Waider's 10 Rules of City Biking

10 things I learned in my first couple of months cycling in Dublin.

  1. Get a helmet. No, really. Sure they look dorky, but so will you with your face spread across the road.
  2. You do not have the right of way. Ever.
  3. In situations where you have the right of way, see 2.
  4. Buses are evil.
  5. Wing mirrors are truly evil.
  6. An ability to stand the bike on its front wheel by braking suddenly is useful and inevitable.
  7. Practice falling off the bike in a controlled and directed fashion.
  8. When hand-signalling to turn right, watch for oncoming traffic attempting to amputate your arm.
  9. Actually, hand-signalling at all is a bad idea since it means taking a hand out of reach of the brake lever.
  10. Acceleration is all. This is why people use racers and mountain bikes in city traffic rather than other, perhaps more apparently suitable bikes.
Waider