Road positioning. Is it me?

[TonyR]

So you are cycling in secondary in the LH lane coming up to a roundabout as described by the OP and there is a steady stream of cars coming up behind and past you. How do you get across to the RH lane?

No I'm not in secondary in the left hand lane. That would be stupid given that lane leads to a motorway. It's on the roundabout the look over the left shoulder is essential to catch the drivers that are in the lane for the motorway but then go straight on and try to out speed me to go straight on.

So assuming its two lanes running up for a few hundred yards to the roundabout and the left lane is for turning onto the motorway slip road how do you get from that inner lane to the outer lane? Or do you cycle the entire length from where it breaks into two lanes in the RH lane?

By the way, IME a left shoulder look usually tells them "He's in the other lane and seen me so its OK to go straight on and pass on the inside"

[Phil Fouracre]

I'm with TonyR all the way on this on, makes complete sense. My approach to pretty much any traffic situation on the bike is to behave as I would, and would expect other drivers to, when driving. No other way to 'mix it' with traffic in my mind.

[TonyR]

Absolute rubbish.
Skipping across lanes like you own them without checking it's safe to do so is a great way of having a tipper truck jammed up your rear end and is giving motorists another reason to hate us.
Cycling in the gutter is done by many because they feel the further away from traffic they are, the safer they are. It's one thing to make your presence known in the lane, quite another to dive under the wheels of following traffic.

Skipping across lanes like I own them? First, I do own the lane I'm in and I cycle so as to control it, not cycle in the gutter to get out of the way of the true owner. And the slow steady action of drifting is nothing to do with the sudden spring of skipping.