531colin wrote: ↑11 Feb 2024, 5:57pm
So, if we campaign for safer roads, not only we don't get safer roads, but we don't get cyclepaths either?
Whereas that seems to be the case, I have difficulty seeing cause and effect here.
If you campaign on the basis that cyclists needs are best met on the road, then yes, we don't get cyclepaths either.
No, we don’t get any facilities on or off road because both are vote losers.
Shirley?
I think we would be better off if the average engine powered road user complied with the existing laws.
Our local “routes” wouldn’t accommodate that cargo trike anyway
Last edited by 531colin on 12 Feb 2024, 8:20am, edited 1 time in total.
I’m sure we don’t get anything like as much as we’d like to see, but it’s something of an exaggeration to say we get nothing. New-build developments particularly seem to increasingly incorporate quite decent provision …… in those places where the local authority has the wit to insist upon it.
The solution to that issue is to ban bikes from pedestrian paths, including the non-motored kind of cyclists
We’ve been round this track before, possibly several times, and I’ve previously invited you over to come and look at how shared use paths work in practice, in MK specifically, but I can show you lots of others.
They are not, as you seem to assume, all those rubbishy “pavements with blue signs”, and the idea of banning all bikes from them simply because a few e-bikers want go-faster-without-effort stripes is frankly bonkers, one of the most cycling-defeating ideas I’ve heard in a very long time.
This is the sort of thing you’re proposing to ban bikes from:
IMG_3146.jpeg
If someone can come up with a practical, workable in the real world of fallible human beings, way of protecting sharing on shared paths, then there might be a discussion worth having. But so far, in none en of these repeated discussions has anyone risen to that challenge.
And the need for numeracy rather than rhetoric cuts in at two different levels. The number who would like this increase in assisted speed, as you say. And the number of people who would be travelling faster than 15 mph. Of course some unassisted cyclists can do that, but with this change in the rules there would be many many more assisted cyclists who do. With the consequent risk to other users.
531colin wrote: ↑12 Feb 2024, 7:57am
No, we don’t get any facilities on or off road because both are vote losers.
Shirley?
We may have to agree to disagree on this one. For decades some cycling groups and advocates actively campaigned against separate cycle infrastructure, including apparently the CTC at one time, John Franklin the author of Cyclecraft is a notable example. I'm not getting into an argument about how much effect that did or didn't have, I'm going to guess considerably more than zero.
Nobody seems focussed on the legal consequences of these proposals. At 20 mph you are close to the speed of small electric motorcycles. These require tax licence and insurance. Is that a route you want to go down?
In my view if you are ghost pedalling at 20 mph you are effectively a motorcyclist.
swscotland bentrider wrote: ↑12 Feb 2024, 8:12pm
In my view if you are ghost pedalling at 20 mph you are effectively a motorcyclist.
Absolutely. And so are you with the law as it currently stands; you are on an s-pedelec which follows moped registration/insurance/etc rules.
There is no issue with electric bikes going faster.
Most of us have issue allowing with pedelecs (electric bikes that are given the privilege of running under standard bicycle regulations) being allowed to go faster.
I think that's just repeating what you were saying (or implying) in a different way. All laws are a compromise, but the law as it stands is a remarkably good one.
531colin wrote: ↑12 Feb 2024, 7:57am
No, we don’t get any facilities on or off road because both are vote losers.
Shirley?
We may have to agree to disagree on this one. For decades some cycling groups and advocates actively campaigned against separate cycle infrastructure, including apparently the CTC at one time, John Franklin the author of Cyclecraft is a notable example. I'm not getting into an argument about how much effect that did or didn't have, I'm going to guess considerably more than zero.
Yes, I distinctly remember getting flamed on the Velovision forum for suggesting cycle paths were a good idea.
531colin wrote: ↑12 Feb 2024, 7:57am
No, we don’t get any facilities on or off road because both are vote losers.
Shirley?
We may have to agree to disagree on this one. For decades some cycling groups and advocates actively campaigned against separate cycle infrastructure, including apparently the CTC at one time, John Franklin the author of Cyclecraft is a notable example. I'm not getting into an argument about how much effect that did or didn't have, I'm going to guess considerably more than zero.
Yes, I distinctly remember getting flamed on the Velovision forum for suggesting cycle paths were a good idea.
This is a HIGHLY Misleading statement without the context:
UK cycle infrastructure is almost always rubbish; so it was worse riding on it than a main road. Then there's the double-whammy that drivers hate seeing cyclists on a road next to a cycle-path!
It is completely sensible to oppose infrastructure like that. Supporting GOOD infrastructure is fine, but that wasn't being offered 20-30 years ago, not in the UK ...
Talking of cycle lanes, if electric bikes were going at 20mph that would bring them into more conflict with un-powered cyclists. At 16mph we muddle along together ATM - at 20 there would be more dangerous overtakes.
I'm in central London where the mix of powered/unpowered bikes is now approaching 50/50%. Personally as a "regular" rider I don't mind electric bikes. I use them to pace my riding, sometimes drafting, sometimes overtaking, but generally co-existing. 20mph would change all that - I'd have to be going flat out all the time!
When we talk about infrastructure we have to keep in mind the changing road situation. In the 60’s I would ride from Dumfries to Hamilton up the old A74. Never felt unduly risky. Today I wouldn’t dream of doing so. Traffic has quadrupled and speeds increased.
I would have resented cycle paths then but not now.
One aspect which hasn't been mentioned yet. Although I wouldn't sign a petition for faster e-bikes, I sometimes wish that I had one! - I bought a light e-bike partly with the intention of being able to keep up with club rides as I get older. Fine, I can now keep up easily when it's hilly. But on a long stretch of flat, or slightly downhill, I get left far behind because the group is going at 20mph or more and I am left struggling - even though I've saved some energy on the previous hill(s)!
toontra wrote: ↑13 Feb 2024, 12:37pm
Talking of cycle lanes, if electric bikes were going at 20mph that would bring them into more conflict with un-powered cyclists. At 16mph we muddle along together ATM - at 20 there would be more dangerous overtakes.
I'm in central London where the mix of powered/unpowered bikes is now approaching 50/50%. Personally as a "regular" rider I don't mind electric bikes. I use them to pace my riding, sometimes drafting, sometimes overtaking, but generally co-existing. 20mph would change all that - I'd have to be going flat out all the time!
Exactly this.
16 mph is a fine average for slow traffic on bike paths, the old, narrow infrastructure is not suitable for much faster.
Only IF the existing infrastructure for slow traffic would be say 4 feet wider , that creates space for faster vehicles.
…on the other hand, there’s the two kids on a tatty-looking no-pedal jobbie, with flattish tyres, pelting past me towards the mini-roundabout at the main road, which they just about managed to negotiate… their speed? It’s hard to judge, I know, but I’d peg it at somewhere between 20 and 30 mph. Exciting stuff!
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
