Commuting on a bike in Auckland?

[Akzle]

Moral of the story, just don't trust anyone in Auckland. There's psycho fucks everywhere.

. .

[pretenda]

I only just got a bike (last Tuesday) with the same intent to commute to work as much as possible. First time riding to work was last Friday and that was down the motorway from Takanini to Mt wellington.

So far so good. Now for the weather to stay away from rain and ill be happy.

Also did a few Km of open ride riding over the weekend just to get more of a feel for it.

[iranana]

I would not blame the lady for getting angry as you admitted it was your fault and you must have been riding dangerously to get so close when passing. Side mirrors are not cheap.

barely tapped her mirror with mine, mine simply moved around as they met. not a spot of damage was done to either mirror. would hardly call the way i was riding dangerous, traffic was stationary and i was edging through a tight spot (past her huge suv). swerving erratically into my lane and screaming profanities hardly seems like a reasonable reaction. it was indeed my fault, and i acknowledged that.

[Juniper]

Yeah I'm with a lot of the others here. Motorway is easier.

I commute every day and tbh I don't think I am too bad (which means I haven't had an accident yet and when I do it will be epic)

Things to think about:

1) Ride like no one has seen you come up or if they have they will try and get you. You'd be 50-80% right

2) Look way past the cars in front of you. If you see the other lane braking then there is a strong possibility that yours will soon after.

3) Stay out of merging lanes. "Fuck I was meant to be getting off here" serve over to get onto off ramp. Its all to common and they wont look behind or see you when they do this. Same with merging on.

4) If a car indicates to go into the lane next to you from the lane furtherest away watch that the person they have pulled in front off or slowed, down doesn't merge into you.

5) Thank the cars that move out of the way for you. It just needs to be a quick hand wave (only when your confident to do so) everyone likes to be thanked, and hopefully it means they will do it for the rest of us or at least look out for us. Cars that have let me up to the top of the line at lights I have actually pulled up the visor and said thanks. That guy moved his ute seriously out of the way for me just to let me sit in front.

6) and possibly the most important. Don't be a cunt and don't be righteous. They are encased in metal, you have a few bits of fabric. You may have been in the right, but ride to live and live to ride.


Oh and if you lane split know how wide your bike is lol!!

[Swoop]

Get a bike and DO IT!


No matter what, keep your eyes on swivels and do not become focussed on a single point.
Look further ahead than what you would do normally (you can do this especially easily on a bike but the higher up, the better the view. Being "surprised" and "have to keep braking for things" will diminish greatly if you know what the traffic is doing 10-20 cars ahead.

Not un-surprisingly your car driving skills will increase as well!

[f2dz]

Do you go up the south western? I'm pretty sure I've passed a VTR ish looking thing a few times

Nope. Tried the south western once on my old Ninja but ended up taking longer than the southern, and splitting through some of those Newmarket roads is a bit too tight for my liking.

[superjackal]

barely tapped her mirror with mine, mine simply moved around as they met. not a spot of damage was done to either mirror. would hardly call the way i was riding dangerous, traffic was stationary and i was edging through a tight spot (past her huge suv). swerving erratically into my lane and screaming profanities hardly seems like a reasonable reaction. it was indeed my fault, and i acknowledged that.

Trying to run you off the road for that is pretty extreme!

[iranana]

Your comment swerving erratically into your lane would imply it was her fault and not yours though so you seem to be contridicting yourself there?

how does the phrase 'swerving erratically into my lane' imply fault? It merely describes the course of action she took. but to stay on topic, Juniper has some good tips there. The whole point of my mirror story was to point out that if you don't think you can fit through a gap, just wait it out - you can't trust that the driver of that car will be chill with you getting cosy with their mirrors.

[Juniper]

how does the phrase 'swerving erratically into my lane' imply fault? It merely describes the course of action she took. but to stay on topic, Juniper has some good tips there. The whole point of my mirror story was to point out that if you don't think you can fit through a gap, just wait it out - you can't trust that the driver of that car will be chill with you getting cosy with their mirrors.

I have had moments where I've committed to a split and the gaps suddenly closed on me. And I end up standing on my pegs ready to jump if needed. That was a case of them either not seeing me or trying to hit me.

I'm a nice person so I generally go with not seeing me.

On the other hand another time I got through their mirrors easy then they both came so close to me I stroked the bonnet of the cars with my fingers and waved at them. We were going at crawling speed.

Not suggested, very stupid.

(It's cool until I fail and then it's stupid)

[cheshirecat]

Lots of good advice here and two main bits are assume nothing re cars and get a mentor/take a course. I think any biker you ask will help you re on road mentoring. Oh and don't ride outside your envelope.

RE accident stats. A while ago here there was a forum thread re accidents to older riders and by far the common thread was one or two over 15 years and even these are relatively minor.

I DRed in London for over three years suffering one accident no injuries and minimal damage. That's 10/12 hours a day 50ish weeks a year winter, summer and more rain than a fish could cope with. Generally I feel safer splitting than not but then I've done a bit more than my fair share. A few times being on a bike has saved me from a potentially grim outcome.

Most bike accidents are caused by going too fast into a situation (slow in fast out) and "assuming" a vehicle will do something.

Be interesting to see what other ex London DR's say about this.

[Juniper]

it does appear to be a Russian Roulette manuvre and abusing the car drivers for not leaving a big enough gap is dumb in my opinion. The closest I would come to doing that would
be coming up alongside a single car at the lights where the risk would be far less than overtaking a long line.

Unless he is being an abusive wanker or ran a red light (my pet hate) don't bother.

I just down gear when I go past them. (Mao is not so quiet and I often run her in high gears to keep the noise down)


We could all tell stories about our road rage moments, like me rev bombing someone. But that would really just give you the wrong impression and some bad ideas.

Just wave, be nice, slow down if the gaps too small and it will open eventually (cars will move aside or forward) and if you see another rider splitting behind you and your going slowly then when safe to do so pull aside and let them pass.

We all split at our own skill and comfort levels. I found out I split faster than Mark W. Now that was scary to find out.

[iranana]

Now that I think about it we have our own lanes in ChCh we are able to use called bus lanes. They carry their own danger however in that cars making a right turn across the bus lane through a gap in the traffic have little ability to see us.

Yeah bus lanes can be a bit dubious, same goes for the T2 and T3 lanes we have up here. A lot of cars will also turn into these lanes before they merge into traffic, so coming up to intersections always worries me a bit, I prefer to stay out of them if I can. I don't lane split much these days either. I used to ride an RG150 which was so tiny it could fit through nearly anything, and I was a much more naive rider back then. Now that I've got a bike with fairly wide bars I just don't bother trying. If I do go for it though, I keep my revs up a bit in an effort to make my presence known.

[BuzzardNZ]

I have had moments where I've committed to a split and the gaps suddenly closed on me. And I end up standing on my pegs ready to jump if needed. That was a case of them either not seeing me or trying to hit me.

I'm a nice person so I generally go with not seeing me.

On the other hand another time I got through their mirrors easy then they both came so close to me I stroked the bonnet of the cars with my fingers and waved at them. We were going at crawling speed.

Not suggested, very stupid.

(It's cool until I fail and then it's stupid)

If you have time to stand up on your pegs getting ready to jump, surely the time spent doing all of that would have been better spent finding a way to avoid the bad situation ( i.e., brake hard, swerve down the other side etc )

I understand that when this type of thing happens it's all very sudden and you kinda just react without thinking ( well I do ), but to get up on your pegs and think about jumping off seems a bit drastic.

[Juniper]

If you have time to stand up on your pegs getting ready to jump, surely the time spent doing all of that would have been better spent finding a way to avoid the bad situation ( i.e., brake hard, swerve down the other side etc )

I understand that when this type of thing happens it's all very sudden and you kinda just react without thinking ( well I do ), but to get up on your pegs and think about jumping off seems a bit drastic.

There have only been a couple of close calls where I've done that. Auto response and don't know why. A bad judgement call on my behalf on one and 2 cars just moving in their own lanes together at the same time.

I wouldn't exactly call it time, more that "Oh Fuck" fetal position moment.

But I am a tad strange when it comes to natural reactions. The other day my friend was driving and the car 2 in front braked and the car behind him (directly in front of us) slammed on the brakes so hard there was a stream of white smoke. So my friend also had to put on brakes, not drasticly hard as there was heaps of space. Yet in that instant my claws dug into the ceiling of his car and knees up as to push me up over the back of the seat. Like a cat getting a fright.

[iranana]

I actually find in merging lanes in 80km hr + areas having a lot of torque on the bike as opposed to needing a lot of revs to get up to speed in the car I actually feel safer.

I ride an old 250 two stroke, so there's no such thing as power below 6k revs Have to keep the revs up to keep it chugging along. On another note, something else to keep in mind is that even if you're just engine braking/going down through the gears to slow down, especially in traffic, put your brake on anyway so that the car(s) behind you see your brake light. I've heard of people being rear ended from engine braking, as the cars behind them didn't realise they were slowing down.