Tales from today's commute....

[EltonFrog]

How's your Brompton doing now - has it seen much use recently? I hope all's well in your part of the world

Ah, ok — it all clicks into place now. Things are mostly fine here, though I hardly cycle these days; the old joy has thinned out, and the roads at home don’t exactly coax one back into the saddle. And yet — irony of ironies — TFMP and I find ourselves on holiday with our Bs, pedalling along the Danube from Passau to Vienna, rediscovering a version of cycling I thought I’d misplaced somewhere between potholes and impatient, entitled, arrogant drivers.

There’s a quiet ache to it: the reminder of what riding could be. The Austrians are blessed with hundreds of miles of mostly traffic‑free paths, laid out on road surfaces so smooth and generous they feel almost like an apology from the universe. It’s the sort of cycling infrastructure we can only dream of in the U.K. — a glimpse of a gentler world where the simple act of moving forward doesn’t require bracing oneself first.

 

[Andy in Germany]

The local government has decided the river needs managing, and whatever they're doing, it apparently required the land the cycle way was on. Now we have a nice new bit of tarmac, and the old cycle way on the left has been dug up.

There is also a set of traffic lights managing a section of the cycleway so truck and bikes aren't in the same place at the same time. Unfortunately everyone quickly realised that they default to red until a truck comes along, so they are being universally ignored.

 

[HLaB]

Surprisingly busy for a Friday but bright and fresh. Most drivers were patient and friendly and held back a pinch point or gaveway to me (even when they had priority), apart from transit man who came barreling towards me from a minor approach as I was on the circulatory, missing my rear wheel by what seemed like inches before hooking and overtaking through the exit bend which fortunately I was taking.