Quote:
On 2005-11-27 08:22, Mp350 wrote:
Pulled up to a street light on a two lane road, 2 bikes pull up behind me 1 pulls up along side me. Light turns green bike next to me takes off fast, I fall in behind hit the speed limit and the other 2 bike pass me and get into the stagger formation, then proceed to drive below the speed limit.
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Yep, grade-A jackasses. No bike should even have pulled up alongside you at the traffic light, and the other two should
certainly not have passed you and then slowed down.
Quote:
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For the next 20 miles can't pass too much traffic to safely pass 3 bikes. This is my first street bike and I only have 1500 miles under my belt but this has to be bad etiquette or is just me. Now I could have weaved through them to get by put I don't know if that would be the proper thing to do, so I just followed behind them with about 8 cars riding my butt because this group decided to drive 5 miles under the posted speed limit (speed limit 60). Just wanted to rant a little, feel better now.
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Disclaimer: do not take what I'm about to say as any sort of suggestion for what you should do in such a situation. Ride at your comfort level only.
That said, I tend to pass fairly aggressively in situations like this. To some extent I can get away with it because there's not a whole lot of traffic in Vermont, so if I were riding somewhere with denser traffic I might not try it. But what I do when stuck behind slowpokes, especially when I'm getting close to a nice section of twisty road that I want to enjoy, is look for an approaching gap in oncoming traffic, drop back a little from the slowpoke in front of me, drop down a gear, then crank the throttle open, accelerate fast, pass quickly as close to the center line as possible (without being unsafe), then pull back into my lane quickly while still accelerating hard to open up a bigger gap between me and the vehicle I just passed. This usually allows me to get around a car or a small group of bikes in just a few seconds -- the caveat is that it requires a fair amount of simultaneous mental calculation. You need to know your bike thoroughly so you can judge how quickly you're going to accelerate when you drop a gear and open the throttle (and therefore coordinate this with the approaching gap in traffic); you need to be extremely observant to make sure you're paying attention not only to the upcoming gap in oncoming traffic, but the vehicle(s) in front of you and any potential roadside hazards coming up, and even vehicles behind you to make sure they don't have the same idea as you. Personally I wouldn't try it if any of the drivers/riders either ahead of or behind me seemed particularly unpredictable or aggressive, and I do tend to wait for large gaps in oncoming traffic with clear sight lines
(no blind corners or hills!), even though the actual pass happens very quickly. In consistently heavy traffic, I'd simply resign myself to going slow and hope that the slowpoke turns off.
I would NOT try to thread my way between bikes in my lane in order to pass them. And in general I'd prefer to pass in the more leisurely, commonly-accepted manner -- the above is obviously riskier than simply waiting for a straightaway with no oncoming traffic, rolling on the throttle, and pulling around.
--mark
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