoyance is when I see a car coming up from behind in my mirror and they DON'T pass even with ample room to do so. They just slow and stay behind and to the left so I can't see them at all. Their hesitance to pass probably stems from the fact they aren't a very good driver. So I've got a paranoid, unskilled driver remaining in close proximity with me for an extended period of time, joy.

In accordance with Murphy's law this usually happens when I'm planning on pulling in behind after they pass so I can make a left turn.

sudo bike

Probably these little guys. It's quite a sight to behold, really; in the Sierras they sometimes are scurrying across the roads in huge numbers... it looks almost like the road is moving.

OMG, yes.

kookaburra1701

Little old people in huge Cadillacs. Always gives me a start when I glance over at the car and can barely see a little puff of blue hair/shining bald dome over the bottom edge of the window.

Also Winnebagos dusted off and driven for the first time in a year. But especially Rental RVs.

johndeere

Nothing.

It's all about situational awareness.

degnaw

Dogs.

spock

Falling asleep at the handlebar.

Figuratively speaking of course. ..... Paying best possible attention is very much OK.

voj112

Tow truck drivers speeding, running red lights, madly swerving to get to a collision before the competition... One time a piece of steel flew off the towing mechanism 100 meters after the idiot passed me driving way over the speed limit.

On and off ramps during rush hour.

vol

Avoid all heavy trucks, including tow trucks, trailers, sanitation trucks (cover your nose, too),...
-They are large, leaving you little or no space
-They are heavy and hard to stop,
-They have many blind spots,
-The drivers often seem to be not that smart of with sense, sometimes driving aggressively and carelessly,
-If they hit you, your survival chance is not that optimistic.

5kdad

1. RV's
2. Cars who pass, without slowing down, even though there is on-coming traffic
3. Roads in southern Missouri often have "rumble strip" down the fog line, with minimal shoulders, so when needed, it's difficult to move to the right.

Richard Cranium

I think all cyclists are the sum total of their ride experiences. I think the way a cyclist sees and fears the world is a direct result of all the crazy things that have happened to him/her previously.

I have always thought i was pretty brazen and pretty road worthy with respect to traffic until I got smacked in broad daylight by an 80-year-old that never "saw me" and didn't even know he hit me until others got him to stop.

What do I fear most? I fear the knowledge that there are more like him than me - and if i ride enough another one will smack me without warning.

I fear not being able to make eye-contact with every single driver on the road.

shipwreck

Probably being passed on a blind turn on top of a hill by a driver who gets all the way over the double yellow. It does not matter if I am "taking the lane", which where I live translates into "death by methed out redneck in a dually", or if I am being a gutter bunny, some people will get all the way over into the other lane. I could give a **** about them, but my nightmare is an oncoming minivan full of little kids(or even just one person) getting rammed right in the grill because some dip decided to pass blind at speed rather than slow down. I accept my own mortality on a bike, but if that ever happened, and someone died, I doubt I could ever get on a bike again.

Oh, and rumble strips, chicken trucks, and large groups of harley riders with one or two tossing bottles(that happened twice last year).

mechBgon

I had to think for a minute to come up with stuff that makes me nervous on the road. Ok, how about...

1. crossing a heavily-used off-ramp in a ~60mph/100kph zone. Takes some coordination sometimes.

2. white-tailed deer, they can be pretty unpredictable.

3. tricky winter conditions where only the lane's tire tracks are really usable.