Small Sample Size - Telling Results?
Yesterday I asked my fellow would-be BikeAbility instructors if they used cycle paths or roads. Not surprisingly (as we’re going to be teaching others how to ride on roads), all eight of them said they rode on the road.
So then I asked them which they would prefer to ride on.
Every single one of them said off-road cycle paths. So here we have a bunch of responsible adults, who’re keen enough to either get jobs teaching others how to ride bikes on the roads, or in the case of those on the course from North Tyneside, had volunteered to do it for free, yet not one of us would actually want to ride on the road, given the choice.
So naturally, I asked a follow-up question. Or actually, a pair of questions:
Why would they want to be away from the roads?
Why don’t they ride on cycle paths rather than roads?
The first one got an easy to understand, uniform answer - they don’t particularly like the traffic. But the second question . . . it was like listening to “101 things that are wrong with cycle infrastructure in the UK”, in full surround-sound:
- They’re never gritted / salted, so in winter they’re lethal
- The all end up with 12-18″ of leaves on them, which then decays to slippery leaf mulch in the Autumn (fall)
- They’re covered in hedge trimmings in the summer - that means thorns and punctures
- They never seem to connect to anywhere useful
- If they do, it’s not the particular useful place that I’m travelling to on that day
- Dog walkers - thee words for you: Clear. It. Up!
- You have to give way to cars at every pigging junction, while if you were on the road, you’d have right of way
- At regular intervals, there are usually measures to discourage scroats from using the cycle paths as race tracks for their motor bikes / stolen cars. You often have to lift your bike over these, or get off to manoeuvre it through them.
- Speaking of the scroats - they love to get smashed on Thunderbird (or whatever they drink these days) along cycle paths of an evening . . . and then smash the empty bottles.
- And at night, it’s rare for cycle paths to have good lighting
- Pedestrians also use the bike paths - usually with their iPods on, so they can’t hear you coming.
- There aren’t usually clear markings on the paths, so people end up riding on the wrong side. Head-on collision between people on bikes are a possibility
- The paved surfaces are often not maintained, deteriorating from billiard-table smooth to off-road bumpy within a couple of years
- If the vegetation around them isn’t kept in check, it can soon reclaim a big chunk of the available width of the path
I could go on, but I ran out of paper to make notes on.
So, same questions to you:
- Ride on road or cycle path?
- Which would you prefer to ride on?
- Why?
I prefer to ride on the paths because I don’t have to be as aware of the traffic and possible accidents. I can just kind of zone out and look around more.
I would love to ride on a dedicated bike lane that has plenty of room and does not force me to ride next to parked cars. Bike paths can be very pleasant as well, but I use them more for recreational riding and it is frustrating that they are not maintained and that you constantly have to dodge pedestrians and dogs (I love pedestrians but they make it hard to bike fast).
Road, for much the reasons above.
Journeys by road are much, much quicker. That said I do lots of recovery miles on my hybrid down towpaths.
Cyclists shouldn’t neglect their right to use the public highway. Many of the rules of the road where created to protect pedestrians, horses and latter cars from us as kings of the road and we shouldn’t let ourselves be bullied off the roads by ignorance.
Imagine if all those problems were fixed. Every single one. I love riding on the cycle paths over here. The roads here offer an alternative network with detours and delays to get to the same destination. That’s why cycling is so popular.
I can’t think of a single bike path here that I “like” using. I can’t think of any that don’t make my journey longer or less convenient. I can’t think of many that are properly maintained (although judging by the potholes I’ve been seeing lately, you can say the same for the roads, although they have the advantage of some room to manoeuvre around them).
I was thinking about this the other day, as a new facility has gone in on my homeward commute. The best you can say about it is that it’s not a really inconvenient one, and that’s a shame really.
The other thing that’s a collossal pain in the arse with cyclepaths is the attitude they foster in the British motorist, namely that they think it entirely appropriate to bully you off the road if a cycle path is present anywhere nearby. A bus driver who hit me last year (he tailgated me along the road, and then tried to beat me around a parked van - the front of his bus did, not the side, sadly) suggested that I should use the bike path instead (which takes in three give ways and a set of lights). When I pointed out that it was covered in glass following a local fair being set up in the park, he said he’d sooner get a puncture than be squashed. Essentially a “professional” driver regards you as fair game if you’re on “his” road, folks.
I’d caveat my points by saying that I’ve never used a dedicated path like the one between Bristol and Bath, for example, which do seem to be offered in the true spirit of the word “facility” most of the ones in my area are of the “hide the bike” variety.
I used to ride the Bristol to Bath Railway Path to work - it’s longer than the A4 route (16 miles vs 13) but has the advantage of gentle gradients or flatness and (obviously) the complete lack of cars.
You do get problems in certain areas, though: the broken glass, the over-bored kids on monkey bikes etc., even muggings at one point (after dark and in one area).
One local recumbent rider posted to our Cycle Campaign mailing list about a particularly aggressive dog being walked by an indifferent owner. It’s not just dog poo that can be a problem…
Anyway - I’m back on road now for the new job’s commute from the edge of Bath to the city centre, apart from a short section through the Homebase and Sainsbury’s car parks.
I’d rather be on a separate facility, though I don’t mind road riding and usually feel pretty confident. It only takes one idiot doing 50 in a 30 limit to give you second thoughts, though, as happened recently.
There are some cycle lanes (and one short kerbed, segregated section), but *cough* they sometimes get parked in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/t1mmyb/3295214070/
Riding on-road in Bath has been OK, mostly. If there was an alternative, though, I’d take it.
During the Spring/Summer months when I’m commuting on bike, I’m mostly cycling on a cycle path, only moving onto the road for short stretches.
If I can find a useful cycle path, I’d always much rather be using it over the road, it makes for a much more pleasant cycle and allows me to unwind at the end of a long day at work, and get my head into gear at the start of the day!
I’m relatively lucky though, where I live I can use the ‘Deeside Way’ which is basically a path along the route of the old railway running from Aberdeen (where I work) out to Banchory (and much further soon). That makes for 17 miles of cycle path, leaving me to only have to be on the road for the final six miles home, most of which is relatively quiet country road.
There are stretches which would certainly be quicker on the road, but are far from safe mostly due to the high speed at which drivers navigate them at, but also due to Aberdeen Council’s nack at designing roads to be particularly dangerous for cyclists, so generally I stick to the cycle path. Where the cycle path lets itself down is through lack of maintenance. Fallen trees and at the height of Summer, some heavily overgrown areas can make for a difficult route. This path is also shared with pedestrians (often with dogs), runners, and horse riders, but for the most part these don’t present a problem. It is difficult to make runners with ipods attached to their ears aware of your presence though, but I haven’t given anyone to big a fright so far!
The hazards of bike trails: riding with my family, 2 year old in a kid seat on the back, 4 year old on training wheels and my wife. All the while trying to keep everyone away from the middle of the trail. Along comes a roadie doing 15mph+ in the opposite direction around a blind curve, head down and power on and drifting across the trail because of the speed and bushes on the inside of the curve. By the time we all saw each other it was too late. He clipped me and ran head-on into my 4 year old, lauched over the handlebars and did a faceplant homebase slide on the concrete. Somehow I did not dump my bike with the 2 year ond on the back and Mr Training Wheels only got a few bumps and bruises. Hopefully that roadie learned that training is best left to the roads and leave the trails for weekend family rides.
I would prefer to use the paths, and in my local town (Bracknell) with pretty well designed cycle paths that are part of the fabric of the town they work very well.
However, when I’ve commuted to Reading I’ll always use the road because ‘tacked on’ cyclepaths never work in my opinion. Around Wokingham the ‘cycle path’ is in fact a white line on the pavement and you run the risk of being hit by reversing cars coming out of their drives in the morning and you have to try and avoid all the peds too.
The road, definitely the road. More direct, predictable, easy. Trails are great if you are riding with people that are not yet comfortable riding in traffic.
Local bikeways are great because they are direct (more than roads) safe and clean, and often you have priority. Also less roadies because racing bikes are under a different legal criteria in Germany so they stay on the road. There are a few places where bad design make it safer to use the road, but bike lanes are preferable.
Up here - roads. The only advantage to the very few cycle paths there are is that they were former railway lines, so fewer hills. Of course, we’re blessed with tons of narrow, empty back roads so the big roads can be avoided. The other cycle tracks around us are for the mountain bikers and as careening down hills and over logs is not my thing, I avoid them
I would RATHER ride on a dedicated cycle lane, free of pedestrains AND cars.
Favourite bits of my commute are the bits of road that only bikes and buses can go down (I don’t mind sharing with buses if they’re infrequent). These are wide and well maintained, and gritted in winter.
However, with things as they are, it depends on the nature of my journey. If I’m on my own then I want to go fast and pick the route that enables that (which is sometimes on a path and sometimes on the road). If I’m with others on a more leisurly ride then I’ll use paths more.
I like having the choice to use the road or paths. I value the laws that try to make the roads safe. And I equally value the cycle paths that exist for the benefit of all cyclists. But I would desperately like to see more dedicated facilities!
Road.
I’m very, very comfortable in traffic of all sorts, including the absolutely horrendous in bad weather.
On a path, I get very, very tired of swerving around walkers who insist on strolling three abreast across the path, walkers who walk on the right side while letting their leashed dog walk along the left, etc., etc.
I’ll take the cars any day.
I’d echo everything you put in your post and for the same reasons. And I’m also an Accredited National Standard Cycling Instructor like yourself. Because the negative attitudes of the car-centric British towards cycling is so entrenched at all levels I don’t believe that there’s any chance of significant change for a very, very long time to come.
[...] Karl has also been giving this topic thought recently, posting a straw poll on whether people prefer to ride on roads or off-road cycle paths: [...]