The "recumbent attribution error"

[recumbentim]

The attributions error seems to decrease with me when cars know who I am or commuters see me more regularly. The respect and room seems to increase too.
 No flags or extra visibility aids for me but one thing you did teach me Edinburgh F was the professional wobble.
 I recon if I can touch a vehicle they were too close.  In that case my mirror and middle finger are my main tools , but if I catch up with them it would be my fist.

[EdinburghFixed]

If you're too lazy to wobble don't forget the Hand of Fear. I find if I just let my right arm hang down loosely for no particular reason, I get significant amounts of extra room. Who knows why.

Do not try this on a trike unless you wear armoured gloves.

[Kim]

I got the flagsplaining^[1] from someone at an audax control yesterday.  I'd ridden the first 40km on an empty stomach, and may have been a bit snappy.


_{[1] Oh fuckit, I'm inventing a word for it.}

[EdinburghFixed]

One of my cherished memories is riding along the Mallaig road on the Mull it Over (last PBP year I think) and I distinctly remember thinking to myself how great it was being on the recumbent, as I was getting miles of room from all the cars and basically having a really nice ride despite it being a main road.

This wouldn't have been memorable except that at the next control, someone had actually stopped their car and related their tremendous anxiety at my certain death which caused a bit of a fluster. Who knows how they worked out where to stop?

No matter how many tens of thousands of miles you do, it will never be enough to persuade someone who hasn't ridden one that your recumbent isn't going to result in instant splatty deth!

[Kim]

It's the sort of thing that can ruin an otherwise enjoyable ride 

[Quint]

If you're too lazy to wobble don't forget the Hand of Fear. I find if I just let my right arm hang down loosely for no particular reason, I get significant amounts of extra room. Who knows why.

Do not try this on a trike unless you wear armoured gloves.

     At 04-30 on my way home from work to my village about 8 miles outside Oxford when I hear something fast moving coming up behind my trike I always drop my right arm with hi vis cuff and let it swing a bit (explain that I have a Lumicycle Rear light and Cateye AU 1100 rear lights) people tend to give me immense amounts of room on these narrow country roads.

     Kim, nothing can spoil the ride, f**k em, all the twerps who say "tis Dangerous" I engage in dramatic serious conversation, after a while they realise they are being gently partaken of the Michael and depart with a friendly nod

[EdinburghFixed]

I love to pick an arbitrary number and try to straight face something along the lines of "would you believe I've been run over 37 times this year?"

[Quint]

I love to live and avoid the running over bit, so far so good, aargh,  Squelch     

[Tigerbiten]

A miss is as good as a mile ............

I don't like close overtakes but on the roads in eastern Europe I know they are going to happen as trucks don't slow down unless they are forced to.
The main advantage of the trike is its stable, so unless I have to dodge a bottomless pothole, I don't wobble as they go past at speed.
So I've got used to them now.
What I hate is they start to pull in early and I get squeezed into the he curb.
This I think is a lot worse than a plain close overtake.

[Dave_C]

On the Edinburgh bike festival Prom ride on Tuesday eve a car stopped and ask after a couple of recumbent trikes with the group I was in ahead. I replied saying that they were wheel chair users and didn't have the use of their legs. This appeared to satify the eejit who then tilted his head and looked somewhat confussed when the rider pedalled off.

[RichForrest]

 

[Quint]

Eureka   

[DarkerSide]

As a cheaper option to Dinotte for an unpleasantly bright rear light, look at Magicshine. I've got one bodged to the rear axle which I use as a foglight or when on dual carriageways. It's low enough so if anyone has to sit behind me for any length of time it's out of their field of vision.

On the Fuego it sat neatly under the seat so the back half of the 'bent glowed red (like the light/sail thing above).

[Nethypete]

On my regular commute yesterday, coincidently the 100th of the year, I was overtaken by a brand new bright white minimax. The car then indicated, stopped and the driver got out and stood in the road with his hand out. Clearly something was wrong..... The conversation that followed was polite throughout but decidedly odd. This gist of it was....I see you regularly on this route and I can't see you so don't you think you should have a big flag or bright lights? (The sun had been up for four hours).

If this is the case then no one under 12 should be allowed to walk the streets without a large flag or bright lights.

I ride a high racer in one of the least populated parts of Britain. My family are bored silly with being informed by friends where I was last seen. I can only think he had seen low racers before with flags and  expected me to have a flag, but powerful emotions that cause a stranger to stop.

[Mr Larrington]

He sees you regularly but he can't see you?  Chopt-logic.  I trust you pointed out the inherent absurdity of this wossname

[barakta]

One of my not-actual-bosses regularly stops me to say she's seen Kim on the bent and isn't it so dangerous that people can't see her and shouldn't she have a flag...

I started out being polite and explaining Kim's experience of people giving her more not less space because the bent is weird.  I then flipped it and said "she's so invisible that you see her regularly, know who she is and feel you have to tell me how invisible she is... think about that..."

That stopped the "I saw your invisible partner" nonsense...

[Krystine_M]

If car drivers cannot see me - why do they go around me? I have had a pedestrian shout out that they couldn't see me, my reply was who are you talking to?

Tonight I was flagged down by a upwrong cyclist, who thought I was too low down to be seen. My bike (Crystal Orbit) has RSP pannier light and a hi vis vest strapped to the panniers. Front light is an eBay Cree special. After a calm debate we came to the conclusion that car drivers sometimes think they are the only ones on the road and so can race as fast as possible.

[Mr Larrington]

Idiot: You can't see THAT!  It's too low!
Darksider:  It's higher than the lines painted on the road and you can see them, can't you?

(This is wot lat. masters mean by "questions expecting the answer 'yes'")