I used to encounter this back when I would ride kick scooters on sidewalks. Startling is instinctual and the verbalization of offense at one's existence(which often follows DARVO dynamics) happens in the process of catching up. But I've had success not getting negativity with urban biking more recently.

I rarely try to overtake pedestrians directly when off marked multiuse paths. Instead I stop pedaling and walk the bike while saying nothing. The persistent tick-tick noise activates their awareness after a few seconds, but I have to wait for a sign, and sometimes none appears so I will walk the whole block and overtake at the intersection. Regardless, they like that noise much more than a voice or a bell, because it's a bike that isn't imminently bearing down on them, so it primes their expectations.

This is facilitated by defaulting to the lowest gear, setting the saddle position low, and letting yourself cruise slow most of the time. Everyone, whether car, bike, or pedestrian, wants to default to "never stop, always be moving". But sometimes you have to explicitly yield and the adjustments away from efficient road cycling help with doing so.

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment.

A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.

Where do you guys live? Here in Sweden we have a small bell on the steering you ring when you want to pass.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_b...

I have a Cricket bell, which can be rung normally, and can also be clicked down to act as a cowbell, gently ringing as i ride along (especially if i give the handlebar a quick wobble):

https://granite-design.com/products/cricket-bell

I use this when i ride along a shared-use path.

It makes no difference. Either people are walking in a group and talking, so they don't hear it, or they have earphones in, so they don't hear it.

Wide paths with a modest number of bikes are usually OK. But I've definitely been on narrower paths and trails where cyclists are expecting you to step off to the side every two minutes because you're in their way. I don't mind every now and then when I'm walking but it can get to the point where you can't really mix modes.

The problem with bells is that people tend to act very unpredictable; you never know whether they freeze or jump left or right.

They will freeze for a moment, then jump left, then right.

That's also possible.

Such bells are worse than useless when the pedestrian is a small child. A three-year-old moves into the traveling bicycle's path on the sidewalk when it looks at the source of the curious sound.

This sadly has become less useful with the increase in headphone usage by pedestrians.

A pedestrian with headphones needs to ensure that he can hear any relevant traffic noise, e.g. my bell or an approaching car. Noise-blocking headphones or loud music impeding the hearing of a pedestrian are a traffic offense.

In that case a loud freewheel wouldn't do much either though.

Yep, anything audio, like a whistle, shouting "ahoy there!", has less use these days and with tiny airpods being a thing now, it's not even possible to guess from a distance if someone is listening to music.

Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

> Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

That's what the TFL bikes in London do[0]:

"The Blaze Laserlight is fixed to the cycle frame and projects a green cycle-shaped image onto the ground around 6 metres ahead of the cycle."

[0] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/santander-cycles/blaze-lase...

I don't really get the AirPod proliferation. Even if I'm in the woods by myself, much less on a busy path, I can't stand the disconnection from my environment.

Do you drive a lot? Drivers are very used to the audio disconnect.

Before I did my licence I was a firm believer in "no earbuds on the road", but after a few driving lessons I got so used to taking in the traffic situation with eyes only that I quickly converted to an earbuds all the time cyclist. A few years later I stopped driving so much and my cycling reverted to ears-always-open without me even noticing.

I drive regularly. Yes, there is some degree of audio disconnect in a car. I also have various mirrors and sensors of various types. And I'm hopefully paying more attention than if I'm just walking around.

You are also a lot less squishy inside of a car.

Indeed; here it's mandated by law to have a bell on your bike (together with lights and reflectors back and front). I would expect that's the case in many European countries.

There are cheap bells that you mount on the handlebar but they tend to break easily (and don't produce much sound; typically just one ting). Decent bikes have a more sturdy design, see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_bicycle#/media/File:Du... (it's on the left, wrapped around the handlebar next to your hand). These tend to produce more sound.

I'm in the US near Seattle. I don't have a bell, and I've got too much junk on my bars already to add one. When I've seen bells in use, they tends to spook the pedestrians anyway. Obviously it helps if they're ubiquitous.

I'm in Finland and most bikes come with a bell attached to them. To me they kind of feel like a thing every bicycle should have, like cars have horns.

They're a legal requirement in Denmark. Some take them off, especially the Tour de France LARPers that go in groups in the countryside, and just shout at you instead. Everyone hates them.

Plenty of them do have bells, ring them a lot and only start shouting after the bell is repeatedly ignored. Stop pretending to be deaf and all will be fine.

Some people are deaf or hard of hearing.

In my experience, though, the worst sidewalk speeders are on skateboards or scooters. (I'm not saying you shouldn't skate; rather, when there was a close call or a collision, that's what they were barreling by on.)

a bell as well, but it sometimes scares the crap out of people.

The least bad way seems to be giving them plenty of opportunity to "notice the cyclist on their own". "Look how polite I am" vs "how dare they order me aside!"

My usual approach sequence is bell first (very early/far, only to soothe my nerves when the walker later starts that "should have used a bell!" tirade - sometimes a dog hears and understands that early bell and notifies its human) then generous freehub noise (first stage of "notice on their own"), then more bell and when I'm close, already effectively at walking speed, a short burst of blocking the rear brake. Unsurprisingly, people who appeared completely deaf to the bell right behind them a second earlier seem to hear even the tiniest scratch of a tire loud and clear...

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment.

Why couldn't you just ask (or require) bicyclists to use bells or horns of some sort? Pedestrians would get used to the noise after a while.

As an example; That has worked fine for at least a century since bells were introduced as a requirement on bicycles in the 1900's around here (yes that is no typo). Pedestrians are usually annoyed but do notices the cyclist and that's what you want to achieve.

I don’t understand the facination with the bell. In what way would it help with the situation as described? Do you think it would startle the pedestrians less than the human voice?

Bells have zero effect on pedestrians. Bells are required where I live and I repeat that experiment a lot.