On my right! On my right!
 

On an organized ride in Utah this past weekend, I saw a rider coming up fast behind me in my mirror. He was shouting "ON MY RIGHT!" repeatedly. My first thought was he meant he was passing me on my right, but since I was already riding far right, there was no room for him to pass so I held my line. He just kept coming and passed me on the left as is conventional. Then it dawned on me that On My Right is technically the same phrase as On Your Left, just a bit more complex and non-conventional for the rider being passed, at least for this recent midwest transplant to the southwest. Has anyone else heard On My Right from a passing rider? Is this a new thing? Or an old thing I never heard before 2 days ago? Or a southwestern US thing that I never heard during 40 years of riding in the midwest US?

That's enough for now. But things did get a bit more weird at the finish....

Never heard that in my life. Maybe he is dyslexic. :)

This is rather a timely post for me. The other day the same thing happened to me and it was the first time I had ever heard that. I thought it was rather odd to say the least.. For the next couple of hundred yards I kept telling myself I must have heard him wrong.

Probably trying to solve the problem where people hear "left" and react by moving left, but not thought through. Really bad idea IMO.

Everything has become political in this society.

Maybe it was a YouTube stunt, did the guy look anything like Sacha Baron Cohen? Hopefully not.

Self-absorbed rider

"How does passing this other rider affect me, Al Franken?"

I guess it's just a sign increasing self-absorption among people. There's actually a term in philosophy that describes it quite well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Never heard that either. But of couple of times I've called "on your left" only to have the person move to the left suddenly. They hear "move left" I'm sure. These are always kids or people who look like they don't go on trails a lot.

Yet one of many reasons for avoiding trails...

If I say anything at all I try to be more direct like "I'm passing you on your left" or "excuse me".

Speaking of weird encounters...last weekend I was riding on a MUP that actually had hills and curves (for FL). I was coming down a hill and another cyclist was coming down the opposite hill towards me. In front of me was a couple of pedestrians. I was already slowing down waiting for the other cyclist to do his thing before I passed the peds when he yells out "BEHIND YOU!!" to the pedestrians. As he passed me he was muttering all sorts of unhappy sounds. I'm not sure what his point was. No one was in his way. When I caught up to the peds I made a joke about me being "behind them" and we had a little laugh.

Seems kind of unusual to me too. Seems it it's better to say where you are going in relation to THEM rather than yourself though.

However, nothing works 100%, or even close. Yesterday I had a person that I used by bell, and even shouted out 'ON YOUR LEFT" to jump right in front of me as I was passing them. I guess they had ear buds in and caught me in the peripheral vision and over reacted, luckily no one got hurt. Same day, a family group of about a dozen completely covered the MUP side to side, were talking and chatting, putting on sun screen - just starting out on a walk. I yelled from a distance, "COMING THROUGH" and no one budged. Again I yelled and practically came to a stop. Then about half of them, completely oblivious to anything going on around them jumped off the trail. I stopped and the first family half of the family that had moved kept telling the other half to move - they were just completely ignoring anything going on around them. After 2 or 3 warning from their family and a bunch of "What?"s most of them eventually moved, I passed the 2 that remained and both did the jump and jerk as I passed.

People don't pay any attention, so it doesn't matter what you say.

I rode with a former military guy who said, "Check your six."


-Tim-

The prevalence of this sort of thing on organized rides [sic] seems pretty rampant. Last weekend I did The Triple Bypass (Evergreen to Avon, CO) and out of ~3,500 other cyclists on the road the only indication I saw of someone caring about other cyclists' well-being -- or even just being aware of other cyclists -- was the one guy who, without any warning whatsoever, veered suddenly and sharply 90° to the left in front of folks riding four abreast, just so he could blow a snot-rocket onto the other side of the yellow line.

Very thoughtful, thank you very much. ::angryface::

I was on the trail yesterday, and called out on your left to a couple that was riding side by side, one in the northbound lane, one in the southbound lane. As I politely called out, the girl on the left completely freaked out and veered off straight into the woods lol :)

That's grounds for yelling!

I used to ride a paved trail quite a bit and dealt with a lot of families riding bikes side by side, people walking side by side, or folks out with their dog(s). I started by just yelling "Left", but found that sometimes people would move to the right and some would move to the left. The fun one's would just freeze in the middle unable to decide what they needed to do. I've ran into two people that froze like that. Maybe I should have screamed sooner. Don't know.

I've always been able to let out a screeching whistle without using my fingers, so I stated just shooting the loud whistle from a good ways back and found that 99% of the time, they just move to the right side without any issue. I think just moving to the right side is natural in the US, but that's what I've found to be the best method thus far.

If you're feeling really ballzy and they are holding a decent enough gap though, you can split in between them too. That's always fun and sometime earns a prize winning yelp too. It'll sometimes get you a good "Yeah. You got me." middle finger if you pass them on your way back on a trail too. Kind of rewarding and comical if you're in the proper mood.

Well done! :beer:

IME - the best technique is to call out while close enough that they don't have time to react by moving the wrong way, but early enough that they're not startled. And pass as wide as possible.

People inevitably veering is why I don't call out anything. I just pass as quickly and as far away from them as possible.

I don't call out unless I actually need someone to move. Assuming the whole path isn't blocked, and there's ample room to pass safely...I just scrub off a bit of speed and pass silently. Not to walking speed or anything...but just get down to normal cruising speed or a tad below if I was pushing it, or doing intervals or something. Slowly enough that I could panic stop if they do something really stupid, or at least not kill them (or me...) if they step in front of me.

I have had very few issues with pedestrians but mostly on my MTB when I do. One day I called out multiple times that I was trying to pass a hiker on a narrow trail at a well known cycling park and got no reaction. Even yelled at them from about 4 feet away. That's when I saw the earbuds and could hear the music playing loud. The hiker jumped about a foot high when I tapped them on the shoulder. As I rode by I motioned for them to remove the earbuds.

A couple days ago I had an issue on the Golden Gate Bridge. Normally the bikes and pedestrians are separated by separate paths on opposite sides of the bridge. But when there is bridge maintenance one side is shut down and everyone gets bunched together. There was a large group walking with their backs to me on the left side of the path. After yelling "passing on your right" multiple times, and then getting pushed into the guard rail I fell over to the left trying to unclip and recover my balance. It was then that I realized the group didn't speak English and most likely had no clue what I was trying to say. Luckily I was almost completely stopped at that point. I just picked myself and the bike up and rode away. No need to be the angry a-hole American cyclist. Lol.

I usually call out "passing on your left" when on the MUP. If the other people get confused I usually make a joke about how I meant their other left, laugh it off, and move on. No need for any negativity or conflicts when I am out enjoying my ride.

Yes and no. I reserve my negativity and conflicts for murderous drivers. It's not really possible for a pedestrian or cyclist to get to me. Nothing they do is likely to result in my death.

Agree 100%, but this thread is about passing people on a MUP and not about how I react to drivers who put me at risk.

Ha! Good one.