OP here. Thanks for all the input! Has been very interesting keeping up with it all and more than a few amusing posts.

My take home, as I thought, is that there is no definite “correct” way of passing and it was a bit much for the guy I passed to get bent so out of shape. Context matters. Not every pass is the same.

As a reminder I was cycling slowly on an MUP, came up behind a couple cycling in single file, and waited behind her until we’d passed the corners and I could be sure it was safe to pass with nothing oncoming. She was aware I was there due to the noise of my freewheeling bike and had looked back to confirm. When safe I moved to pass, she called to her partner “bike passing”, making any audible warning from me redundant (even if I had planned to bell him). Or so I thought. I passed as far right as I could (how it’s done in Australia/UK) and at approx. 10kmh. And he kicked off about no bell.

I agree with those saying that using an audible warning can cause people to behave unpredictably. My wife, a very smart person, had always taken a bell to mean “move out of my way” and would instinctively do just that, sometimes without looking.

And as a pedestrian or cyclist I usually maintain good situational awareness and keep left (Australia/UK) and would get rather frustrated if every cyclist pinged their bell when passing. Indeed this has not been my experience, few do ring their bell (different story if I’m walking my dog or two abreast, or similar).

I guess I’ll keep judging each pass on its own merits, use the bell subjectively, accept not everybody will agree, and that the occasional one or two will respond very negatively. Such is life!