Travelling to road cycling

[Ben07]

Hi everyone, my name is Ben Illingworth and I’m a master’s student currently studying Transport Planning at the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. For my dissertation I am focusing on the travel patterns of people who participate in various forms of leisure cycling including Mountain Biking, Road cycling and BMX. At, present because of the inaccessibility of many locations, leisure cycling can be very car dependent.

The link below is a survey that I hope that cyclists across the country will respond to and tell me their travel patterns and participation in cycling. Then I can understand the environmental impact of these travel patterns and propose various changes to make leisure cycling more accessible by all modes (e.g. improved public transport to cycling destinations).

It would be of great help if anyone could take the time to complete the survey because the results could be very useful in improving leisure cycling for everyone. The survey takes 10-15 mins.

Thank You!!!!

https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/car-d ... al-cycling

[Cyril Haearn]

Cycling is a method of travel
Have a browse through these fora, there is a lot about TDC the tragedy of drive-cycling, people drive vast distances to cycling events

[Ben07]

Haha maybe I could of come up with a better title Thanks for the suggestion!

[atlas_shrugged]

Ben

You have missed out considering 'Active Travel' or 'infrastructure' in your survey.

It is probably true that many drive/cycle. With limited time this is often the only method to get to a remote location.

By providing local access to a Greenway then there is a realistic alternative to using a car that will never be replaced by a bus or a train simply because the bus/train can never make the required point to point journey.

Put simply if you took all the motor vehicles off the road tomorrow then active travel would increase rapidly.

[tatanab]

Unable to answer the questions because I cannot distinguish between "road cycling" and "cycle touring" (which is primarily on the road for me, yet includes some off road).

[Nigel]

Unable to answer the questions because I cannot distinguish between "road cycling" and "cycle touring" (which is primarily on the road for me, yet includes some off road).

Ditto. Perhaps I don't do "road cycling" because my bikes have mudguards ?

At what point does "road cycling" become "off road cycling" when the route, primarily road, goes along a bumpy unmade track for a few hundred yards to a few miles ? Or goes along a few miles of tarmac away-from-road cycle path ?

Its quite hard to distinguish leisure cycling from shopping cycling.

[julianm]

Might be interesting to include timetrialling on your list. Some will travel an awfully long way by car to choice events.

[gbnz]

Unable to answer the questions because I cannot distinguish between "road cycling" and "cycle touring" (which is primarily on the road for me, yet includes some off road).

Ditto. Perhaps I don't do "road cycling" because my bikes have mudguards ?

At what point does "road cycling" become "off road cycling" when the route, primarily road, goes along a bumpy unmade track for a few hundred yards to a few miles ? Or goes along a few miles of tarmac away-from-road cycle path ?

Its quite hard to distinguish leisure cycling from shopping cycling.

Suppose last Saturdays ride became "off road" for 2.5 miles, the 1960's A road, becoming a 1870's turnpike (NB. If one didn't follow the "modern" bend in the road), following the route of a roman road . Can't say it compromised completing the survey.

Though the road bike tyres weren't best suited to the terrain and one of the Galloway cows decided to lick my handlebar grips (NB. Said grips covered in thick, mucus ridden, cow stuff )

[eileithyia]

i answered but assumed road cycling to cover a variety of types of cycling.
Ended up skewed toward using a vehicle to access cycle areas due to variety of factors which difficult to express in a survey, how do you deal with 25 miles of built up continuous town and city in order to go in one direction, especially when you are currently only good for about 30 miles.
Public transport is of no use to a family of cyclists and far too expensive.

[horizon]

Public transport is of no use to a family of cyclists and far too expensive.

You could argue that neither is car transport, in that for the children in the car it forecloses on their future. I've seen so many places where the "safe, off-road" cycling is accessed by car yet children and adults are denied safe cycling from their front door. I would suggest to the parents that they:

(a) Get out locally with the childen and leave the car behind.
(b) Stop intimidating potential cyclists by, yes, using their car.
(c) Wake up and stop voting Conservative (cf thread on Westminster City Council)
(d) Stop being lazy taking the children somewhere to cycle while they themselves don't (seen plenty of that). The children need an example.
(e) Get in touch with their local councillors ansd ask for a 20 mph zone around where they live.
(f) Boycott drive-cycle destinations (we did).
(g) Campaign for more family bike spaces on trains.

It's a long list but then the issue is a serious one. Children (and their parents) need exercise; the planet doesn't need their fumes and carbon use. Let's stop beating around the bush and making excuses for the short-sightedness of parents.

[Ben07]

Thank you for all the suggestions and feedback guys, I really appreciate it!!

[horizon]

Might be interesting to include timetrialling on your list. Some will travel an awfully long way by car to choice events.

Travelling a long way to special, occasional events seems OK to me (not sure about Audax ) - it's the regular (which it needs to be) trips for an afternoon. And trapping children in a car before they can enjoy a local ride seems to me to be utter madness. If petrol were in some way rationed, we could all make best use of a scare resource and do a long drive when it really mattered.