Roads you would not ride on.

[Philip Benstead]

According to the NS at level 3 you should be able to ride on any road at any time.


That's theroy and aim, what is it in practice?


Are there any roads you would refluse to train on or ride on, please indicate if you are cycle instructor. ?

[al_yrpal]

From relatively smooth Somerset going back to South Potholeshire (Oxfordshire) the difference is truly amazing. Dont know how I put up with the place for all those years. AVOID....

AL

[mjr]

On my return to Norfolk, I rode on the A47 over Constitution Hill (a mere pimple but enough to slow you down a while). Traffic had increased enough in my years away that it was so unpleasant due to impatient and aggressive motorists that I'd take the 75ish% longer detour on back roads in future.

There's a difference between being "able to ride on any road at any time" and being enough of a masochist to enjoy that level of abuse.

I have ridden a fair distance on the A47 maybe twice since then, during the first lockdown. The road is not the problem.

[Nearholmer]

Lots.

With me it’s more a case of deciding which roads I feel are safe to use, rather than which I feel are dangerous to use.

[Bonefishblues]

From relatively smooth Somerset going back to South Potholeshire (Oxfordshire) the difference is truly amazing. Dont know how I put up with the place for all those years. AVOID....

AL

It's no better in North Oxon.

[millimole]

As a huge generalisation : any road leading directly to / from a motorway junction.

[deeferdonk]

Like most people I definitely avoid fast moving dual carriageways. Cars going past at 70mph and lorries at 55mph is not nice, even if they do pull completely in the second lane. Over the years there seems to have been a number of cyclists killed on dual carriageways near me - particularly including people involved in time trials when there would have been signage/other cyclists and you would have thought drivers would have had adequate warning.

[Nearholmer]

Yep, time-trialling on a very fast, near motorway, dual carriageway was a big thing when I moved to the area I live now. It isn’t any more, after several deaths at slip roads, where drivers coming down onto the road didn’t expect a quick-moving cyclist and perceived themselves to be entering a free space in the lane.

[irc]

Like most people I definitely avoid fast moving dual carriageways. Cars going past at 70mph and lorries at 55mph is not nice, even if they do pull completely in the second lane. Over the years there seems to have been a number of cyclists killed on dual carriageways near me - particularly including people involved in time trials when there would have been signage/other cyclists and you would have thought drivers would have had adequate warning.

This. The A82 between Clydebank and the Erskine Bridge saw two cyclists killed in seperate crashes within 6 months. I use the roadside path. Though that doesn't go past the bridge junction. The A814 is a safe alternative but marginally less direct depending on start point.

[pjclinch]

According to the NS at level 3 you should be able to ride on any road at any time.

That's theroy and aim, what is it in practice?

Are there any roads you would refluse to train on or ride on, please indicate if you are cycle instructor. ?

I am a cycle instructor.

The National Standards don't quite work like that. There is an Alignment With Bikeability Levels on p3 of the Standards document at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... cument.pdf but there's no clear statement that exhibiting the standards can/understand elements means one can expect to deal happily with "any road".
If we look at Bikeability's take on L3 at https://www.bikeability.org.uk/get-cycl ... y-level-3/ it doesn't rule anything out, but to me that's not the same as saying specifically "you'll be able to ride anywhere". Similarly the Scottish equivalent at https://www.cycling.scot/bikeability-scotland/schools.

Are there roads I'd refuse to ride on personally? That would depend on the circumstances, but there are certainly roads at certain times I'd sooner not ride on if there was a realistic option. Training would similarly be down to context. Teaching adult drivers how to deal with fast dual carriageway would be quite different to teaching Y6/P7 kids, and there's a lot of difference between the competencies of Y6/P7 kids who've done L2.
A lot of it will come down to what is actually relevant to a a particular rider: if you live alongside the A86 in the middle of nowhere in Highland then if you're going to ride you must be able to deal with A roads carrying fast 60+ mph traffic whereas If you live in Hackney then you probably don't. If you live in Glenrothes and can't do roundabouts you're pretty much snookered while if you live in Plockton they're irrelevant, and so on.

So I'd take an empirical line: what do your trainees need to know and what do you feel able to teach them? These are what should place the technical limits on instruction. Given that there will be limited time on a course I think it would be far better to concentrate on stuff that the trainees are likely to deal with every day than do e.g. a necessarily limited "weapons grade national limit dual carriageway with no hard shoulder" session that few will have cause, or indeed desire, to follow up.

Pete.

[Pinhead]

According to the NS at level 3 you should be able to ride on any road at any time.


That's theroy and aim, what is it in practice?


Are there any roads you would refluse to train on or ride on, please indicate if you are cycle instructor. ?

Any with cars on

[Pinhead]

Perhaps it should be law that all new learner drivers spend a week on a cycle test

[Cowsham]

While in England there was a guy riding up the A5 in Shropshire in the heavy rain ( a thunderplump for about an hour real bad visibility in the middle of the day ) with no lights -- I thought "Death Wish" either he'll get hit by a car or drown. The road was like a river, skies dark and traffic mad.

[pjclinch]

Perhaps it should be law that all new learner drivers spend a week on a cycle test

We're drifting off topic, but there's nothing particularly poor about the basic idea of cycle training as part of driving training. One gets to understand both the basic priorities and how the roads work at low speed, and one gets to understand what it's like to negotiate the roads uninsulated from harm by a steel cage.

Pete.

[Pinhead]

Perhaps it should be law that all new learner drivers spend a week on a cycle test

We're drifting off topic, but there's nothing particularly poor about the basic idea of cycle training as part of driving training. One gets to understand both the basic priorities and how the roads work at low speed, and one gets to understand what it's like to negotiate the roads uninsulated from harm by a steel cage.

Pete.

I believe so as being a cyclist means I KNOW what we need and drive accordingly