"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Andy Leighton gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Of course a cyclist should be considerate and not unduly hold up a
stream of traffic but it should be up to the cyclist to decide when it
is safe and appropriate to move to secondary position.

...by moving towards the left to make it easy for the other traffic to
pass?

I'm not reading "should keep over to the left" as advocating cycling in
the gutter, merely being considerate and not holding up other traffic.

The problem is the small minority of cyclists who *don't* move over even
when it is safe to do so. They seem to want drivers to give them even more
clearance than a car would give the offside of another car that they were
overtaking - in other words for a car to cross completely onto the opposite
side of the road. I realise that cyclists need a bit more room than you'd
give a car because of the problem of being sucked into the slipstream -
especially when it is an HGV or bus that is overtaking, but that does not
excuse riding two abreast when there are cars queuing behind. I got stuck
behind two cyclists who were on a road which is wide enough for two cars to
pass with one car (in one direction *or* the other) to overtake. They
thought it was clever to ride with one in the gutter and the other right
next to the centre line, with almost a car-width of space between them. Very
selfish, when if they had ridden in signle file, even in the centre of the
lane, there would have been plenty of space for a car to have overtaken
while still allowing room for an oncoming car.