Etiquette for Lycra Clad Nutters?

[Demon]

I've just a bit of a LOLWUT moment with a Lycra Clad nutter..

So I'm on the way to get some fuel after picking the kids up and it's obviously rather busy. The route to the petrol station requires me getting out of the suburbs and going through a country lane to get to the garage.

As I'm calmly queuing to get out on the main country road I notice a cyclist weaving in/out of the queuing traffic, as I normally leave a little room between me and the kerb I have no issues when he weaves behind and nips up the inside doing 10-15 mph, all nice and polite I think.

2 minutes later I've got to the junction and out on the country road (NSL) and approaching the cyclist at this point:

Spoiler: road

As you can see there is a fair amount of room and visibility to plan a safe overtake, there are other cars in front all negotiating safely around him, and I hang back to make sure when its my turn to get around him I have enough room and visibility to do it safely. We are just before the telegraph pole on the left when I go to overtake, the cyclist has slowed the traffic down to 20MPH, so I'm not approaching quickly, I check it's all clear and move well over the white line, leave around 1M or more and accelerate quickly around him as there is a bend approaching and want to get it done safely, easy peasy..

half a mile later we join the next sizeable traffic queue and are just rolling along at 1 - 2 mph in neutral covering the brake to keep my distance when I hear someone shouting, I look in the rear view mirror and there is Lycra man up my chuff with his phone out in one hand wobbling a few inches off my bumper shouting at me (and the kids).. I immediately stop (from a crawling pace) which causes him to suddenly grab his brakes and nearly fall off as he's holding phone in one hand so isn't really riding safely. He then shouts "I've got you mate on camera now, you raced by me"..
In no uncertain terms I just told him to bog off and do one.. and as a gap had opened up to the car in front just set off and left him. He obviously caught up but decided not to stop for a conversation but try to knock my wing mirror off by whizzing by as closely as he could.

At this point I just burst out laughing with the kids in a LOLWUT moment, I mean what the hell are you supposed to do with Lycra Clad warriors with cameras these days? what kind of double standards are they operating under?

I left loads of room to the kerb so he could safely get by in stationary traffic before the junction, I deliberately held back before overtaking to ensure it was clear, gave him a clear 1M+ to pass safely and all this whilst accelerating from 25 to around 40 MPH in an NSL..

I can guess why he was annoyed, the car is an old E46 M3 convertible and obviously accelerating from 20-40 in 2nd gear with a 3.2 Straight 6 NA engine might have slightly surprised him, but what can I do about that?, if I tried to baby it by him I'd have to wait for some time to get a long enough straight to be safe and that doesn't happen for another mile or so on this road.

I seriously think he is not doing cyclists any favours and will make me think twice before being as thoughtful as I normally am (Always move over to give them room, make sure I leave loads of room when overtaking etc, as I often cycle myself).

 

[Demon]

Should be illegal for cyclists to use a mobile phone whilst riding.

Well it was only at a crawling pace, but I did chuckle when he was mid shouting and I just stopped (doing a whopping 2 or 3 MPH) causing him to nearly drop his phone and run in to the back of me. "What's that about driving safely you where saying"?

Sadly I doubt me wrecklessly racing by him on the other side of the road at 40MPH will make it to youtube, I think he only video'd me on his phone to let me know he had my reg etc when he caught up, but who knows!

 

[Demon]

And people wonder why I don't like this ridiculous trend of videoing everything all the time..

I know, but I am OK when its used to apportion blame for insurance purposes etc.

- cyclists advocate - so why did he choose to aggress you, what did you do different to other overtakers ?
1m or 2m, space, it matters ... if he could have reached out with an arm and touched your wing mirror as you overtook that's too close, and,
given the width of the road from the picture, you could not overtake if there was a motorist coming towards you as well, so were you completely straddling the white line,
which would be minimum space.

Well I can say for a fact I gave him more room than the two cars in front of me (No oncoming cars) and I can say for a fact I was one of the only drivers to leave a reasonable gap to the kerb to allow him to get by me prior to overtaking when queuing for the junction..
I also saw the uneven road surface on the left and deliberately hung back so when I overtook he wouldn't have to worry about bucking his wheel. I was not quite fully on the opposite side, but more over the other side than the near side..

I've no issues you pointing these basic things out,many drivers are oblivious, however even my daughter (slightly in shock at some guy shouting at us) brought up the fact we'd pulled right out without me saying anything, the only logical explanation is the engine noise, that by far is a degree more than the cars in front..

 

[Demon]

Might want to revise your affirmation request...

You might want to read https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/what-should-highway-code-say-about-overtaking-distances
(Rule 163 still states the same guidance as of today)

I most certainly gave him more room than when I overtake a car , more room than the two cars in front and as I said 1M+ meant over 1M, I was 95% on the opposite side of the road, it may just about be on the Cycling UK's 1.5M as the road is wide enough to allow that, however not much further up you'd be struggling to achieve 1.5M .
(I also cycle and believe me, the room I normally give is absolutely way more than most drivers, if you've ever been 'buzzed' on a cycle you'd soon know how close is too close and wouldn't do that to others)

The other aspect is when stationary, why is it OK for the same rider to pass up the inside of my car with about 10-20cm of gap maximum doing 15+ MPH?? Is that also not crazily unsafe? I don't think it is, cyclists do this all the time it seems fairly practical and I didn't mind him doing this in the slightest, I didn't feel 'unsafe'..

 

[Demon]

I was with you until you showed everyone your willy.

Nothing wrong with showing your cheap old wrinkly willy on a forum...

Since making the OP, I had a think about the situation and something seemed a bit odd regarding the entire situation of overtaking cyclists and that is based on around 20K miles on a bike commuting (over many years), I've never remotely felt unsafe with cars passing by even moderately close (0.5m or slightly less with <20MPH speed differential), the only incident I've had is a bus slowly overtaking so closely it brushed against my rucksack (which juts out a bit)..
I appreciate more room being given, but cars overtaking even moderately closely have seen me, and even 50cm is a fair chunk of wiggle room (IME), I just don't 'see' why people think cars need to leave 1.5M+ as a minimum, it seemed a bit OTT to me. This is especially true in some of the cycle lanes around me, the distance between bar and to wingmirror seems <1M in most places, and in places this is definitely under 0.5M if I was to ride 0.75m from the kerb because I'd be right on the cycle lane marking.

So I wondered if it was just me being ignorant of the facts, not understanding the facts and statistics or just being very lucky so decided to give it a quick look.
e.g.
Take the pic someone posted on page 1:

And look at most of the campaigns
(e.g. https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaign/toocloseforcomfort) that again use a car as the example..

But then reading that very same cycling uk report (and the ROSPA source of that claim: https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs...fety/cyclists/cycling-accidents-factsheet.pdf) you realise that the actual statistic is:
"About one quarter of accidents resulting in serious injury to a cyclist involved an HGV, bus or coach ‘passing too close’ to the rider."

It seems a bit misplaced to show cars in all the photo's and aim it at the general public as if cars passing close is statistically significant when the real issue is lorries/buses etc misjudging the width of their very wide vehicles, something I've experienced myself.

Not that you shouldn't give as much room as possible to the cyclist of course.