Cycling safety on rural roads

Why empty roads carry their own risk

Riding in the country feels safer than riding in the city, and in many ways it is more pleasant. The risks are just shaped differently. Cars approach at highway speed on roads built for tractors. A driver cresting a hill or rounding a blind bend has seconds to see you. The CDC notes that about 59% of bicyclist deaths occur on stretches of road away from intersections, where higher speeds might occur, which describes most of a rural ride.

The second difference is isolation. In a city, a crash draws a crowd in seconds. On a county road you might lie in a ditch for a long time before a car passes, and the driver may not notice a bike in the grass. Add patchy cell coverage and a solo rider can be both hurt and unreachable.

Be seen from far away

Visibility on rural roads is about distance. A driver at speed needs to register you well before they reach you.

• Run a bright rear light in daylight. A flashing mode is often easier to notice at a distance.
• Wear colors that contrast with the landscape: fluorescent yellow or orange stands out against green fields and brown stubble.
• Ride with traffic and hold a steady, predictable line. Taking a little more of the lane before a blind crest can stop a driver from squeezing past where they cannot see oncoming traffic.
• Be extra careful at dawn and dusk, when low sun can blind drivers coming from behind you.
• Farm dogs are a real part of rural riding. Our answer on what to do if a dog chases you while cycling covers the options.

Plan for a long wait for help

Assume that if something goes wrong, help is farther away than you would like. That changes what you carry and what you tell people before you leave.

A Holler setup for country rides

Start an outing before you roll out so your Guardians can follow your live link. When you pass through a dead zone, the link shows your last known location until your phone reconnects, which on a known route narrows the search a lot.

Set a return time with a real buffer. A rural loop that usually takes three hours can take four with a flat and a headwind. If you have not checked in five minutes after the return time, your Guardians get an overdue alert from Holler's server, even if your phone is out of signal or broken. That alert does not depend on you being able to call.

For crashes, you have two options. A stationary alert asks "Are you OK?" after you stop moving for the time you choose; set it longer than a flat repair. Crash detection (beta) watches for a possible hard fall followed by stillness and starts a countdown. It can miss real crashes and can false-alarm, and in a browser it needs the page open and the screen on. Both need signal to reach your Guardians, which is why the return time is the backstop. For a wider look at the options, see crash detection for cyclists.

A Sunday loop, walked through

Jen rides a 55-mile loop through two counties most Sundays: out on County Road 12, through a valley with no signal for about 8 miles, a store stop in the one town, and back on a state route with a wide shoulder. Usually 3 hours 30 minutes.

She starts an outing at 8:00 a.m. with a return time of 12:30 p.m., a stationary alert of 15 minutes, and crash detection (beta) with the phone on her bars. Her Guardian, her brother, gets the link. At 9:10 her dot stops updating at the top of the valley and the link marks it stale. He knows the gap, so he waits. At 9:45 she is back in coverage and the dot jumps forward to the far end.

She double-flats at mile 40 and spends 25 minutes on it, well past her stationary time. When it asks "Are you OK?" she answers. She gets home at 12:10 and ends the outing. Had she crashed in the valley, the stationary alert and crash detection needed signal to reach anyone, but the overdue alert would have gone out at 12:35 regardless.

What your Guardian should know

Rural 911 calls depend on good location details. Give your Guardian the route by road names and towns, not just "the usual loop", plus the county or counties you ride through. If they need to call for help, the dispatcher will want a road, a direction of travel and a landmark.

Tell them where the dead zones are and roughly how long you are usually out of signal. A frozen dot in a known gap for twenty minutes is expected. The same dot frozen on a busy highway stretch with good coverage is worth a phone call.

Agree on the plan for an overdue alert: call you, wait a few minutes, call again, then call 911 with the last known location, your route and what you are wearing. Ask them to mention that you are a cyclist, possibly in a ditch or off the road, so searchers look beyond the pavement.