Do you feel safe riding in southern Illinois?

[Shawn Gossman]

Do you feel safe riding on the roads in southern Illinois?

 

[618Gravel]

For the most part yes. Feel as threatened by the dog chasing me as I do by motorist. We definitely need more shoulders on the roads and they need to teach them to not cut the rumble strips in the middle of the shoulder. That goes next to the white line.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Yeah, I agree with that. Better shoulders without rumble strips in the middle of them. That could make Illinois quite a bit better for cycling infrastructure.

 

[dwhilt]

Some years ago, I rode to and from work every day. Just a few miles and then did a lot of 50 and 100 mile weekends. I don;t feel comfortable on most roads today as there are too many distracted drivers. I see them almost every day with their cell phones etc. I do ride some back roads and roads in CONWR.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Some years ago, I rode to and from work every day. Just a few miles and then did a lot of 50 and 100 mile weekends. I don;t feel comfortable on most roads today as there are too many distracted drivers. I see them almost every day with their cell phones etc. I do ride some back roads and roads in CONWR.

I started road biking in 2012. I do have the say that as years passed and cell phones became more popular, I've felt the roads have been more dangerous and dangerous each year.

 

[Rom]

The amount of distracted drivers has put some damper on my want to ride, but I will say that road riding around here is a lot safer than in a slightly bigger city like Paducah or even bigger Lexington. I typically stay away from the busy sections of town depending on where I go, but I've really only had 1 kind of bad incident since moving back and it was just an idiot yelling.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I would imagine that it is safer than larger cities. I'll definitely still road ride, but the idea of choosing backroads in a gravel capacity excites me even more than road riding. Of course, I still have my road bike and plan to keep riding it.

 

[jmaaks]

Much more so than when I lived in the west burbs of St. Louis. Less traffic, and with my Garmin Varia bike radar on lesser-traveled country roads I hardly worry at all. I think the only sections where I've worried was when I'd ride Old Route 13 from Marion to the Refuge loop. Once on our Williamson County Wheel Suckers ride I had some guys in a truck yell at me but that's been it.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Much more so than when I lived in the west burbs of St. Louis. Less traffic, and with my Garmin Varia bike radar on lesser-traveled country roads I hardly worry at all. I think the only sections where I've worried was when I'd ride Old Route 13 from Marion to the Refuge loop. Once on our Williamson County Wheel Suckers ride I had some guys in a truck yell at me but that's been it.

I yell back. Or I wave as if I thought they were being friendly LOL

 

[jmaaks]

That's what I did: just waved. I didn't understand what they were saying anyway because, as usual, I'd been dropped by the group and was trying to catch back up!

 

[Shawn Gossman]

That's what I did: just waved. I didn't understand what they were saying anyway because, as usual, I'd been dropped by the group and was trying to catch back up!

I usually get dropped, haha. I'm more of a lone-wolf cyclist anyway.