Wikipedia's Vehicular Cycling

The first time I stumbled upon Wikipedia, the sun was coming up before I realized I had missed going to bed. I couldn't stop digging into every little nook and cranny of this endless stream of interesting knowledge.

When I stumbled across the Vehicular Cycling article, I managed to get to bed, but not until I had compared it to other articles hoping to find something more concise. This is the best I found.

The Best Practices section contains my new single-page cheat-sheet of "what to do" and "what not to do" for cyclists. Do respect traffic controls. Don't ride on sidewalks. Stay out of the door zone. Don't jump across lanes. It's like a recipe for being safe and earning respect.

Of course, Vehicular Cycling isn't fully appreciated by simply listing a bunch of rules to follow. We've all heard about "Taking the Lane", but exactly what is that?

On our Sunday ride a couple of weeks ago, we found a median under construction down a stretch of one of our favorite roads. This prevented traffic from being able to get around us so we took the lane. Once the traffic was able to pass, they were hollering at us to "Share the Road". I wanted to throw this URL at them. (Would that be hURLing?)

The section "Common Misconceptions about Vehicular Cycling" makes its points by contrast. For example, the misconception that "VC means not riding in the Bike Lane" is an opportunity to distinguish between following a stripe versus positioning yourself where conditions dictate.

Wikipedia's article quality varies greatly and this one is not quite "Featured" status yet, but it is still a fine piece of work. I encourage you to share it with others for its fair and accessible treatment of good cycling techniques.