League of American Bicyclists releases bike education videos

Fresh out of the cutting room. I forward to you for public comment.

http://www.bikeleague.org/content/watch-video

Ian Brett Cooper of the Desegregated Cyclist has reviewed them here. 

 A few late (and early) comments.

In the Intersection positioning video. Crossing railroad tracks (near the end of the video) at a right angle has more to do with not having your wheel trapped than it is a puncture. Crossing at an oblique angle (i.e., not at close to a right angle to the tracks) creates a diversion fall hazard. Your wheel can get trapped in the space between the road and the steel track and you cannot turn or balance. An excellent example of that happening is in Santa Fe at the Cerrillos/St. Francis crossing.

I largely concur with Ian on the bike lane video.  The LAB, for political reasons, never seems to find a bike lane it would not publicly damn. Bike lanes may feel good, but poor examples impose destination position and door zone penalties and paint stripes do nothing to keep the distracted driver out--see my previous post. Some of the riders in the video seem to be riding in the door zone in spite of admonishing us to beware of this. Also, the video doesn't discuss proper lane positioning when approaching an intersection, instead warning cyclists to be careful of being right hooked rather than instructing on how to avoid it. A better video of avoiding that scenerio is here. Good bike lanes are really nice (for example, Diamond Drive north of Orange/Sandia, South San Ildefonso, and Canyon). Bad ones need to be fixed or eliminated. End of rant.

Riding on the sidewalk is covered well, but I think the hazards need to be shouted out. The bottom line is that sidewalks were designed for pedestrian, not cycling activity. Some serious problems include that a lot of naive cyclists ride into intersections from sidewalks at high risk.  Motorists are not expecting bicycle speeds on sidewalks if they are looking at all, and by speeding off the sidewalk, you have no ability to avoid a crash! Repeat three times. Secondly, there is little room to manuever around others, as shown in the video.  By far the biggest complaints I hear about bicyclists on sidewalks and multiuse paths is that bicyclists act like asshats to pedestrians.  I've been the recipient of that attitude when walking our dogs on more than one occasion. Don't be the arrogantly driven SUV of the sidewalk or path.

On most trails, whether paved or unpaved, cyclists are at the bottom of the right of way barrel, after walkers and equestrians. Ringing a bell or calling our on your left does not relieve you of the requirement to pass safely. On singletrack or jeep road, be careful not to come up from behind and spook horses. Like cars, they are bigger than you are and even more unpredictable when startled.

Where should I ride is critical information. Lane control is important. People will try to take your lane, even with you in it, if you let them. Be assertive, and **** 'em if they can't take a joke.

Scanning and signalling is incredibly important. Making eye contact and communicating your intent is really key to safely interacting with others. Bike handling skills (steering, braking, maneuvering around the unexpected) are undervalued skills. We want to make bicycling an 8 to 80 activity, but if you are not at least marginally skilled in bike handling, there are some situations that will be a needlessly intense challenge. Streetsblog mentality aside, a skilled rider, whether 8 or 80, can handle more conditions and make them look routine. If I make it another score of years, I hope to still be saying that.

Do the Basic Bike Check (aka ABC Quick Check) as a routine before riding. You are not safe if your bicycle is unsafe. Its easy to miss little stuff that can become big stuff, and that can hurt.

I have almost zero interest in the helmet wars, but likewise don't think helmets should scare people off.  If you do fall, and almost everyone eventually falls, a helmet can protect your brain from a direct impact and thus mitigate the extent of injury.  John Allen has commented to us there are plenty of ways to fall having nothing to do with crashing with a car, including this story. I could offer several others involving black ice, oil on water, bike racing, and singletrack endos. Its not nice to hit your bare head on the road or a rock when the rubber side goes mysteriously up. There is a good article in Bicycling, here.Go read it. Its free. Young riders and newbies fall more often. Old farts like me have greater risks as our brains age. Protect yourself rather than get political about it.

Thanks so much to Gail and Jim Spann for funding this series. Very good overall, but needs work on some key details.

The LAB Ride Smart page is here.

For more online instruction, the Mass Bike/Law Officer's Guide videos, which are very well thought through, are here.