Al
Oh JoB, I do appreciate your responses. And yes, I am going to defend my “right” to be on the roadway and use the roadway in my legal rights as a cyclist (or motorcyclist or driver). However, I’ll re-iterate, this doesn’t mean that I give up my right of way just because someone else wants to pass me.
If I, or whomever, is riding a bit futher to the left than YOU want, that doesn’t mean I HAVE to pull over for you. Fauntleroy is fraught (yes, fraught) with parked cars, opening vehicle doors, buses, etc. that a cyclist has to manoeuver around, while simultaneously negotiating with passing traffic. This demands defensive RIDING ergo the lane position. It’s more dangerous to keep swerving in and out of traffic, riding unpredictably than to maintain a consistent route down the roadway.
Just because you, or any other person, think that riding a bicycle is dangerous business doesn’t make it right to think that they don’t belong on the road. What makes cycling dangerous is most often the very drivers that are sharing the road with the cyclist. If everyone drove defensively and followed the rules of the road (and I don’t think you did anything wrong here – you weren’t comfortable passing and you didn’t which is correct) then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.