Cycling UK Forum

Velocio wrote:Because of my loyalty to our Club, I received my retro letter, envelope and Souvenir Gazette today wonderfully espousing 'The Cyclists' Touring Club' ...from Jon Snow ...and supported by our Queen ...with not a mention of the silly nonsense of a change of name of our Club. In fact the letter, mainly about leaving a Will to the CTC, and the Gazette seemed to be extolling the virtues of the 'CTC' historically, presently and in the future. Perhaps no-one has told Mr Snow, HRH, or others involved in this latest promotion of the changes planned either!!!

Well I have just posted off my response to this begging letter. On the back of the form, J Snow asked for comments. These are mine -

Set against the background of the unrest among members resulting from the bodged (partial) “re-branding” of CTC to “Cycling UK”, I find this begging letter mail-shot extremely distasteful.

Many thoughts sprang to mind as I read the retro styled presentation; the use of the winged wheel on supposedly aged paper; the so called “Gazette” with 19th century font and styling; the promise of a winged wheel badge if I sign up; all seemingly designed to foster a sense of connection with the past. This, at a time when Council are seeking to foist on the members a new identity with a new logo, name and motto.

Bearing in mind the Chair of Council’s concern as to how much a ballot of members concerning the re-branding will cost, I wondered how much this mail-shot has cost. Postage alone to 67,000 members (my household received two identical, individually stamped copies) would total £36,180, on top of the design and printing costs. I, of course don’t know whether all members were targeted, or only those of us of more mature years who are likely to “pop our clogs” in the near future; which would be a somewhat macabre misuse of our personal data.

Since it is only some four years since the CTC was re-branded as “the national cycling charity” (which makes us sound as if CTC is a charity looking after dementia ridden old cyclists) yet another change of style and logo seems a total waste of members’ subscriptions. For that reason alone I not only decline your invitation to bequeath my money to the CTC (or Cycling UK), but I am now questioning whether I wish to be associated any longer with such a muddled (dis)organisation.

Kindly pass on these comments to the Chair of Council and to the Chief Executive.

Mark1978 wrote:From a 2008 document http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/fil ... ltn208.pdf
7.4.2 Cycle lanes should be 2 metres wide on busy roads, or where traffic is travelling in excess of 40 mph. A minimum width of 1.5 metres may be generally acceptable on roads with a 30 mph limit. For cycle feeder lanes to advanced stop line arrangements, a minimum width of 1.2m may be acceptable. Cycle lanes less than 1.2 metres wide cannot easily accommodate tricycles or childcarrying cycle trailers wholly within the lane.

Since when has this rule ever influenced a cycle lane/path designer?

The MINIMUM width is the maximum we ever get delivered round here, and often less. Just because a rule (or law) exists, observance can not be assumed (e.g. speed limits for motor vehicles, mobile phone use, HGV driver hours, etc. etc.)

Sorry, but your faith in the rule book is touching, but misplaced.

I forwarded this thread to someone I know who lives in the Leatherhead/Box Hill area of Surrey and who is a regular commuting, touring, leisure and utility cyclist. Her reply was quite interesting. It seems that the good folk of Surrey might have some degree of justification in their complaints.

"Oh, I'd seen a similar rant in the local paper, but largely people are ignoring it. As for the cyclists who are descending on Surrey from London each weekend - quite a few of them are real inconsiderate jerks, and I can understand the complaints, if not the reaction.


(And I don't agree with the comments one of the people posted on that forum - there are a number of places near here where painted cycle lanes and ASLs are very useful! And there have been no (to my knowledge) HGV/cycle incidents in Surrey - these are all London-centric issues that don't apply in The Real World. )"

Adam S wrote:

Mark1978 wrote:Back to topic, certainly the British way of keeping speeds low on country roads such as this is to remove the white lines down the middle, perhaps this is a treatment which could be applied to more roads? I know it's already happened in some places as I've cycled down roads which have obviously used to have white lines but have been burned off.

I have noticed a trend towards this. Also, several roads have been marked as being single track (+ passing places) despite being (just) wide enough for two cars to pass. From my experience this seems to slow cars down so that they don't come hurtling past. Truth be told i'm far more concerned about the NSL rural A&B-roads, it would be good to see a reduced (and enforced) NSL for single carriageway roads

I believe I suggested this in my original post.

Barry

stewartpratt wrote:

Mark1978 wrote:Should this road have a parallel cycle path https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#! ... !2e0&fid=5 hell no; it's a perfect cycling road as it is.

The Dutch would often disagree and do this:

Looking at that picture, I see something that I have never seen in my area - "cycle path/lane" on BOTH sides of the road to cater for cyclists moving in opposite directions on the CORRECT side of the road (this country seems to expect 2 way cycling on a single narrow cycle path), and the space to create it taken from the central "motor traffic" zone.

Going back to my original posting, I see this as a perfect example of how "advocating safe cycling conditions on ALL roads" could be applied to rural roads of this type (and why not urban residential roads as well after insisting that cars are parked within the curtilage of the owner's home and not lazily on the street?). Add in the 40 mph rural speed limit and 20 mph residential area limit (as I originally suggested) and the roads concerned immediately become visibly safer to attract greater cycle use. £42m could provide an awful lot of this type of "segregation", (as opposed to building a few km of "cycling superhighway" as apparently envisaged by the original article in Cycle) whilst still retaining/enhancing the on road cycling culture.

The phrase "Nannas and Nippers" keeps cropping up in this thread. Would this solution not be suitable for such riders? I won't dwell on the fact that I see more "Nannas" riding upright shopping bikes ON THE ROAD in my urban environment than I see roughie toughie MTB riders on the carriageway, they are always on the pavements among the pedestrians.

Perhaps this might be a way of satisfying both the "dyed in the wool segregationist" and the "fundamentalist integrationist"

Yours hopefully,

Barry

pjclinch wrote:They get it wrong in NL, but they don't get it WRONG to the extent of being utterly unusable on account of being "designed" by someone who isn't a cyclist and has no intention of doing anything other than ticking the "money spent on x meters of cycling facility on Doom Street" box.

And that, I fear lies at the heart of the UK problem. Thus far, it has always been, and I expect it will always be. My experience of dealing with highway engineers who "design" cycle "facilities" is that they are inevitably non-cyclists (local Councillors are just as bad). They have their design manuals, which they slavishly follow, always adopting the easiest alternative, and REFUSE to listen to any cyclist, or cycling group) who disagrees with their proposals.

My son served as a Right to Ride rep (until he became so disillusioned that he walked out). In meetings with the LA engineers he was promised a view of the proposals for a cycle path so that he could offer comment. He was eventually shown the plans with the comment "You might as well see these, we are starting work tomorrow"

Do you wonder that I doubt we will ever get any decent "facilities" in this country and that I believe that ANY money available should be spent on "soft" measures (training, speed reduction on residential roads, etc. etc.) rather than inevitably wasting it on more rubbish "farcilities"

Yours, disillusioned with highway authorities and Government initiatives,

Barry

Si wrote:

Whimwham7 wrote:

Si wrote:So, my opinion is that it is very difficult to make a jump from 'non-cyclist' to 'happy on four lane interchanges', however it is easier to go from 'non-cyclist' to 'cycle path cyclist' to 'quiet road cyclist' to 'main road cyclist' to 'complex junction cyclist'. But t get this far you need several thing: you need the cycle paths (that are built well enough to be useful to at least new comers and non-road confident cyclists), you need training (either formal or peer based), and you need motivation (cycling needs to be sold as a good, 'cool', doable-by-everyone thing to do that offers practical advantages as well as making positive social statements).

And this is why I have changed my views on the value of good infrastructure, but why I still believe that ultimately we want to get cyclists who feel comfortable on as many roads as possible.

While that set of transition stages (non-cyclist to complex junction cyclist) sounds eminently reasonable, I fear it falls down in practice. In your list of things needed, you have missed out the required change of mind-set that is firmly embedded in those who have come into cycling via cycle paths, i.e. "cycle path good - road too dangerous to ride on".

Not at all: the " you need training (either...." bit covers that. If you have formal training then you will have a section that looks at deciding whether to use the cycle-facility or the road, and another section that takes you onto roads such as the ones that Mick is off to ride. Likewise, if you get peer-based training, i.e. riding with a club, or seeing other people riding the road...then that also gets it into your head that it is entirely possible to use roads.

Alas, while many schools now get to level 2 bikeability by around Yr6, few of these seem to follow on with level 3 later.

<tangent alert>
In my view schools should adopt the same approach to cycle training as they do to swimming.
Swim training can save your life, it keeps you fit, it's low impact, and it's done regularly (dunno what it's like now but I got at least a term of weekly swim classes for several years).
Cycling training can save your life (in fact I'd suggest that it is more likely to do this than swimming), it keeps you fit, it's low impact, and it's done.....for around five hours during your whole school career...if you are lucky!
So why isn't cycle training on a par with swimming in schools?
</tangent alert>

Just a further thought -

I think we ALL agree that cycle training, especially for children, is a GOOD THING. But, what about the parents?

As long as the parents continue to believe that their offspring will be crushed under a 32 tonne HGV the moment they cross the kerb line, the children will NEVER be allowed to ride on the road. They will grow up with the mindset of "roads are dangerous - don't even think of cycling on them". No amount of training or education will ever clear from their memory the "wise" advice of Mummy.

How many times do you see older teenagers, or twenty or thirty somethings, or grown up, responsible adults riding on the pavement, even in residential streets where there is not a moving vehicle to be seen? It has (in my belief) been ingrained into their psyche from childhood. It is not helped by the hotchpotch smattering of shared use symbols put up in a piecemeal fashion by Councils, leading to the impression that Authority wants cycles to be only ridden on the pavement because "roads are dangerous".

Sorry if this is a bit rambling. My thought is that parents should receive the same training, at the same time, as their children so that what they learn together translates into action.

Your analogy to swimming lessons is a good one. I never learned to swim at school. I don't swim, why, because I believe that immersing myself in water more than 2 feet deep is "dangerous" and I will drown. Had I been taught properly at school, this irrational fear would never have dominated my life near water. Similarly, proper cycle training (including parents) should equip children (and parents) with the skills and confidence to cycle on appropriate* roads.


* Note that please, appropriate to their level of skill and confidence, both of which should increase with the more road riding they do. Once liberated from the "ALL roads are dangerous" mindset, the freedom of choice as to where to ride broadens and the horizon becomes the only limit to their possibilities. I thought that was quite poetic - all right I won't give up the day job :

Barry

stewartpratt wrote:But look what happens when the roads are closed. Look at Skyrides. Look at RideLondon. Look at the car park of forestry parks with cycle trails of a weekend. Admittedly all those are leisure cycling, but equally look at the Bristol-Bath rail trail. Packed, all of them. The BBRT is creaking at the seams with complaints of collisions and so on.

People want to cycle away from traffic, it's that simple. Making cycling more appealing - and dignificantly so - is one of the two main parts (the other being making private car use less appealing) of making transport more sustainable.

Two thoughts,

1. The examples of closed roads show highly advertised leisure "one-offs", whilst the forestry commission trails appeal (from my observation) to the MTB rider who wants to exercise his/her off road riding skills, having driven from home to the car park. None of these have anything to do with increasing the rate of everyday local utility cycling that I want to see and, incidentally, was what I was trying to encourage in my original letter - LOCAL everyday utility cycling in LOCAL residential streets. Whilst some on here may be quite happy with riding in heavy traffic (as indeed I am) I never suggested that everybody would be.

2. Bristol to Bath cycle path - I have no personal experience of this, but your comment about collisions on it is very interesting. This route has for many years been held up as a flagship achievement of Sustrans - Utopia achieved. Has it now reached capacity, or are the users involved in these collisions incompetent riders, the sort of people I describe as "pedestrians on wheels", who do not realise that bicycles are vehicles and that "rules of the road" need to apply equally to cycle paths. There are many people who ride bicycles (particularly on highly advertised charity rides as well as on cyclepaths generaly) who are a danger to themselves and anyone foolish enough to ride close to them. No road sense, no regard for other road users and ... I will stop there before I have a seizure

Dedicated cyclepaths I do experience in my area also suffer from congestion. Not of excess cyclists, but of pedestrians who wander from the pavement onto them without looking, dog owners who allow Fido to roam on an extending lead, parked service vehicles, only last week on one particular "bête noir" of mine an elderly gent crossing on his mobility scooter and stopping at right angles in front of three 15 mph cyclists, and so on. This particular path is parallel to the seafront promenade, which previously was a wide dual carriageway I used for rush hour commuting with absolutely no hassle and, as far as I am aware, no RTA's involving cyclists. To create the cyclepath, the Council narrowed the carriageway to the point of creating conflict on it between motor traffic and any cyclist who dares to remain on the road. Danger now exists where none was ever present before, and all done by the Council (to spend Cycle Town funding) in the name of increasing cycle usage. It is that sort of experience that leads me to avoid cyclepaths whenever possible.

(By the way, the suggestion of some posters that 4 and 5 year olds should be encouraged to ride in traffic congested streets is a wildly exaggerated travesty of my original posting. Please do not assert that I ever advocated such nonsense.)

I still stand by my original proposition, that to increase every day cycling for utility reasons (including getting people to use the bicycle rather than automatically reaching for the car key) the £42m would be better spent on making roads (local residential roads) visibly safer and more suitable than they are now for the short, local, everyday journey. There is not enough money to go round for a complete network of "super routes" to the standard advocated in this thread, without massively increasing taxation, or cutting other expenditure. I won't even raise the elephant in the room of where these routes could be fitted into the existing highway network without severely impinging on the space currently allocated to motor traffic. A moment's thought will show that that is a political non-starter.

Barry

Si wrote:So, my opinion is that it is very difficult to make a jump from 'non-cyclist' to 'happy on four lane interchanges', however it is easier to go from 'non-cyclist' to 'cycle path cyclist' to 'quiet road cyclist' to 'main road cyclist' to 'complex junction cyclist'. But t get this far you need several thing: you need the cycle paths (that are built well enough to be useful to at least new comers and non-road confident cyclists), you need training (either formal or peer based), and you need motivation (cycling needs to be sold as a good, 'cool', doable-by-everyone thing to do that offers practical advantages as well as making positive social statements).

And this is why I have changed my views on the value of good infrastructure, but why I still believe that ultimately we want to get cyclists who feel comfortable on as many roads as possible.

While that set of transition stages (non-cyclist to complex junction cyclist) sounds eminently reasonable, I fear it falls down in practice. In your list of things needed, you have missed out the required change of mind-set that is firmly embedded in those who have come into cycling via cycle paths, i.e. "cycle path good - road too dangerous to ride on".

Before I retired, I worked with someone who would happily strap his bicycle onto his car, drive 30 miles to a country park to ride on the cyclepaths, then drive back home. He was a competent rider as far as bike handling was concerned. When I suggested that he could cycle the two miles to the office through the residential streets and save the hassle of driving, his reply - "Oh I can't do that, there are no cyclepaths".

How do you overcome that barrier in the mind of the cyclepath rider?

Barry

Quite a lot of comment has been that we need "Dutch style" infrastructure, i.e. cycle paths.

Perhaps the Dutch are beginning to learn from UK standards -

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/w ... il2010.htm

or

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/w ... ry2009.htm

Seriously, this website shows how much UK traffic engineers just "don't get it". All they are concerned with is "provide something, anything, just so long as it ticks a few boxes and gets the cyclists out of the way of motor traffic". Please chill out and scroll through the examples on this website - and laugh

Barry

Mark1978 wrote:But what if all the paths were as described. Why would a cyclist need roads?

Because, with a moment's thought you would realise that it is physically impossible to construct a "good quality" cycle path alongside (or convenient to) EVERY road in the country. And that is without thinking about the cost

snibgo wrote:They would be roads without motorists. Which reminds me of an idea I have of errecting bollards at strategic places...

Please don't do that. A cycling acquaintance of mine has a habit of colliding with bollards - and that is on a cycle path!

Wow, frank discussion, that’s what I was hoping for – and be assured, I don’t take any of your criticisms personally.

Many points have been made, and it would take a long time to respond to them all. Most of the replies seem to be in favour of segregated cycle routes, contrary to my standpoint. Fair enough, for a number of years I also personally advocated such provision, submitting papers to my local Highway Authority, letters to the press etc. So what changed my mind?

Basically the fact that none of the provision I have seen ensuing from such initiatives has been any good! It has all been a total waste of money. I have seen no noticeable result in modal shift to use cycle paths. As an illustration, shortly after one pavement was designated by my local Highway Authority as a shared use cyclepath, I encountered an acquaintance riding on the opposite side pavement. When I asked her why she was not using the official cyclepath, she replied that she always rode on this pavement because it was on the same side as her house. Jo(e) Public will need more than a few cyclepath signs to change her(his) habit.

Incidentally, I typed this before the replies shifted to the matter of fast dual carriageways. They were never part of my letter anyway.

Pete (pjclinch) was the first to reply, so I will try to address the points he made. Firstly he suggested that the money could be spent on all sorts of things other than a few hundred metres of “super routes”. I absolutely agree! Unfortunately the main thrust of the article in Cycle seemed to imply that the “super route” concept was at the heart of the funding. I also agree that spending on targeted trials makes sense.

An important point that Pete made is that our roads are not a network of routes that the majority of non-cyclists would be happy to use. And there he has hit the nail on the head and, perhaps inadvertently, emphasised the problem with concentrating the spend on a series of “segregated spokes” from surrounding areas (as described in the Cycle article). Once on such a traffic free path, the newbie would justifiably be more confident to ride. But how do they get from the front door of their house to such a “spoke”? Answer, by riding on the road, the same road with all its current problems of cycle unfriendly junctions, poor surface, blind spots caused by parked vehicles, etc, etc. that they won’t use now because it’s “too dangerous”. So – they still won’t ride.

Pete suggested that “targeting the roads, and only the roads” will only benefit enthusiasts. I disagree

To increase the incidence of people being persuaded to cycle at all, I believe the spending needs to be targeted at the road immediately OUTSIDE THEIR FRONT DOOR. Which is why I listed - education of drivers and cyclists to share the carriageway responsibly; default 20mph speed limits in residential areas and 40mph for rural roads; comprehensive traffic policing (including stopping cyclists riding on pavements and jumping red lights); proper carriageway repairs, - as having (for me) a much higher priority than building a limited number of “segregated spokes”.


It has been said in the past that most private journeys do not exceed three miles. If by spending £42m on improving local road conditions non-cyclists can be persuaded (education again) to leave the car at home for a one mile journey, then when they find how easy it is, two miles, then three miles and so on follows, the culture can then develop whereby the car is used less and the cycle more. Of course this will take time, which is at odds with Government demanding quick results from its expenditure. Hence the emphasis on building something, anything, as long as it is visible.

I don’t know about you, but when I returned to cycling 15 years or more ago, it was that gradual “round the block, then a bit further” routine that developed not only my fitness, but also my confidence, but it took time.

Pete suggested that he would have no problem if he were forced into using Dutch standard infrastructure. The problem for me is that once compulsion is introduced, even for limited instances, it spreads like a cancer. We already put up with “Get off the road”, “Get on the cycle path” abuse from intolerant drivers (even one a day is disturbing). I have been shouted at, even where there was no cyclepath! At one transport forum meeting I attended, another delegate was ranting that a cycle path had been constructed out of “road tax” money, and still cyclists insisted on riding in the road. The cyclepath in question was of appalling quality, whilst the road was billiard smooth and wide enough for everyone to share.

Once use of cycle paths becomes mandatory, free choice as to which route to use is removed, and it will only be a matter of time before we will be forced onto ALL cycle paths, irrespective of quality. Remember, the last review of the Highway Code almost took that first step, only mass lobbying by cyclists (led by the CTC) saved the day.

Furthermore, have you ever been SMIDSY’ed (sorry mate I didn’t see you). “I did look, but there wasn’t a car coming”. “No, I am not a car, I am a cyclist, wearing hi-viz coloured clothing, and I had right of way, why did you not see me – because you did not expect a bicycle to be on the road, so you didn’t look”. The more we are excluded from the road and pushed onto segregated routes, the less drivers will look for us and perversely the more dangerous it becomes to ride on the road. (Please remember that where there is no cycle path, we have no choice but to ride on the road). I firmly support the “safety in numbers” theory. The more of us there are on the road, the more we are seen and the safer it becomes.

Pete ended his (well reasoned but, in my opinion, flawed) reply by saying that most people don’t have psychological access to the roads, they are scared. I totally agree. Our difference is in how to overcome that fear.

My conclusion is that it has to start locally (in residential streets) and extensively (in as many towns as possible) by making existing roads visibly safer, rather than concentrating on a few new dedicated paths in a small number of locations.

Thank you all for your replies, keep them coming,

Barry

Mark1978 wrote:

Whimwham7 wrote:Personally, I loath and detest shared use paths and avoid them whenever possible.

Cycles are vehicles and should (in my opinion) ALWAYS use the carriageway. Where a road is "unsafe", perhaps through being a 70 mph racetrack or other valid concern, it is usually possible to find an alternative nearly parallel route, perhaps a little longer, but usually more pleasant.

Shared use paths are usually created as a Highway Authority's cheapskate gesture to "doing something for cycling", and most simply consist of putting some blue discs on an existing footway (pavement), together with "cyclist dismount" signs at every opportunity. I fear that the more that cyclists use them, the more such rubbish "farcilities" will be foisted on us.

Only my opinion though,

Barry

This blog post from today almost exactly addresses this: http://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/

It is probably me, but I did not quite get the connection. I hate cycle paths, the blogger seems to love them.

Interestingly though, looking at the pictures, most of the "cycleways" seemed to be one way, mirroring the direction of traffic flow with, presumably, the opposite direction being catered for on the opposite side of the road. Where they were two way, they were wide and marked with a central demarcation line, just like a normal road.

However, looking at the general pattern of usage in the urban area, I could only see 5(?) mph plodders, all proceeding at the same pace, with no opportunity for multi-speed cycle traffic. Would that work in OUR town centres? The blog focusses on the elimination of motor traffic from town centres. Unfortunately, the majority of OUR town centres are dedicated to motor traffic, for access, servicing the shops and offices, schools and housing etc. This being a hangover from 20 century unplanned evolutionary development together with a small amount of 1960's "the car is king" town planning. Without totally demolishing and rebuilding the majority of our towns, the model shown in the blog simply will not work.

Compare those cycle routes with the two way, narrow, weave in and out of the pedestrian, stop/start, one side of the road only, poorly surfaced, unswept and unmaintained rubbish that Councils proudly install in this country. That is why I prefer to use the road, every time, motor traffic notwithstanding.

Barry

John Holiday wrote:We are experiencing a significant problem in the Deeside,North Wales/Chester area with inappropriate riding on the shared traffic free paths.
A number of road Clubs appear to be using the routes for high speed rides/races which is causing considerable problems.

Which highlights one of the many problems caused by creating "cyclepaths", both shared use and segregated, namely that the term "cyclists" covers the whole spectrum, from little Trixiebelle wobbling around on her fairy-cycle with stabilisers, to head down time triallists. If "cyclists" are allowed to use a path, who is to say WHICH "cyclists" should be there and which should not. Should there be a speed limit? Or, perhaps an age limit, a prohibition on drop bar cycles, no lycra allowed, or what?

On a segregated cyclepath near me, a cyclist hit a child who wandered into his path from an adjacent parked car. The local Council's response was that "clearly the cyclist was travelling too fast since he was wearing lycra and was training for a forthcoming charity ride". Yet that cyclepath was a flagship project of the Council to encourage cycling in the Borough. Before that cyclepath was constructed and the road narrowed to make room for it, I regularly commuted to work using that road during the morning and evening rush hour and (as far as I know) there was never a cycling accident. Since its construction there have been a number of crashes reported.

Some people and organisations, no names mentioned, seem to believe that "traffic free" paths are the panacea to all cycling woes. Sorry, but I believe the opposite. I hate the whole concept of cyclepaths. In my opinion, they create more problems than they solve.

Barry