Originally Posted by Leisesturm

Oh dear God! Can we lock this thread or at least move it to A&S. Honestly... the fear mongering. It does the vehicular cycling cause no good. I think I saw ONE rational post in this whole thread. Yikes. That is a lot of ignorance in a small amount of posters. 24" stick with a diamond point on the end of it? I hope when the redneck whose 350 you've scratched finishes beating you, you have the good sense not to report him to the authorities. You know... in the nearly four years I have been here... if all that time had been spent accentuating the positive things we can do as commuters/vehicular cyclists instead of all the bad things drivers do... when a newbie comes in asking for advice we wouldn't all (nearly all) be offering USELESS advice that they could never legally use (am I redundant here) anyway.

I've been cycling for 40 years and the widest thing I've seen on the back of a bike is a milk crate. Do ANY of you have Willow Branches with diamond points (or red flags for that matter) on them? No, you don't, because it simply isn't necessary. If its that bad where you live you don't ride. Period. End of story. If there isn't a bike lane or striped off area of shoulder on a road then you are taking the lane just by being in it. How I wonder is moving further into the traffic stream going to make a person feel SAFER when the cars that pass them will now be displaying all manner of hostility to express their outrage at the road being blocked unecessarily? How? Do you people read what you write. Really read it. Parse it for coherence and credulity?

Sounds like the O.P. isn't the only one in a state of fear. Why ride? Really. It can't be healthy. If I were the o.p. I would ignore every post in this thread, including mine. Go to a local bike store. Chat up the staff. Find one that commutes in the same general area. Ride with him or her a few times. If after a few rides and you are both still alive and that doesn't convince you that riding IN the street isn't the instant invitation to the other side that you want to think it is. Don't ride anymore. Plenty of people don't. I know I sound like a hard*** but that comes from frustration. I meet people with the EXACT same question all the time. When you live in Portland a lot of people want to ride because they see so many other people doing it. Most of them (amazingly) don't actually know anyone personally who rides so when they meet me, I get their questions. I've taken a couple out and seen how they ride in the gutter. I don't ride in the gutter, and I don't hog the road either. What many of you are calling taking the lane is flagrant road hogging and it is actually illegal.

H