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With practice, every adult can bicycle comfortably in traffic. Start honing your skills in quiet parking lots, on side streets, or on farm roads. Then practice on major streets early on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Below, we’ve listed a few skills that’ll help you ride in traffic safely.
Look Behind You!
To bike in traffic you must know how to look back over your shoulder while riding. This simple act helps you move left or right quickly—to avoid hazards, change lanes, or make a turn. And looking over your shoulder helps drivers pay attention to you. Even if you have a mirror, you should always turn your head to look before you move left or right—just as you’d do in a car.
How to Practice Looking Back
Here’s
how to learn to look back without swerving or slowing down.
- Find a parking lot or wide, qui-et street with some kind of lane stripe.
- Ride along the lane stripe in a straight line.
- Keeping your left shoulder steady, turn your head down and around to the left. Try to keep your arms steady so your bike moves straight. Then turn your head forward.
- Turn your head back again, but this time pick out something to look at. Try to keep moving straight. Then turn your head forward.
- If you can’t turn your head without turning your handlebars, it should help to drop your left hand to your thigh while you turn your head.
- Next, practice turning your head right. Then practice turning your head while moving faster.
Where
to Look
As you ride you have to avoid two kinds of things: hazards on the ground right in front of you, and cars and pedestrians ahead and on either side. You should always know how both the ground and the traffic around you look. To do this, get into the habit of looking first at the ground 20 to 30 feet in front of you, then up at traffic, then back down at the ground. At first this’ll seem hard—maybe even strange—but with practice you’ll do it with-out thinking.
Ready for a Brake
Always keep your hands near or over your brake levers—so you can stop fast in a pinch. When you brake, squeeze the front and back brakes at the same time. (To learn more, see “The Quick Slow-Down” on page 22.)
Shifting Gears
If your bicycle has a gear system, know how to shift without looking down. Always pedal when shifting, no matter how slowly. Learn shifting from a friend or a bike shop.