Urban vs Rural

[MCAP]

I pretty much only ride in very rural areas. We live on an acreage outside of town so I just head out my driveway and off I go. I've only been seriously riding for about 4 months, but I've never had a problem with anyone saying or doing anything rude or scary. There are roads that I ride on that I've never seen a car on. I love it. Most of the roads that I ride on are two lane country roads with no shoulder. When we are on the wider highways there are shoulders and people are generally good about giving us plenty of room.

I'd love to ride in the more urban areas too, but just don't have a reason to. I've only ridden in the city late at night during a night group ride and there were few cars around at that late hour.

[Owlie]

Here, the traffic is somewhere between urban and suburban. (I live in an older suburb of Cleveland that's a stone's throw away from downtown, is near two large hospitals and a university, but has large residential as well commercial areas. It's fun.) Most drivers are relatively courteous, largely because they're used to seeing cyclists. (Because of my neighborhood's proximity to the university, there are a lot of students who think a mile is too far to walk.)

I don't like riding in it, because of the planning (or lack thereof) of street parking around here. There are often parked cars on all the streets I ride on, so traffic patterns get crazy. I hate dodging pedestrians and parked cars.

My rural riding has been largely on trails, but most people have let me across the street out in rural areas. I'll never forget the rusty old Ford (stereotypical redneck vehicle) whose driver was the only one of a long string of cars to stop for me on one crossing.

[sarahspins]

We live on an acreage outside of town so I just head out my driveway and off I go.

That is wonderful, isn't it? I think it's one of the best things about living where I do

[emily_in_nc]

I've lived mostly in a rural area for my adult cycling years. The drivers range from very respectful and polite to occasionally rude, but we had a lot more problems with loose dogs. Here in the rural south, there are a LOT of loose dogs. This led to my accident in '05 where I fractured my pelvis in three places and had to have surgery to pin myself back together again. Two loose dogs.

Now that we live in Chapel Hill and ride in the 'burbs and the smaller cities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, we haven't seen so much as a single loose dog. There are a lot more cars, but this is a very bicycling friendly area, so we haven't had any run-ins or jerks or yelling incidents. Most motorists have been just fine.

I like both types of cycling. They're just very different.

[Melalvai]

I like both types of cycling. They're just very different.

Yes. They are different. Urban has more traffic and more harassment. But rural has higher speeds. I wonder if the zone where urban turns into rural is possibly the most dangerous. That is the zone my driveway is in, where my daughter's wreck happened!

[Owlie]

I have to wonder too, Melalvai, about those sorts of areas that are recent victims of suburban sprawl. You know, the ones where traffic control measures haven't been adjusted to the new heavier traffic load. Speed limits that are too high, intersections that should have a traffic light instead of a stop sign, that sort of thing. There's an area like that about three miles from my house. There's a road with multiple strip malls where the speed limit is 45+, but the traffic density is fairly high. In the older suburbs, those kind of areas have a speed limit that's 35 or less. I'd be terrified to ride there.

Parts of Mesa, AZ are like that too, but they had the sense to put bike lanes on some of the roads.

[rubywagon]

I get it everywhere, rural and urban, in SLC, Malkin. My sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and I were out at Saltair, stopped on the side of the road, making an adjustment on MILs bike. A driver went past with his middle finger saluting us for absolutely no reason at all. I think there are jerks everywhere.

[bikegurl]

I ride in urban areas, because that is where I live, and it takes about 30 min (in a car) to get to the country so I would have to take a day trip to ride there.
I think a lot of the difference is what Cataboo said. Where you have a higher density of people, you will get more harassment just because there are more of that type of people in a crowd.
I live in a rough part of Buffalo, NY, and some of the people are respectful, and some are rude. The responses also vary depending on where in the city I ride. The places where more bikes are ridden are more tolerant, and bike-friendly (generally where the young progressive people live) than the poorer, ghetto areas.(where there is no funding for anything so we have rotten sidewalks, and rough streets)
My brother has had a car try to run him off the road, but I have had cars wait for me to go at 4-way stop signs, so there are both extremes.
I am comfortable riding in the city....I don't like high speeds, or high density of cars, but I rarely ride on those kind of roads.