Cycling UK Forum

Just been out for lovely 33-mile ride in Northeast Leicestershire and when heading for home through Measham, 2 Specials Constables on bikes pulled out onto the road ahead of me.

Now I've always laboured under the (obvious) misapprehension that I should ride about 1m from the kerb, but these two representatives of the Constabulary stuck rigidly to a more conservative 0.5m from the kerb.

However, I rationalised this by recalling a previous incident when I was overtaken by a Police Squad car giving me only a couple of feet clearance and came to the conclusion that the Police may be less well informed about cycling and the Highway Code than I had previously imagined.

Honestly, what chance have we got?

Thats the advice somereset county advise ie 1 metre out, but is that a gap of 1 metre ie from handlebar tip to pavement or from the centre of the wheel.

As far as I'm concerned the distance is variable depending on the conditions. On a good road surface, good weather, light wind and slow traffic 300mm might well be enough. On a badly maintained road with sticking out sunken gullies on a dark wet windy night and lots of traffic I probably would want a metre or more.

In circumstances where there is no particular reason to be further out I find 75cm or thereabouts to be okay.

rjb wrote:Thats the advice somereset county advise ie 1 metre out, but is that a gap of 1 metre ie from handlebar tip to pavement or from the centre of the wheel.

Dunno, but I've always gone by the position of my front wheel.

i ride roughly where the nearside wheels of a car would be..... it is usually far enough out to miss drains, but does sometimes require adjustment according to surface / road conditions.

Normally if I stretch my left hand out, my "fingers" (ball socket) are about level with the curb.
This puts my left front wheel where car wheels would run.
Depending on circumstances, I'll alter my position.
Being on a trike means I cannot wobble, so if I'm crawling uphill at sub 5 mph I could be inches from the curb to help to let traffic passed.
If the tarmac is very rough, I could be further out to try and get both front wheels on the bits smoothed by car tyres.
If I'm going plus 25 mph downhill, I'll definitely be also further out to take the lane.

0.75m (apparently)

Ian

danhopgood wrote:As far as I'm concerned the distance is variable depending on the conditions. On a good road surface, good weather, light wind and slow traffic 300mm might well be enough. On a badly maintained road with sticking out sunken gullies on a dark wet windy night and lots of traffic I probably would want a metre or more.

I'd second that. The only exception locally being the only local cycle lane, painted on the main road back in 2009; the Highways Authority chose to link a dreadful series of potholes and condemn it to cyclists, with the result that I always cycle 1500-1700m away from the kerb, outside of the cycle lane, on the main road itself.

I tend to vary my distance from the kerb depending on my speed;
flying down a hill I will easily be 1metre out.
Crawling up it and I can safely be closer in as I will spot pot holes and debris a long time before having to reposition myself.
I don't want to be a pain for other road users either by religiously sticking to 0.7m when I'm doing about 6mph but at 30mph+ I want to take a bit more of the road.
I wish this principal could be used by motorists - if you are overtaking a cyclist at 50mph give them a hell of a lot more space than if you are overtaking at 25mph

Depends so much on the road. One locally has huge potholes round many of the gratings, you need to be well over 1m out to be safe. Others have very badly filled-in runs for pipework or cable or whatever that make it a real slalom- you can't cycle on the seams because the angles are shallow and nasty, but as they weave across the road, you have to move in and out to avoid doing so, sometimes well out.

Revolution wrote:I tend to vary my distance from the kerb depending on my speed;
flying down a hill I will easily be 1metre out.
Crawling up it and I can safely be closer in as I will spot pot holes and debris a long time before having to reposition myself.
I don't want to be a pain for other road users either by religiously sticking to 0.7m when I'm doing about 6mph but at 30mph+ I want to take a bit more of the road.
I wish this principal could be used by motorists - if you are overtaking a cyclist at 50mph give them a hell of a lot more space than if you are overtaking at 25mph

+1

Nice clear road safety advice in Kent

Wise up and learn the rules of the road!
Always ride 60cm from the kerb

At least it used to say that but I had some words with them when I came across it in 2015 .

CUK have recently highlighted this pothole. Easy to think that that’s where you should be riding?