Cycling Diatribe

Way back in 2003 I created a web page on my Onetel account, and it included a couple of pages about my bicycles and cycling. I wrote this diatribe for it, and as I have just found the stuff again I thought I would post it here. Nothing has changed, except that some cycle lanes have almost disappeared because the paint has not been redone. 

Cyclists Revolt!

Why should we cycle on the rough part of the road? Have you ever noticed as you are cycling that the centre of the road is nice and smooth, and the part that you are cycling on is full of uneven patches, potholes and drains that are either an inch high or an inch low? It becomes obvious that the people who come along and do work on the roads use cars to get everywhere. If they were cyclists they would take more care to see that the job was smoothly set into the surrounding road. The fact that a drain is an inch high or low is nothing to them, but to me on a bicycle hitting one of them must be the equivalent of driving into the curb at 40 miles per hour.

And the junk that is swept into the curbs. Every time some lout behind a wheel plays bumper cars with the one ahead, they deposit a large amount of glass on the road. What do they do with it? They push it to the side where the cyclists ride! Where’s the logic in that? A cycle tyre is very thin and an automobile tyre is quite thick and has to be replaced when the tread, let alone the tyre wall, gets down to 2 mm. My bicycle tyre is unlikely to be 2mm thick when it is new. Every driver should be made to carry a brush and pan in his car to sweep up the glass they deposit. For second offences they should have to sweep it up with their tongue! Who can I sue for all the new Inner tubes that I need, and the lost time patching tyres after finding some of the glass on the road? I could cycle along in a wandering mode, moving into the middle of the road to avoid all the patches of glass along the way, but drivers would either think I was drunk, or hit me. I don’t think that sliding into a patch of glass is any softer than hitting pavement.

In our local area [Ham Lane] when the brush at the side of the road grew so thick that it was moving into the road, did the council cut it back? Noooo, they painted the white line marking the edge of the tarmac a little further into the road, making the road narrower and more dangerous for cyclist.

Another danger for cyclists not understood by the keepers of the roads are the coloured lines on the road. When they are wet, they are dangerous, not only because they are raised from the tarmac surface due to their thickness, but they are also very slippery. Drivers will have noticed this when stopped at a junction with their wheels on the paint, but not enough to complain. I noticed it the other day when I got the feeling that I was cycling along a thick yellow tightrope, suspended off the road, and I could have lost control if I had slipped off.

I would like advice from the council about these cycle lanes that stop for not good reason at all. There is one that disappears just before a pedestrian crossing, and starts again a few yards later. Cars can go through the restricted area because of the central reservation, but are cycles supposed to fly over, or disappear until they are across. Why don’t they just make the car area narrower, and show the cycle path continuing. Maybe it is because that would imply that cyclists have priority over cars in the restricted zone?

September 30, 2003