Originally Posted by
chgurlsng
Originally Posted by
steve0257
Not knowing how experienced you are I would recommend working on increasing your comfort level. Most riders have a comfort level for traffic and don't like going beyond that traffic volume/speed. Start with roads where you are comfortable and keep looking for roads that are a little faster or have more traffic until you get to where you start feeling uncomfortable about the traffic. Stay at that level for a couple of weeks and you should start getting comfortable with it and then move to a busier/faster road and repeat.
I think this is the best advice!
Thank you.
There is another girl that takes this same route around the same time that I'd have to leave to get to my MWF class. She uses the sidewalk.
I commuted via this route for two weeks and this week I've been driving. The road is very busy so taking the lane as far as some have suggested would be quite rude. When I'm driving on it, I can see just how hard it is to pass a bike. There's almost always another car coming in the opposite direction. It's a very busy street. I think I will drive the other route tomorrow and see how it looks as far as the crime. I might just end up riding it although it will add an extra mile.
Oh and for clarification, the two-lane road in the OP doesn't have a curb or even a line on the right, and no one parks on this road (they would be in the grass if they even tried).
Taking the lane is not rude. What is rude is people trying to make cyclists think that taking the lane canon anyway "rude."
Sadly, what has happened in this country is a shift in thinking. And that shift is that the roads are made for cars not people. The roads are in fact made for people
NOT cars.
But, thanks to the influence of the auto industry, people erroneously have come to think that roads are made for cars.
The following link explains it well:
http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2012/06/10/lets-choose-possibility/
Riding with a partner isn't a bad idea. See how many others are going in the same directions and form a group.