Do you ever get Scared/Daunted by Cycling

[Origamist]

I've just read this in my pinny having just made some short-crust pastry for a pie tonight. I like to think I'm redefining the alpha male.

No, you're clearly more of a Beta male, Bollo As an Omega male, I aspire to your status...

As to the scared/daunted, I will elaborate. For me, jumping on a bike is akin to walking - its not something I think of primarily in terms of risk for the vast majority of rides that I do.

There's the rub though, millions of people in this country are daunted by the prospect of cycling on our roads - but wouldn't worry too much, if at all, about walking. The notion that cycling is inherently very dangerous is insidious and pervasive in this country (sadly in 2007 the number of people riding a bike in the UK fell).

 

[Andy Pandy]

Never daunted by cycling in general, but some maneuvers scare the sh*t out of me. A right turn from a main road into a minor road in particular. Those few seconds of sitting in the middle of the road waiting to be rear-ended by some numpty fiddling with the car radio are not pleasant. Tend to avoid them when I can, but hate being intimidated by car drivers.

 

[simoncc]

In 2004 I wasn't too pleased to see the dead body of a cyclist under a blanket on the A56 as I cycled into Manchester.

 

[PBancroft]

Occasionally daunted but never really scared.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Likewise. I tend to be generally wary rather than scared, but of course there are of times when things that drivers do frighten me. However whatever I feel inside I try to ride confidently.

 

[spandex]

Nope Ill ride any where (I have even ridden on the M1 south bound)!!

 

[gbb]

Never daunted, never scared. I dont know if thats a good or bad thing, but it's the way it is.
Like many here, i get annoyed occasionally, but even that passes very quickly now...
I sometimes wonder why i seem to have fewer incidents nowadays..i believe its reading these forums, particually about cycling style, position in the road, the law etc etc, that's helped me, even when at first i've disagreed with comments / suggestions.
There have been times when i thought, 'thats bollox'...but then thought about it, modified my style / behaviour...
Everyone can learn.

 

[BentMikey]

+1 to gbb - we can even learn from the most mookish of people.

 

[yenrod]

I was thinking of this this morn.

What would happen if I was taken out:

No more me



People on here post of people dying and what do we do; 'say - aint it sad...

Its a disgrace people dying unneccesarily, especially cyclists !!!

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

If you dwell on it, it can get to you I guess. I don't dwell on it: I sometimes find my heart rate rising a bit after someone has done something that has endangered me or if I've made a mistake and endangered myself, but generally I don't find it daunting.

We all know the statistics about cycling not actually being all that dangerous, but you need to think about how it applies to you. What I mean is, x people are killed for every y miles travelled but that doesn't mean your number's gonna be up once you've covered that distance.

I suppose it comes down to being comfortable with the actions you've taken to mitigate the risks. For me, that means making sure I can be seen easily (worth doing, even if people choose not to look!!) and being as careful as I can: trying to learn how to read the road and knowing that everyone hasn't seen me, doesn't care if they have seen me or not, couldn't care less if I live or die and so on. All lessons learnt in years riding a motorcycle.

 

[J4CKO]

One thing that does scare me is my kids are taking more of an interest in cycling, I dont want to encourage road riding just yet, I have twenty years of pretty incident free driving to fall back on, I suspect my lads would struggle in current traffic, there were limited 4 by 4's when I was a kid.

 

[BentMikey]

Apparently UK CTC members have amongst the lowest death rate per mile cycled, so the conclusion is that you should join the CTC!!! LOL, well you should anyway.

More seriously, I would guess that experience and cycle craft must count for most of that.