# Message for them wot make them cycling signs



## bluezelos (16 Jul 2019)

How's about putting what sort of cycles can ride on signposted cycle route?


ie: I don't want to start going down a cycle route on my nice road bike only to be greeted with a load of gravel and potholes halfway down the route. I ain't going over that, so it's a u-turn for me.


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## Ming the Merciless (16 Jul 2019)

The A6 is shocking isn't it?


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## Drago (16 Jul 2019)

Nice idea. A "Felt cycles only" route would be sweet.


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## Twizit (16 Jul 2019)

"No carbon - steel is real * "


* or titanium


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## Ming the Merciless (16 Jul 2019)

Drago said:


> Nice idea. A "Felt cycles only" route would be sweet.



You've got to stop feeling up bikes. It's no longer the 70's.


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## steveindenmark (16 Jul 2019)

Brompton already do that in their advertising. Apparently they are City bike and you can only ride them in cities. 

Then of course you can only ride electric bikes if you are old or knackered.


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## vickster (16 Jul 2019)

bluezelos said:


> How's about putting what sort of cycles can ride on signposted cycle route?
> 
> 
> ie: I don't want to start going down a cycle route on my nice road bike only to be greeted with a load of gravel and potholes halfway down the route. I ain't going over that, so it's a u-turn for me.


Nothing to stop you carrying out the research with support of other organisations such as Sustrans and providing the funds for doing so 

Nothing to really prevent the use of a roadbike on a gravelly potholey surface, just take it slow and steady , walk if it's really bad, after all plenty of UK roads are not dissimilar to this


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## Globalti (16 Jul 2019)

Read up on The Rough Stuff Fellowship, they were riding, pushing and carrying skinny tyred bikes over mountains about 50 years before a bunch of American hippies even coined the term "mountain bike".


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## Richard Fairhurst (16 Jul 2019)

bluezelos said:


> How's about putting what sort of cycles can ride on signposted cycle route?
> 
> ie: I don't want to start going down a cycle route on my nice road bike only to be greeted with a load of gravel and potholes halfway down the route. I ain't going over that, so it's a u-turn for me.



It's a great idea. Believe it or not the Department for Transport is _really_ strict about what's allowed on signs - you're only allowed designs that are shown in this thing called TSRGD (Traffic Sign Regulations and General Directions). So you'd have to get them to agree to the idea...


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## booze and cake (16 Jul 2019)

More often that not when I have used the NCN routes on a road bike out in the shires, its ended up a rocky, bone shaking or boggy route that is not suitable for a road bike unless you inch along at 3mph, in which case you may as well walk. So now I just assume all NCN routes aren't suitable for road bikes, and generally avoid them as a result, sadly.


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## Drago (16 Jul 2019)

They quite happily put "unsuitable for motors" signs on roads that deteriorate into tracks, so I don't know why "unsuitable for road bicycles" would be that much of a leap for them.


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## Ming the Merciless (16 Jul 2019)

Drago said:


> They quite happily put "unsuitable for motors" signs on roads that deteriorate into tracks, so I don't know why "unsuitable for road bicycles" would be that much of a leap for them.



Because it would be on every piece of cycling infrastructure ever built. Basically they'd be admitting "yes, this infrastructure is shoot"


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## Heltor Chasca (16 Jul 2019)

Just more guff and eye clutter. Just rip it up, start again and give us segregated infra.


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## slow scot (16 Jul 2019)

Drago said:


> Nice idea. A "Felt cycles only" route would be sweet.


Who would need to feel it though? Could it be just anyone? Can't see that working!


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## Drago (16 Jul 2019)

Heltor Chasca said:


> Just more guff and eye clutter. Just rip it up, start again and give us segregated infra.



But good quality, well planned, well made segragated infrastructure. If they simply churn out more of the rubbish they produce at the moment they may as well not bother.


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## Globalti (16 Jul 2019)

There's very little that is unsuitable for a road bike and if they warned people off there would be outrage with indignant, entitled cyclists demanding: "Who are they to tell us where we can't ride?"


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## DCBassman (16 Jul 2019)

There are two bits of NCN27 near me that you either have to walk with or carry a road bike over. Not doing so is bike abuse, pure and simple. And other bits in mid-Devon are pretty poor. I also see no reason why Sustrans can't be more specific, or make it assumed that skinny tyres aren't a good idea on their poor infrastructure.


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## Globalti (16 Jul 2019)

Sustrans admits its routes "unsuitable for bicycles" shock.

I can see the headlines.


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## mjr (16 Jul 2019)

Globalti said:


> Sustrans admits its routes "unsuitable for bicycles" shock.
> 
> I can see the headlines.


They published an audit pretty much saying that earlier this year. So no new routes for some time while they try to fix up what's gone wrong.

As for barriers and crap surfaces, some are recorded in osm.org but not all routing sites show them easily yet.


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## Milkfloat (16 Jul 2019)

Twizit said:


> "No carbon - steel is real * "
> 
> 
> * or titanium



Steel contains carbon though.


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## Twizit (17 Jul 2019)

Milkfloat said:


> Steel contains carbon though.


Touche


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## Aravis (17 Jul 2019)

mjr said:


> *They published an audit pretty much saying that earlier this year*. So no new routes for some time while they try to fix up what's gone wrong.
> 
> As for barriers and crap surfaces, some are recorded in osm.org but not all routing sites show them easily yet.


It was apparent from that report that the fact you might be passed by a vehicle once in a while is a far bigger issue for Sustrans than sinking into knee-deep mud would be.

The report concluded that 92% of Sustrans' off-road routes are either Good or Very Good, 8% being Poor and none Very Poor, _indicating a generally high-quality and reliable traffic-free network_. But 69% of the on-road network is deemed to be Very Poor.

Of the 8%, inadequate surface accounts for 28% of the issues. So by Sustrans's standards, 98% of their off-road network is satisfactorily surfaced.


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## Globalti (17 Jul 2019)

Anybody who has ever actually ridden a Sustrans route long-distance will know that they are nothing more than a mish-mash of bits and pieces desperately cobbled together using existing cycle routes and old railways. Thank God for Dr Beeching!


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## bluezelos (17 Jul 2019)

Richard Fairhurst said:


> It's a great idea. Believe it or not the Department for Transport is _really_ strict about what's allowed on signs - you're only allowed designs that are shown in this thing called TSRGD (Traffic Sign Regulations and General Directions). So you'd have to get them to agree to the idea...



It's simple really, red Cycle sign - mountain bikes, any other bike ok, as it is unpaved, rough, gravelly. blue Cycle sign - smooth tarmac, paved road ok for road bikes


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## Richard Fairhurst (17 Jul 2019)

Aravis said:


> Of the 8%, inadequate surface accounts for 28% of the issues. So by Sustrans's standards, 98% of their off-road network is satisfactorily surfaced.



Sustrans does recognise that's an issue and that off-road surfaces need looking at more than the headline figure suggests - I've been in meetings where this has been expressly raised by Sustrans staff. I think it's more an artefact of the methodology used rather than a final decision that actually the surface on, say, NCN 1 south of Berwick-on-Tweed or on NCN 45 north of Swindon is brilliant (because it clearly isn't).


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## Richard Fairhurst (17 Jul 2019)

bluezelos said:


> It's simple really, red Cycle sign - mountain bikes, any other bike ok, as it is unpaved, rough, gravelly. blue Cycle sign - smooth tarmac, paved road ok for road bikes



It might well be simple but you'd still need to get DfT to agree to that! The regulations are pretty explicit that signs can only be in blue, or for tourist routes, brown.


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## classic33 (17 Jul 2019)

Richard Fairhurst said:


> It might well be simple but you'd still need to get DfT to agree to that! The regulations are pretty explicit that signs can only be in blue, or for tourist routes, brown.


There's blue, green(light & dark), black & plain wooden that can be used.


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## Floating Bombus (18 Jul 2019)

Red already has the general meaning of "banned" so a red bike sign would imply cycling was banned.


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## mjr (18 Jul 2019)

Richard Fairhurst said:


> It might well be simple but you'd still need to get DfT to agree to that! The regulations are pretty explicit that signs can only be in blue, or for tourist routes, brown.


I'd be fine with brown for gravel/unpaved routes and keeping blue for all-weather hard surface ones.

There must be some other regulations besides TSRGD in play too, though, because there are currently other coloured arrow signs in use where other highways (red IIRC), byways (purple IIRC), bridleways (blue definitely) and footpaths (yellow definitely) leave public roads and I believe they're legal.


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## dutchguylivingintheuk (25 Jul 2019)

I can name one cycle route in the area which is good and that is about 800 meters long, after which you have to merge on a busy roundabout and continue on a 2 lane road. All other roads are moderate at best so hard or un-driveable on bad weather/just after heavy rain or just such terrible surface that you can't safely ride it. 
And i know i'm spoiled compared to the roads i'm used to in the Netherlands but still, if the goverment wants to promote cycling much more needs to be done.


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## Mile195 (30 Jul 2019)

I cycled up to Bedford from London once. an NCN route took me up a path where the wet mud was so deep it was barely traversable by foot. To avoid it I had to walk across a slightly less muddy field, up a hill, into a housing estate and then find where the muddy path ended.
Later on I checked the map. To avoid the muddy path I simply had to walk two minutes down another path which would have taken me to a main road. There's no reason that the NCN sign sending cyclists down the muddy path could not include an "alternative route for road tyres".
I've cycled to Bedford many times since. I stick to the roads now.


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## mjr (30 Jul 2019)

Mile195 said:


> I cycled up to Bedford from London once. an NCN route took me up a path where the wet mud was so deep it was barely traversable by foot. To avoid it I had to walk across a slightly less muddy field, up a hill, into a housing estate and then find where the muddy path ended.
> Later on I checked the map. To avoid the muddy path I simply had to walk two minutes down another path which would have taken me to a main road. There's no reason that the NCN sign sending cyclists down the muddy path could not include an "alternative route for road tyres".
> I've cycled to Bedford many times since. I stick to the roads now.


Did you report it? The muddy path needs its drains fixing or the route rerouting. NCN is meant to be for 8-80 or similar, not a hardcore MTB network.


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## Mile195 (1 Aug 2019)

mjr said:


> Did you report it? The muddy path needs its drains fixing or the route rerouting. NCN is meant to be for 8-80 or similar, not a hardcore MTB network.


No. I wouldn't have thought to to be honest. I think it was probably my first attempt at using NCN routes. I've generally avoided them since unless I can be absolutely sure they're on tarmac (or that any gravel paths are short).
It's not sustrans's fault I suppose. They don't get a lot of funding and I know that all they can do is lobby councils to improve routes, so it's a losing battle really. I imagine much of the time councils are either unwilling or unable to spend money surfacing a footpath for cyclists that are probably just passing through, when they could resurface a road that more local council tax payers will notice.


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## mjr (1 Aug 2019)

Mile195 said:


> No. I wouldn't have thought to to be honest. I think it was probably my first attempt at using NCN routes. I've generally avoided them since unless I can be absolutely sure they're on tarmac (or that any gravel paths are short).
> It's not sustrans's fault I suppose. They don't get a lot of funding and I know that all they can do is lobby councils to improve routes, so it's a losing battle really. I imagine much of the time councils are either unwilling or unable to spend money surfacing a footpath for cyclists that are probably just passing through, when they could resurface a road that more local council tax payers will notice.


Councils don't do such things to get noticed, generally. They do them because they've legal duties to keep highways maintained, especially once faults are reported. Some cycleways are highways, some are other things, but one reason fixes are slow is that cyclists don't report faults as much so it waits until the next routine officer inspection which could be almost a year away.

In other words, if we don't ask, we don't get, so please ask/report.

And it's almost always unwilling. When they can't build new quasi motorways, I'll believe they may be unable.


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