Mad Doug Biker
Just a damaged guy.
- Location
- Craggy Island
Yes, design and construction quality are crucial. West Norfolk has some good ones, OK width, smooth surfaces and priority at road crossings with good visibility,
Probably similar to ours.
The thing that annoys me though is that the crap ones give the rest a bad name and then people get an 'attitude' about them, just like in that book I mentioned before. The guy slagged off my local paths seemingly just for the sake of it.
but we've also some horrors of narrow hand-laid washboard tarmac densely packed with blind driveway and over-the-shoulder side road junctions which are OK for small children going very slowly but not really safe for most people.
I've tested a nearby stretch at night and I can go about 10% faster on the A10 than on the best bit of the cycleway next to it which I think is because the road is smoother, worn by heavy vehicles more than the cycleway. However, in the daytime, I'd want to go about 100% faster than I usually ride because I'd have motor vehicles up my chuff for most of the ride, which isn't as fun.
The times I have used the road, recently because of ice on the untreated cycleway and once because police had closed it to deal with a car crash that had overfilled, were unpleasant abuse- filled experiences. It's not because of the cycleway because I used to ride there before the cycleway was built and there was abuse then too.
I was looking at the A82 between Dumbarton and Bowling and then Bowling to the Erskine Bridge today (the corresponding path which admittedly is on the canal path from Bowling onwards), and the reason why I personally think th A82 is slower compared to certain sections of my local path is because
A - The surface of the road is slightly rougher (newly laid I think) as a pose to the (largely) smooth surface of the path (I don't know when it was last paved, but I haven't seen it being done in years).
But, just as crucially:
B - On the cycle track, you are largely surrounded by trees, walls, a railway track, a river, a canal etc. The enclosed nature of it probably gives it the impression of speed as a pose to the roads with its openness. I have never felt faster on the A82, something no doubt reenforced by me knowing I am the slowest thing about.
I genuinely will need to get a helmet cam and time the two so I can present my 'findings'
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