Things I learned, a little griping (kinda long)

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I almost got hit twice today! I do not understand why these people cannot slow down for like 2 seconds to pass me at a respectable speed. Grr.

Hi Gray,
It is pretty unusual to almost get hit by cars twice in one day. If these near-misses keep happening, then it might indicate that you need to change something about how you are riding in certain situations. When I first started riding in traffic, I used to think I was doing all the right things to be super safe....later I realized that by doing some of those things I was actually putting myself into dangerous traffic situations. Now I ride a lot differently and it is rare that I find myself in a dangerous position these days.

I agree with wildhawk that if you keep getting nauseous on your bike you should get a doctor's checkup- nausea upon exertion can indeed be a symptom of heart trouble, as can 'upset stomach' pain when exercising.
I assume you don't ride on an empty stomach and are getting enough riding fuel and water?

[GraysonKelly]

I just had an EKG done at work and everything is actually better than it was before. I deeply appreciate the advice and if it happens again I will visit the doc. I have issues with my tummy anyway and the doc knows and has ruled out heart trouble. It really was just kind of weird. I was looking at the ground with all those leaves different colors and trying hard to focus to see anything that might cause me to wreck and whammo. But I won't mess around with it. Thank you all for your concern.
As far as almost getting hit, I think I'm doing things right. There are just not a lot of roads around here that have a decent shoulder to ride on. I explained the one situation in my other post "Did I do something wrong?" The other "near miss" was along the river road. There's no shoulder and I ride the white line as much as possible (WV roads tend to be really bad and sometimes the white line is non existent but I still ride as far to the right as I can get. This truck just didn't bother to move over. The opposite lane was straight and clear and I'm pretty sure he was going way over the speed limit. Scared me to death. Am I doing it right?
Gray

[TahoeDirtGirl]

Kinda funny, I noticed this wknd that riding on trails with lots of leaves on them of a pinkish color makes me dizzy. It's like information overload. Kind of like when someone wears that black and white check crazy pattern on a shirt and then they move...whoa! Just the light pink ones do it, which I think are red ones laying underside up.

[OakLeaf]

I ride the white line as much as possible... as far to the right as I can get.

That's been gone over pretty thoroughly in the other thread... but there's your problem. When there's no room for a car to pass you safely while sharing the lane with you, claim the lane so cars don't try to share.

Also, you need to ride far enough to the left that you won't run over gratings, and that if you encounter a pothole or debris in your line of travel, you'll be able to swerve right to miss it, not left into traffic.

[GraysonKelly]

That's been gone over pretty thoroughly in the other thread... but there's your problem. When there's no room for a car to pass you safely while sharing the lane with you, claim the lane so cars don't try to share.

Also, you need to ride far enough to the left that you won't run over gratings, and that if you encounter a pothole or debris in your line of travel, you'll be able to swerve right to miss it, not left into traffic.

Wow! I didn't know I was allowed to do that. That will make my life so much easier. Thank you so much! All of you, thank you so much.
Gray

[Geonz]

You're not just allowed to. It's much safer. Drivers generally don't even perceive that you're there when you're hugging the line and being a "gutter bunny."

You don't have to get out into the middle - but easing out means taht a: you're not actually *weaving* to get around edge stuff, and more importantly, b: drivers perceive you as a slwo-moving vehicle in the road (not a pedestrian-like object on the side of the road, which they don't have to worry about) and are about 100 times as likely to bother to move around you.

I was doing a long ride with a guy on a two lane road when I had only read about this. People had talked about it being important to "be assertive" and I figured I didn't *care* about assertiveness, I cared about being alive, but then I'd read also that it was safer. At that point I didn't have too many situations in daily riding where it came into play.
When my friend noted that the drivers seemed to be a whole bunch of jerks, I said, "this is where the experts say we should be out further in the lane." We moved out.
The drivers got better. Instantly.
We stopped for a snack. We went back out. The drivers were jerks, buzzing by us.
We remembered to move out. Now the good drivers were driving!

Now, this road wasn't so busy that drivers had to wait for oncoming traffic except a handful of times, but we didn't get a *single* honk or rude gesture or anything, and we were on that road for about 30 miles.

[Geonz]

OH, and I have a trick stomach: if I drink my morning tea and forget to eat enough, it bounces back half an hour later. When it happened on the bike, I thought, "oh, yea, it was strong tea but naw, that's not really nausea..." because it did feel a bit different 'cause I was using muscles down there...
The reality happened so fast that I *hope* I was invisible to the poor driver who was going by about that time.