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This is a purely personal essay on the safety, and especially the dangers, of bike riding or cycling. I have been an avid cyclist since before Lance Armstrong “won” his first Tour de France back in 1998.** So, I’ve been riding awhile.
The New York Times article on the home page attempts to find a statistical means to determine where biking stands in relation to other sports and activities. This would be useful, if it is ever achieved, but I also think it misses the point.
You can be killed riding your bike on the roads and streets and the more you ride, the more likely it is that something terrible will happen to you. The drivers of cars generally resent seeing a bike. They have to slow down, sometimes waiting until the oncoming cars pass and they have to watch out for cyclists when they go around. Since drivers are generally already upset about something else anyway, and often rushing to get home or to an appointment, they aren’t happy to see a cyclist, especially on a busy road. Often, they want to let you know how unhappy they are by coming very close to hitting you. It takes only a small mistake with the hand to go from “scaring that jerk on a bike” to hitting him.
In addition to resentment, there is always the possibility of someone pulling out of a driveway when the cyclist is at speed, heading down hill. You have to be constantly on the alert and ready to take evasive action at any moment. When I am riding on city or neighborhood streets, I watch the front tires of the car in front of me, just in case they decide to turn unexpectedly. I am prepared to do whatever I have to do, including going off the road into a field, risking a big crash, to avoid an even bigger one involving a car.
For the first few years, I rode almost exclusively around the area where I live, but I have changed where I ride according to the changes in local traffic conditions. There are just too many cars on the roads near my house, so I no longer ride in the immediate area (except for a generally safe 12 mile loop I have that is partly in a park area and mostly thereafter in sparsely traveled streets in a housing development). I look for roads were traffic is light, the lanes are wide and I try to avoid the time period when people are hungry and rushing home for dinner. (The other “red zone” time is when the high schools let out in the afternoon and kids get behind the wheel ready to test out themselves and the car by speeding.)
Those who say that cycling is generally safe are not wrong, but I if you ride a lot, you are going to crash. The Times story indicated that more than half the serious injury crashes do not involve collisions with cars. This is not surprising. It takes a great deal of skill, and constant alertness, to avoid crashing. Coming down a steep hill, for example, you have to be aware of whether there might be gravel on the road at the bottom, either at a stop sign or a turn, and every time you stop you have to be aware of whether there is a car behind you that might not stop as quickly as you. It has been said that riding a motorcycle requires a high level of alertness similar to that required by the pilot of a jet aircraft. I would agree and suggest the same for a cyclist, in some conditions.
I don’t generally like to ride on “nature trails” even when they are paved (one exception being the W&OD Trail in Northern Virginia, which is wide and long). The reason I don’t like paved trails is that I consider them more dangerous for crashes than the roads because of the “mixed use” of the trails and the danger of going off the lip on the side of the trail and then crashing when coming back on (a common occurrence). I believe you are more likely to be hurt on a trial, but if you are hurt on a road, the injuries are more likely to be greater. Always a trade off, in other words.
I would not recommend cycling, either on the road or on mountain bikes, to anyone who isn’t prepared to understand it is dangerous and can result in death or permanent paralysis (the great fear of anyone who participates in sport who is alert to the dangers). Four times, I have come close to being hit by cars that were passing another car on a two lane road. Did they slow or otherwise even acknowledge the possibility that they were about to hit a cyclist head on at more than 60 MPH? No.
Close calls? You bet. I had many of various types more times than I can count. I’ve also had my share of crashes, one or two of which were caused by mistakes I made. (My most serious crash was caused by an improperly installed chain, which I should have caught and figured out before the big crash took place, but didn’t.) Overall, I’ve been very, very lucky not to have sustained serious injury. I recommend cycling, but only to people who understand the risks and are willing to take them. It is a wonderful sport. We are probably about ten years away from the time when motorists fully understand and accept bicycles on the roads. Great progress has been made and, around where I live, people are more accepting than they were five or so years ago, but the bike/car conflict is still a big problem.
The short answer as to whether it is safe and whether you should do it is this: start slow, learn, read, talk to other cyclists and assess the dangers as you go along. Don’t be afraid to back out if you find it is too dangerous for you. Make your decisions calmly, coolly and realize that you are the one who is going to have to live with them. Losing weight and staying in shape might be two goals, but the best part of cycling is seeing and experiencing the world from a different vantage point. You haven’t really seen the world around until you’ve ridden through it on a bike. You will learn about what it means to see at a different level and you will learn things about yourself and your abilities that will be pleasing and rewarding. Only you will know these things. Truthfully, you will be able to enter a higher level of consciousness about life than before. Is that worth the risk? Your decision.
Doug Terry, 10.23.13
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**I started slow and easy and later got rather hard and fast into cycling. I’ve done a number of “Century Rides” (100 miles in one day) and the first multi-day ride I tried is probably one of the hardest in the nation, the Ride Colorado mass ride which usually goes over some of the largest mountains in the state. Big ones, much higher than the mountains normally tackled in the Tour, which usually top out at about 6,000 ft. In Colorado, they often go over mountains above 10,000, even 11,000 ft. (The Colorado ride is particularly difficult for those who don’t live “at elevation”, but for locals it is not as hard, because they are generally acclimated to living above 5,000 ft., which means more red blood cells to carry the lower oxygen at higher elevations. I had been riding as much as three to four thousand miles a year (I don’t have accurate figures), but I cut way back when I began to do more of my rides on roads in mountains and, more recently, when I have had other weekend activities that demand my time. I’ve done fast group rides, but most of my riding is alone along back roads in upper Montgomery county, Maryland and in Frederick County, but I’ve ridden many other places, too, including New York’s Fifth Avenue at Christmas time, the strip in Las Vegas, rural roads in the Yucatan of Mexico and the crowded city streets of DC.
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