Musing On Cycle Safety – The Things Less Talked About!

A lot has been said about safety while riding cycles, especially on the Great Indian Roads where the vagaries are not limited to merely the physical condition of the road, it has more to do with the “character” of the road!

Feeling amused, well, that is the expected reaction. How can a road have a ‘character’? Well, read on as I make an attempt to put across what I am saying.

The Character Of A Road

Every road, especially in India has a different type of population moving on it. Now everyone knows that different peoples have a different set of ideologies that defines their character. People who have ridden in different parts of the country would understand this better. There is a reason we talk like – ”Rajasthan roads are better than the roads in Uttar Pradesh.” or “Mountain roads are treacherous” or ”Those roads are lonely.” or “This road is always exciting.” or That road is beautiful.” or even ”This road is boring.”

Surely, the roads have a character, and surely it affects a cyclist. Well, the character of the roads, decides how we ride our bicycles. The cyclists also talk accordingly – “Don’t let the children cycle on this road.” or ”That road would be ideal for the older folks to walk but no fun for a cyclist.” or ”The Jhadipani approach road to Mussoorie is too taxing!” so on and so forth.

Just remember – if someone says that a road does not have a character then do think about why folks talk about roads the way they do. Surely we wouldn’t be talking about roads as if the roads did not have a character.

Thus – we can safely assume and rightfully so, that “Roads have character – good or bad”. Coming back to road safety, let’s talk about some basics.

First Things First

1. Never Be Hungry, Never Be Thirsty. Before you move out for a ride (especially a long or challenging one), you must eat something (a high carbohydrate diet is recommended) and drink lots of water. Won’t be using technical jargon like carb loading and optimum hydration threshold for the sake of simplicity.
   The Bottom Line: Never feel hungry; never feel thirsty. During the ride, eat before you feel hungry and drink before you feel thirsty.
2. Ensure That The Bike Is Roadworthy. Before starting the ride ensure that the bike is absolutely safe to ride – check for brake shoes, brake system, tyre pressure, drive train, cogs and wheels, and derailleurs, there is a long list of such checks. Not all the checks are to be applied all the time but some basic ones always need to be checked and ensured, howsoever short or casual the ride is. It helps build a safety mindset apart from keeping you safe.
   The Bottom Line: The longer and more exhaustive the checklist, the more confidence you will have in your bicycle and your ride will be that big of on pleasure.
3. Understand The Route. Do a study of the route you will take for your rides. This is more applicable to cyclists going on longer rides. Understand the “character” of the road you will be using. I have suffered the consequences of not studying the route and I ended up hitting a 10% gradient almost in my most exhaustive state.
   The Bottom Line: Never get surprised or rather shocked on the road – knowledgable anticipation allows effective planning and that comes with studying the routes you ride on. Even professionals do that, in fact, they have other professionals who do that for the cyclists.
    
4. Know The Fellow Riders. Know the group you will be riding with – similar strength, stamina and frequency of thoughts will help you make your ride experience better. Your personal goals, when aligned to the common goal of the group, will ensure many positives including greater safety. Rides, especially the longer ones can easily go awry when a cycling group disintegrates especially when cyclists are stressed out. Cycling is about adding value to life and not becoming frustrated.
   The Bottom Line: Quality of ride is an outcome of whom you ride with – supporting each other increases the joy of the ride that much more. Value always comes when you are riding with people who are similar to you.
    
5. Know What To Carry And Why. Know what you carry with you – your list will definitely be different from the others, even though certain essentials will always remain the same for most riders. Trust your experience and intuition more than others’ experiences, howsoever convincing they may seem in contradiction to your experiences. Despite most folks telling me to carry different drinks, the ones they carry, I never carry any other liquid than plain simple water and that too at normal temperature. No electrolytes or energy drinks. It makes me different
   The Bottom Line: Do not carry too much load, nor too less – the ideal requirement is very individualistic, even though certain things will always remain common.

What The Road Safety Looks Like To A Cyclist

Here I have compiled a few tips, mostly based on my personal experiences over years of riding and also inputs I gathered after discussions with other cyclists.

1. Be Seen. Be seen by everyone on the road – be it pedestrians or motorists or shopkeepers or anybody else. The riding helmet, reflective strips, lights at night, and the good old cycle bell, especially if you ride in urban areas – all help to increase your visibility on the road. The more visible you are on the road the less likely the chances of you getting into an ugly situation.
2. Ride A Little Away From The Edge. Don’t stick too close to the edge of the road. Motorists apparently leave as much space from you as you leave from the edge – old cycling adage. The closer you are to the edge of the road the more the chances of you getting ‘pushed off the road’.
3. Puff Yourself. Use your arms, body posture etc to ‘puff yourself up and define a space around yourself for others using the road to be able to see your space as clearly as possible. I sometimes go to the extent of extending both my arms all out to draw the attention of another cyclist to prevent him from coming too close to me. I sometimes stand on pedals to appear larger to catch the attention of the motorists – it brings some caution into them and they tend to ease the accelerator if not slow down altogether. It also warns the vehicles trailing behind to pay heed. I doubt if I can be missed on the road just puffing up myself.
4. Be Predictable. This is a golden principle of cycling safety on roads. Make sure all your actions are indicated well in advance to other people on the road – visibly and if needed, audibly. I call out “To Your Right” or “Hey Watch Me” when passing people walking or riding cycles or just loitering around on the road. Be sure that while doing this, you do not offend others or come out as an aggressive user of the road. Cyclists can be vulnerable to abusive behaviour and looking aggressive is never a good thing.
5. Be Polite. Make eye contact, or wave or better still smile whenever you can. Yet, be assertive – being polite and not being assertive are two different things. Being polite does not mean that a cyclist must accept brutish behaviour. You know some people will behave rudely misplacing politeness with meekness. That does not help on the road. But a pleasing cyclist who seems nice is always a welcome change for most motorists.
6. Give Right Of Way. Give right of way to those whose right it is, especially to pedestrians. Understand the concept of the right of way – it is perceived differently in different parts of the country! I have known some cyclist groups indulging in bullying on the road. I never ride with such people. Roads should be enjoyed and everyone has a right to do that. Never block others, but if it sometimes inadvertently happens, as it may at times, do express a humble apology. This is for your own happiness. Humility is always soothing.
7. Smile. Smile as much as you can and as often as you ride the cycle, for you are using possibly the best inventions of mankind. Smile also exercises your facial muscles! I always keep a smile, it improves my ride quality. I reserve the outlandish grin for the toughest part of the ride, especially when I am most tired.
8. Look Before You Turn. Before making even a minor swing out from your lane/line – both left and right, look over the shoulder. Practice this till it becomes a habit. It is now my character to keep looking over my shoulder as I ride my cycle. Indian roads have motorists who are bewilderingly unaware of the concept of line of movement on the road and many would not even want to be educated about it. But then that should not be you.
9. Flow With The Traffic. Flow with the traffic, neither too fast, nor too slow, especially when switching sides of the road or making that sharp turn. Blocking or slowing down the traffic is the mark of an uncouth cyclist – I live by that and talk of it too, to as many cyclists as I come across.
10. Watch Out For That Road Rage Guy. Keep a watch for the road rage guy or that drunk girl driving madly on the road. Whatever you do, you have absolutely no control over the stupidity of such people, whom you will sometimes come across. This is more pertinent in the northern part of the country. Let him or her carry on with his or her stupidity. There is absolutely no point in getting into stupid avoidable ugly situations when you know you can avoid them.
11. Understand The Way The People Perceive Traffic. People who use the road, especially the ones on the cycles have vastly varying perceptions about the road. Their personal experiences always dominate how they understand what traffic is. Somethings are only learned through experience and no amount of trying to instill an idea about such things will yield any positive result. A cyclist is as much the traffic as the motorist – the size doesn’t matter here.
12. Watch Out For That Odd Car/Vehicle Parked On The Roadside. The drivers generally don’t bother about the cyclist or pedestrians who pass a parked car before they proceed to open the car doors as if they will be able through a car door suddenly made ajar. Cyclists, it seems are transparent to drivers who have parked their cars on the roadside. Give a width of at least the size of the door which may open suddenly. More than being watchful, a mindset to avoid ramming into suddenly opened car doors helps here.
13. Speed. It is generally assumed that the cyclists’ speed is pretty low – this is a very bad perception! Educate people and talk about the high speeds at which a cyclist often moves especially when going downhill/downslope.
14. Avoid Being Dumb. Avoid making dumb mistakes yourself. Watch the road, observe, learn and educate others.

Last of all – Just Have Fun!