How To Bicycle On A Roundabout

On rare occasion, I find that I want to write seriously about something that may prove useful to others. I know, it freaks me out too. Anyway, here we go:

London Ontario built its first roundabout a while ago, at the intersection of Hale and Trafalgar. I think it has quite handily dealt with the railway crossing and traffic tie-ups that used to characterize that spot. Here's a picture!

source: Google Maps

I recently saw a cyclist (sorry, no video) riding to the right of traffic in this circle. They got through OK, but I sure don't want to see it again. As I see it, roundabouts are characterized by one main thing: everybody keeps moving. For the cyclist to the right of traffic, this means that they are, in effect, intentionally riding in a right hook machine.

The cars in the circle are under constant pressure from behind to keep moving and exit to the right as soon as possible.

When you commit to really taking the lane, roundabouts work great!

One thing about roundabouts is that they're super if you're in or on a vehicle. They are not much fun for pedestrians. If you are uncomfortable taking the lane on your bike, I get that. Get off and walk it for roundabouts. I'm thinking, though, that a busy roundabout is more stressful that way than my way. If you can make an exception and at least take the lane in roundabouts, that would rock. You might even start thinking about other places or situations where doing it makes things better for everyone.

One last thing: Most of the time I can take or leave sharrows unless of course they are of the pirate variety:

In the case of roundabouts, however, a bunch of normal sharrows smack in the lane would be a great cue telling cyclists where they ought to be. I might even ask the City to do it, which would be quite out of character for me; I am typically a rather lame excuse for an invested citizen.  

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

PS - Did you know that "Although the term roundabout is sometimes used for a traffic circle even in the United States, U.S. traffic engineers now make the distinction that in a roundabout entering traffic must always yield to traffic already in the circle, whereas in a traffic circle entering traffic is controlled by Stop signs, or is not formally controlled, although some states are exceptions, notably New York, which follows the "yield" rule although naming them Traffic Circles."? (source, wikipedia) I didn't!

Mighk was good enough to let me know in the very first comment and I have corrected the post accordingly, taking out most mentions of "traffic circles". Thanks Mighk! When I give out bad information I want it to be intentional, dammit!

If You Were Riding the Bicycle #6 - Handling The Oblivious

First off, let me once again apologize for my relative absence on the blog lately. I have a new and if I may say so, rather novel excuse. Believe it or not, I've been spending my non-working hours developing a Toy Idea. It's true. When my top secret invention has been adopted by a huge toy company and I'm all set to collect my millions in royalties, you can bet I'll flog the product on these pages. Until then, the best idea anyone ever had will have to remain a mystery and this blog will suffer a little. Now, to bicycle business:


Sometimes you need to overtake somebody who is completely oblivious to your presence...

I have no interest in ridiculing the young man who didn't know I was there. I was young once, and in hindsight I know that I often acted like a bit of an idiot. Sometimes, a full-on idiot. At other times, a completely annoying ****head. I like to think I'm a good guy, so it wouldn't be fair to get all cranky about this kid now, after I have learned a great many lessons largely by being stupid. I guess my point, if I must come to one, is that there will always be people who appear to be oblivious to their surroundings including me (and you too, I bet) sometimes.

The question, my friends, is what you would have done (really have done), if you were riding the bicycle. Hindsight, as previously mentioned, can be pretty handy. Next time I think I'll swing wide on the grass. Trouble is, you don't know somebody is clueless until you're slow and close enough to find out, so the grass becomes a minor pain on a skinny tired fixed gear. Oh, the dilemmas faced by a blessed man. How completely awful they are. I really don't know how I bear it all.

Tune Out the Bad,

R A N T W I C K

PS - Can I tell you how much I like the new youtube upload interface? It is, in my opinion, WAY better now. Because I know you really wanted to know what I thought about that. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. Right? Right?

Things People Say Fridays #3 On Saturday - The Law

The reason this post is showing up late Saturday night is that I've been trying, without success, to make the youtube vid show up like it does on my desktop. It won't. After a dozen infuriating tries, including some right from scratch, it still goes wrong in the bits about me and London cops. I know things flash too fast and you don't have enough time to read some captions. I've been screwing around with it for two days. I'm done. F(%k It. Now to the originally scheduled post:

I recently posted some pics of myself that included my geeky helmet cam. Cafiend, one of my oldest returning visitors, said "The helmet cam front view looks like a bike cop. If you want a less conspicuous camera, get a Contour. They're more tubular".

Turns out Cafiend, as often happens, was right on the money:

Have Great Weekends, Please.

R A N T W I C K