Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
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Quick wits. Thinking on your feet. Happens thousands of times a day. When it doesn't, you see it on KPIX News at 10 with all the graphic footage edited out. Hitting a pothole because you didn't have room to swerve wouldn't be a barrel of laughs, but it need not be dangerous. It need not even damage anything. I can, and have, run over things I would normally avoid because to avoid them would have put an adjacent rider at risk. It is clear from reading accounts of accidents and collisions here that the fine art of being quick witted is not being passed down to Millenials. They ride like cows. Everything is fine until things go sideways and then its a big mess because no one knows the first thing about riding defensively or keeping a bad situation from becoming a worse one.
Your age is showing. Defensive cycling can be learned but some people have different capacities for quick-wittedness; saying that millenials ride like cows is ignoring both the swath of old folks who can't ride with common sense and the many young folks who can. It's not that black and white and maybe your area has different trends than mine, but the worst behaved cyclists I see in Boston are often middle-aged, low-income workers weaving around on old mountain bikes (often with plastic bags on the handlebars). No disrespect intended, just what I observe on my specific stretches of road. Well, also the hubway bike share riders can be clueless too.
i did recently see a college kid with no business on the roads get doored lightly in his back wheel as he was riding very close to parked cars with an empty lane to his left. After getting tapped but staying on the saddle, he proceeded to lock both wheels and wiggle a bit before going over the handlebars. The situation was avoidable, and when it happened, could've been handled without any kind of dismount. Do I think it's the fault of when he was born? No, i think this kid just did not have much capacity for quick-wittedness, nor the appropriate skill set to be riding in the city. Can he learn the skills? Yes. Will he ever sport cat-like reflexes? I don't think so; guy was NOT coordinated. ...he got up and apologized PROFUSELY to the driver who was baffled at the lack of confrontation.
...I tend to take the full lane to pass cyclists when possible because holding a line seems to be low on the list of other cyclists' priorities, and spooking a less experienced rider does no one any good.