That said, if someone sat closely behind me without overtaking, I doubt I’d be too impressed either.

From my point of view, a warning bell when approaching blind corners is as much (or even more) about self-preservation as it is about courtesy and concern for other riders. As I said in the post, my main worry is being taken down as collateral damage in the event of a head-on collision between other riders who appear to be less concerned about blind corners than I am. I honestly think that ringing from the second position is justified, but if it causes distraction and/or aggravation then it’s just not worth it. If I’m tucked in behind someone who doesn’t have the same survival instinct, then maybe taking the belling into my own hands (thumbs?) isn’t necessarily the answer.

Clearly other self-preservation tactics are required, so I’m going to adjust my riding behaviour: whenever I’m behind someone who doesn’t ring their own warning on blind corners, I’ll take that as a clear indication of that rider’s lack of ability and safety awareness and will treat them as someone to avoid—and instead of trying to do them a favour by bell-ringing from behind, I’ll back off to a safe distance and get past them when I can. When you think about it, following someone closely into a blind corner is a pretty dicey sort of thing to do anyway, even after sounding a warning bell.

In response to hielke’s comments about the “strange and redundant” way that Australian cyclists (sometimes, though not always) warn when passing, I can’t do better than refer to Andrew Hammel’s The Meaning of Bicycle Bells:

As I found out, bicycle etiquette is different in Germany (or at least in my part of Germany) than it is in the U.S. If you can bicycle past someone and leave a meter between you and them, you just do it without saying anything…You ring the bell only when the people walking on the trail have to move in order to let you ride by. That is, you will hit them, or will have to stop, if they don’t move to the side…So when I rang the bell, the message I was sending them was “I do not have full control of my bicycle, and might run into you unless you move right now!”

So it’s just a cultural difference: unlike people in Germany (and perhaps Europe in general?) for whatever reason, people on shared pathways in this country seem to prefer to get a warning every time they are overtaken by a bike. As a regular and habitual bell-ringer I am often thanked for my courtesy by pedestrians and cyclists that I pass.

Oh yeah, and I love that video that tim found: I’ll be recycling it at the top of my next speedlink entry.

If I was driving slowly on a narrow road and had somebody sitting behind me blowing their horn, oncoming traffic would be the last reason on my mind.

Likewise in your circumstance. Ringing the bell at a blind corner is a sensible practice; ringing the bell to pass – with or without aggression – is common practice. Your overtakee’s response was quite understandable.

Funny youtube video of out-of-context responses to bike bells: linky

tim