Where to be in the lane

1Look

The last half-metre of the road

That is the strip riders are told to hug, photographed honestly. Every road has a version of it, and nobody sweeps it because no car ever drives on it.

2The idea

Practicable and safe, and the exceptions

The Illinois wording is that you keep as close as practicable and safe to the right-hand curb or edge. Two conditions, not one. The same section of law then writes in exceptions, which is the law admitting that the far right is sometimes the worst place on the road.

So the far right is where you ride when it is the safe place to be, and not otherwise. Moving out to get round a hazard is not a rider being awkward. It is the exception doing exactly the job it was written for.

3The idea

What lives at the edge

Drain grates, gravel washed in by the rain, wet leaves, broken tarmac at the seam, glass. All of it collects there because traffic pushes it there. It is the strip of road with the least grip on it and the most to hit.

Small wheels are worse on irregular and wet surfaces, and a Consumer Reports tester lost the back wheel on gravel at 20 mph and was injured. On this machine the edge is not the safe margin it looks like from the sidewalk.

4The idea

Parked cars: pick the line early and hold it

You already know about the door zone. What matters on the road is how you get past a whole row: decide the line before the first car, move out once, and hold it past the last one. A door opens into that space with no reaction time available at all, which is why dooring is on the federal list of crash-producing situations.

The thing to avoid is weaving in and out of the gaps between parked cars. Every time you dip into a gap you disappear, and the driver behind you has to find you again and guess where you will come back out.

5Decide

A row of parked cars ahead on your side, and a car somewhere behind you.

6The idea

Bike lanes, paths, and riding two abreast

Illinois lets low-speed e-bikes use any bike path unless the local authority says otherwise, so where you may ride depends on your class and on the town. From 1 January 2027 anything over 750 watts is barred from paths, trails and bike lanes entirely.

Two riders side by side is allowed in Illinois as long as you are not holding up the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. Which means it is fine on the quiet street and not fine on the busy narrow one, and the person who has to make that call is you, before the car arrives rather than after.

7Find them

Good reasons to be further out from the edge

Tap the ones that count.

8Build it

One street, end to end

Try it once as a line that hugs the edge the whole way, and once as a line you chose. Count the marks on each.

9Say it

The line for a row of parked cars

It is the order that matters. Riders who say it before the row do it early; riders who think about it beside the first car have already left it too late.

10Do it

Before you leave this page