Posing with his prized road bike, Greg Schipper looks forward to more riding if our warm weather holds out.

Cycling as an activity has existed for almost 200 years. In many countries, it is a main form of transportation.

According to a CBC article by John Mazerolle dated March 21, 2021 titled, Great COVID-19 bycicle boom expected to keep bike industry on it’s toes for years to come, bicycle sales across Canada have been at an all-time high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A mix of factors have led to the increase in sales including people not trusting public transportation and wanting a means of getting exercise safely out of the house.

So, theoretically, more bikes are out sharing the road with motorists.

In Lethbridge, for years people have chosen to ride a bike for one of two reasons: as transportation or for recreation, yet motorists often are unaware how to share the road with their two-wheeled counterparts.

Greg Schipper is a local cyclist who rides regularly for recreation sees the worst offenders in two ways.

The first is the hypervigilant; a motorist that will try too hard to look out for cyclists. This may seem like a good thing having motorists aware of cyclists, but you can have too much of a good thing.

“For example, when they have the right of way, clearly and they’ll stop for you or wait for you to go when it’s totally their turn to go, [this] is confusing because you’re trying to follow traffic laws and they are trying to be extra courteous to you,” said Schipper.

Basically, drivers who break traffic laws are trying to be helpful to cyclists.

The hypervigilant also applies to people who are so mindful of cyclists they focus too much on the rider visually and actually start to drive into them, usually on a two-way road or around a corner, due to tunnel vision.

“They think they’re being safe, but they’re not,” explained Schipper.

The second is the type of driver that doesn’t seem to want cyclists on the road at all.

“The type of driver that seems to be really frustrated and angry that there’s any kind of cyclist around,” said Schipper.

Some of the blame can be placed on cyclists that ride like a motor vehicle down the center of the lane or ride in a way that also breaks traffic laws.

However, this is no excuse to endanger the lives of cyclists because they are on the road.

“They get impatient and angry around any person or cyclist on a bike,” said Schipper adding, “they’ll cut you off and act dangerously around you because they’re impatient.”

Victoria Nestorowicz is another local rider who has ridden for years in different places and would like to see safer options for cyclists.

“For me the biggest concern is that I ride around with my child and it would be great if he can also learn to use the bike lanes,” said Nestorowicz.

Having lived in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, she has seen first-hand different ways streets can be planned to accommodate cyclists and motorists alike.

“When they started putting in bike lanes, especially in the downtown core in Calgary, they made sure that there was some kind of a median in between the bike lane and the actual driving lane,” said Nestorowicz.

Nestorowicz would also like to see a change in how motorists interact with cyclists when they must be on the road.

“Yeah, I think people are confused how to drive with a cyclist beside them,” said Nestorowicz.

When she lived in Vancouver and Toronto, she commuted by bike almost exclusively, sometimes riding two to three hours just to get to her destination.

“In Calgary, I commuted by bike for a while, but I find when you get to these more vast spaces in Alberta, there’s not a lot of infrastructure for bikes and then there’s drivers who don’t know how to drive around the bikers so, it was a little bit harder in Calgary and then Lethbridge,” said Nestorowicz.

Motorists and cyclists alike have a duty to follow the rules so we can all get to where we are going safely.

For more information, please visit the Lethbridge city website for resources on cycling including documents about safety and education for city, mountain and BMX riding.

https://www.lethbridge.ca/Things-To-Do/Pages/Cycling.aspx