If you could cycle exclusively on cycle tracks, would you?

[geocycle]

I think a lot of people discovered cyclepaths during covid, still hasn't gone back to just dog walkers , too busy at times.

I agree. One of the positive legacies of covid round here is that many more people are walking, running and dog walking. My only gripe is the shear number of dogs we now have, personally I think that has got out of hand.

 

[KnittyNorah]

You are lucky!




I had a Dalmation run into the road, jump up at me, and try to knock me off into passing traffic. That was okay though because its cheerful owner on the pavement said "he doesn't bite and is only being friendly"!

I encountered an idiot on a bridleway with 2 aggressive little mutts...

There have been several others...

In about September I was riding on the Guild Wheel and a daft woman with two large, very wet and muddy golden retrievers off lead refused to call her dogs away or put them on a lead when they approached me in what I hoped was a friendly fashion.
She informed me that I had no right to be on the track which was (according to this nutter) made specifically for dog walkers - all this while she was standing actually ON one of the bikes painted across the track. I pointed this out to her and in response she told me that I was a horrible unnatural person ...

Just remember there is no certification of sanity required for people to be out and about on the public highway, and successful 'sharing' needs a bit of sanity on everyone's part. I have come across many careless, even dangerous, dog walkers - but, fortunately, many many more pleasant, responsible ones.

 

[vickster]

I agree. One of the positive legacies of covid round here is that many more people are walking, running and dog walking. My only gripe is the shear number of dogs we now have, personally I think that has got out of hand.

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to have a pet dog if they’re responsible and caring owners?

 

[geocycle]

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to have a pet dog if they’re responsible and caring owners?

They are and they should be allowed to. it’s an individual decision based on personal motivation and ability to look after them. But how many can we sustain as an urbanised society before they begin to impact others? I am also concerned for the dogs with inexperienced or less committed owners who may find ownership difficult in the current economic climate. Nothing against dogs and most are not a problem.

 

[toffee]

Yes. One of the reasons I moved to my current home is that I can get all the way to the town centre and half the way to my doctor's on decent cycleways. Still not perfect, but a hell of a lot more fun than riding miles of narrow 40mph roads with a stream of motorists following. I'm pretty stubborn and have a fair brass neck, but I'd tire of doing that every day.

You probably heard that because a certain type of anti-cycleway cycling advocate likes to say such things. There's not really much evidence for it. Or against it, either, though. Having enough cycleways of any consistent standard to have enough incidents to make any useful generalisations has been pretty unusual until recently. I'll try to summarise what I remember:

There's a couple of half-cock analyses by John Franklin which claimed Milton Keynes's cycleways were more dangerous than the roads, but drilling deeper found (if I remember correctly) that he'd lumped all types of cycleways in together, from the bendy driveway-crossing residential ones to the much safer "grid ways", and he counted any crashes at a junction as for the cycleway not the road, plus he'd not adjusted for the types of cyclists: I lived there during the study time and it was mainly the fast roadies who still rode on roads — so experienced riders probably less likely to crash, but probably in bunches and at higher speeds when they do, mitigated by gloves, glasses and maybe other protective gear — with the rest of us using the adjacent redways, including the annoying underpasses swapping from one side of the road to the other.

There's also an oft-quoted study from about 1990 which was something to do with Lund University, looking at 1980s roadside cycleways somewhere, which claimed a 3x increase in danger for with-flow cycleways across side roads up to 11x for contra-flow at a major crossroads. That's the sort of study where the devil is probably in the detail, but there's no indication of assessing it for cycleway width, set back into the road signs, markings or kerbs or posts or whatever. It's contradicted by a recent study of the London CS routes, which found no significant difference, but that may also be down to a "safety in numbers" effect from attracting/concentrating cyclists onto the CS routes, or the small difference in speed (if any) between motorists and cyclists in London: it's difficult to left-hook someone if you're not going fast enough to pass them.

So, in short: it's complicated and both have studies to support them, but the older ones are very weak. Personally, I suspect it depends very much on the design of each cycleway. After all, a riverside cycleway with no roads crossing it is unlikely to have many cyclists left-hooked. A cycleway-carriageway junction with good intervisibility won't have many cyclists riding out in front of motorists who blatantly won't stop (no matter what the markings suggest) and will have more motorists see the cyclists approaching and hesitate to run them over while looking them in the eye! This is why we need good standards for common situations and a body like Active Travel England to actually enforce them!

One of the problems with the MK Redways is that it only takes a sunny day for them to get clogged by people as they are also major routes for pedestrians.
So much so that if we go out for a ride on a day when there will be lots of people about we go on the country roads and not through MK.

 

[Panscrank]

Whilst cycle tracks are vehicle free the same cannot be said of bicycle chasing dogs and pedestrians that suddenly move into your path at the last moment. The amount of near misses of the latter way outranks annually vehicle instances IME

But at least this doesn't happen on cycle tracks.
I'll take a bump into a pedestrian over this every time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nrgewwldxo

 

[Alex321]

But at least this doesn't happen on cycle tracks.
I'll take a bump into a pedestrian over this every time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nrgewwldxo

That hits close for me

I wasn't on the bike yesterday, but when I do commute by bike, I cross that road at the next junction the other side of the Railway - which is traffic light controlled, so hopefully safe enough, but even so. And I have ridden that particular bit a few times.

That is twice in the last couple of months I have seen reports of cyclists killed on roads I know fairly well and sometimes cycle on.

The other one being this https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022...or-cyclist-who-died-in-crash-during-bike-ride

 

[Gwylan]

I am a washed up 54 year old riding my hybrid around the Swansea and Gower coast, Doing between 15 and 30 mile trips at the weekend.
Around here, I am pretty much able to stay on cycle tracks for my entire rides.
If that was possible for you, even for longer 'roadie' distance sides, would you ditch the road if the cycle lanes were wide enough and well maintained?

Lucky you. I was born in Swansea, brought up on the Gower.
School in Llanrhidian.

Sentimentality may encourage to plan some cycling there. Is it that good?

 

[Gwylan]

No, not even in principle. They're great in and of themselves, *if* (very, very big if) well designed, constructed and maintained, but there are some experiences in cycling which require use of the roads - like climbing the Galibier, just for instance.

In practice, 95% of the British ones are utter shite, and to be avoided on convenience and safety grounds.

We have to learn that a line of paint on the edge of a road does not make it a cycle path.

 

[Gwylan]

This year I did ride a couple of miles on a cycle path that wasn't utterly godawful. It only had two slight drawbacks. First: One end of it was on the Isle of Sheppey. Second: So was the other end.

Apart from that it was really good. All you could ask of a cycle path. Wide, good tarmac, no clutter or even other users (well it was the Isle of Sheppey, the land that time forgot)

Another member of the Friends of Sheppey!

 

[Panscrank]

Lucky you. I was born in Swansea, brought up on the Gower.
School in Llanrhidian.

Sentimentality may encourage to plan some cycling there. Is it that good?

Lived her all my life.
The cycle track through Clyne Valley to Gowerton is amazing. It carries on for a few more miles towards Penclawdd then it sadly runs out so it's then either a 'never walked on by anyone' pavement or the road for a few miles to Penclawdd itself.
After that, it's roads for the rest of the Gower.
Recent pics of a ride through Clyne.

 

[Alex321]

Lived her all my life.
The cycle track through Clyne Valley to Gowerton is amazing. It carries on for a few more miles towards Penclawdd then it sadly runs out so it's then either a 'never walked on by anyone' pavement or the road for a few miles to Penclawdd itself.
After that, it's roads for the rest of the Gower.
Recent pics of a ride through Clyne.
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We quite often do Morris dancing at the Railway Inn (for those that don't know the area - the white building in the 6th photo). These are in the car park of that pub.

And we will be doing a mumming play there about 9pm on the 29t of December (Indoors).

 

[Mike_P]

In about September I was riding on the Guild Wheel and a daft woman with two large, very wet and muddy golden retrievers off lead refused to call her dogs away or put them on a lead when they approached me in what I hoped was a friendly fashion.
She informed me that I had no right to be on the track which was (according to this nutter) made specifically for dog walkers - all this while she was standing actually ON one of the bikes painted across the track. I pointed this out to her and in response she told me that I was a horrible unnatural person ...

Just remember there is no certification of sanity required for people to be out and about on the public highway, and successful 'sharing' needs a bit of sanity on everyone's part. I have come across many careless, even dangerous, dog walkers - but, fortunately, many many more pleasant, responsible ones.

Had a similar incident with a dogless nutter on the Beryl Burton cyclepath who informed me I should not be cycling Aside from the blue cycleway signs at either end it would be the first footpath will standard highway warning signs along it.

 

[mjr]

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to have a pet dog if they’re responsible and caring owners?

If they're allowing or even sometimes encouraging their dog to run back and forth across a highway out of control, they're not responsible and caring owners.

 

[Mike_P]

If they're allowing or even sometimes encouraging their dog to run back and forth across a highway out of control, they're not responsible and caring owners.

Could have reported two clowns whose dog was loose and out of control running straight at me just at the start of a 20+% climb forcing me to stop. The clowns found it funny and threw a water bottle at me for calling the dog a rat