[nikuman]

I am not nearly as experienced with road cycling as most of you (although I have spent more than my fair share staring at the road/dirt from the back of a quality mountain bike), so I may be stepping out of line a bit here - if so, forgive me. However, in memory of what was nearly a dear departed soul, a statement:

When cycling, it is not a good idea to pretend you are a motorcycle.

I raise this because of a near tragic accident that happened yesterday. I was on my motorcycle last night, driving back after a quick trip to gas up. I had to make a left turn and was waiting for a light behind a truck. Up rides a cyclist (nice bike, inasmuch as I could tell) in full regalia, also looking to turn left. No major crime there.

Now, I'm going to have a hard time describing this next part, so forgive me if I miss a bit. The light turned and the truck turned left and I followed. It was a slow sweeping turn and nobody was in a hurry to make it - except the cyclist, who thought it would be very neat to follow directly to my right (instead of behind me) in my blind spot. The road here narrows very quickly and, if not for a flash of a multicolored jersey in my rear view mirror, a quick glance to the side, and a good deal of throttle, said cyclist was looking at an up-close-and-personal meeting with 700 degree exhaust pipes. As near as I can tell, he was trying to ride next to me in more or less the same lane.

I am going to venture a guess and say that you folks probably are accepting a risk by sharing the road with cars (the drivers of which can often be idiots to people that aren't in cars). I am hoping what I saw was not standard practice.