Debian said:
I sometimes ride on the pavement; there are stretches of narrow rural A road in my location that carries fast traffic, they also have long stretches of footpath most of which probably hasn't seen a pedestrian in months if not years, and I often cycle along it if the road is busy or if I feel fragile. This harms or inconveniences no-one and a ban on doing this simply cannot be defensible.
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I don't think it's defensible to hold a position of simply disagreeing with pavement cycling under any and all circumstances.
I agree with both of these sentiments. For instance, I know I'm not a fast cyclist, and on an A road there is no way I can make any pretense of not holding traffic up in the road. Recently I rode from Cheltenham to Tewkesbury; and there's a bit of a hill coming out of Cheltenham. As my uphill speed is stupidly low; and traffic wants to be doing the national speed limit; it's stupid for me to be in the road if there is an alternative. It's also stupid for me to hug the side of the road knowing what crud usually lurks there (especially on a road you don't know well).
Now, in those situations, if there were to be a pedestrian anywhere near me, I slow to practically walking speed (as I do when legitimately on a shared use pavement).
Speeding and/or inconsiderate pavement cyclists - especially when there is no reason for it - do annoy me no end. Mr SHK & I were recently overtaken very closely and with no warning on the pavement (as pedestrians!) by a fixie who was racing along at a good speed - this on a road where there was a good cycle lane (and one in his direction as well) - and the speed he was going he would have been keeping up with traffic just fine. He didn't slow down at all to come past us, and I can see if there had been an elderly or disabled person about bad things could have happened.
I also sometimes cycle in to work using an alternate route. Here I'm stuck - if I get on the road I need to either negotiate a large two lane roundabout (which I am not confident doing) or I need to use a subway (which I'm not actually sure is a cycle path as well; there is a suspicious looking faded sign which I think was once a no-cycling sign) and then somehow get from the pavement onto the road; then pedal a short stretch before negotiating a horrid junction currently undergoing roadworks* and then trying to turn right across traffic (not at a set of lights) immediately afterward.
What I do instead is cycle along the shared use path until it stops being shared use (with no alternate route for cyclists travelling in my direction!) and then coast along very slowly for the remaining bit, at roughly walking speed.
*a different set from the one mentioned in my previous post on the 'close overtakes' thread