You say the bicyclist "defended his line". IOW he chose to move to the center of the road even though the m/c was approaching. You also said the bicyclist is to remain to the right if safely possible.
It wasn't safe to move left because a vehicle was approaching. IOW- the bicyclist was the aggressor. He was not avoiding a hazard, he was riding aggressively and chose to move to the inside of the lane even though the hazard was approaching from the rear. I am not defending the motorcyclist but let's say he crossed the center line to avoid the bike and caused an accident. He was only doing the same as the bicyclist by "aggressively defending his line".
Both were wrong.
What I said was that the motorcyclist told me the cyclist was defending his line. Truth is that motorcyclist is not a bicyclist (he told me as much) and we don't know for certain. The cyclist could simply have been going at a speed likely still under the speed limit but fast enough that he felt he needed the lane to make the turn or maybe some obstacle had him move over or maybe he was just plain an idiot and felt he had a right to the whole lane. Bottom line is we don't know. What is known is that the motorcyclist had an option and he told me this, he could have avoided the contact but felt he also was entitled to the same patch of asphalt occupied by the bicycle at that moment and chose not to avoid the cyclist. It was not an accident, it was intentional. I go back to the question of how is this the fault of the cyclist?
If the guy on the BMW had a better understanding of what a guy on a bicycle might be experiencing and a more appropriate sense of self entitlement his first assumption might not have been that the cyclist was "aggessively defending his line".
How many of us have done something perfectly legal but none the less it pissed off some cager who did not understand some aspect of motorcycling? Say you split lanes and move to the head of the line at a stop light. The light changes and you are gone, never got in anyones way. No big deal if it is legal in your state, right? Next light here is some dude in car yelling at you. Jeez, really guy? Well if Mr. Yelling Guy rode a motorcycle it never would have bothered him. Let's say he gets to work and is bitching to co-workers about the idiot on the motorcycle and one of these is a motorcyclist who calms him down and explains what the guy on the motor was really doing. I know, I know over simplified but and example of how to be an ambassador for motorcycling and perhaps change someones understanding of what we do.
THAT is all I am trying to do here.
Okay no more posts on this from me. If you still think this is about who was at fault I failed....