Cycling UK Forum

Hi,
I was out on my bike the other day I past two cyclist on off road track who are stationary admiring the view, and and on climbing a very steep winding single track road with numerous pot holes and stones, mud and even a stream running down it, I get to top and then come down carefully missing all the pot holes.

Halfway down I spy a cyclist on wrong side of road, moving but only just, probably just got back on bike, so I keep to my side of road and brake to slow so I can stop before I get to them, realising I was there the cyclist moves to the correct side of road.

100 M further down hill I spy the other cyclist, both I overtook earlier on, they too was on the wrong side of road and appeared to have just mounted bike or was finding it slow going as I did on the way up, I repeat the procedure as with other cyclist and they move to correct side of road.

Because of speed of both cyclist I could easily of just past them by moving far right, but I maintain ,1 ) they are on the wrong side and 2 ) if I moved right and they corrected there road position, a collision would find me in the wrong.
All the time I adjust my speed to be able to stop before I get to them.

Its a single track road, no passing places, what would you do.

I would have done exactly what you did. Maybe they're tourists from another country & forgot which side of the road to ride on until they saw you?

Or they were just out enjoying a ride on a quiet lane with little thought to road discipline. Truth be told road positioning is not normally so important on a single track road. It only becomes important when something small enough to pass is coming along the road. You may have been the first such vehicle they had encountered all afternoon. You were right to slow,keep left and expect them to get to the other side (whilst always anticipating you may have to stop) but I don't really see the problem with them being on the wrong side to begin with

Single track? Then there is no right/wrong 'side'. With a vehicle the width of a bike, you move left when you see another vehicle: Which is exactly what you (and they) did.

Shout and/or ring my bell.

Do what you did, I cycled the wrong side of single track roads a few times after we came back from Germany, easy to do.

I use the right hand side of the road most days through a bit of single lane one way street - it goes into 2 lane and its safer to be there as i want the RH lane when it widens.

There is a school of thought, and its common in North America, that cyclists should follow the advice that is given to pedestrians walking on the road i.e. face the traffic. I think its wrong but you can kind of understand the logic.

I'm not clear whether it was actually a road? You also describe it as a track. Strictly, the Highway Code wouldn't really apply off-road, although it would be sensible for bikes to keep left, because that's just what everyone expects.

In my role as a cycling instructor I have come across more than one parent who has told their children to ride on the right facing oncoming traffic.
Scary stuff.

Hi,
Just to clarify, I overtook them on a disused derailed railway track now a shared offroad cyclepath come dogwalkers haven.

When I passed them in the opposite direction they were on a single track highway, which is somewhat worse for wear, part of a cycle route much publishised in the press but I do see any cyclist wanting to use it much, the steepness and poor road surface will rule out 99.9 % of us.

I tend to keep to the left every where except where walkers have already decided which side to walk on.

The road is a what I would of said is "C" or third class but is marked in yellow so thats less than 4M wide, light orange / brown (?) is more than 4M wide and dark brown / orange is a "B" road.

It also has what I can only describe as very small black circles up the left side (on the road) which appears to be parish boundry ?
Its a metalled road but I would say never to be repaired and could even be downgraded as we run out of money in the future

Interesting to see slightly different views on this but most of us tend to faver left.............

drossall wrote:I'm not clear whether it was actually a road? You also describe it as a track. Strictly, the Highway Code wouldn't really apply off-road, although it would be sensible for bikes to keep left, because that's just what everyone expects.

Not sure about the Highway code per se, but the title would imply that it applied at least to all highways (not just tarmacked roads), which would include many (most?) of the tracks you would be likely to ride. Somebody may know for sure but I suspect it has the same applicability as the Road Traffic Acts which apply to "any highway and any other road to which the public has access"

Hi,
Even unclassified roads Byways "Other road drive or track, fenced and unfenced" are Highways and will be repaired the same, so the law will apply I.M.O.
Private another matter

Yes, I was more questioning such things as bridleways and old railway paths. It would be sensible to keep left on these, but I'm not sure you could use the RTAs to enforce it.

I'd agree that the RTAs, and therefore the HC, would apply even on unclassified lanes and some byways.

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:The road is a what I would of said is "C" or third class but is marked in yellow so thats less than 4M wide, light orange / brown (?) is more than 4M wide and dark brown / orange is a "B" road.

The term 'C' road is a best avoided as Councils do actually classify Important non-classified roads as C-roads (a few councils even do Ds and Es...). These numbers are purely for the council's use, highlighting important strategic roads, so they do not generally appear on signs (but bizarrely do appear on Openstreetmap). So the term 'C-road' can cause confusion so it's better to refer to roads with no apparent classification as an 'unclassified road'.

NATURAL ANKLING wrote:It also has what I can only describe as very small black circles up the left side (on the road) which appears to be parish boundry ?

If it's on an OS map, then yes that's a parish boundary so doesn't affect the road's status