Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[Dan B]

This is the kind of "reallocation of carriageway space" I could happily endorse, although I might be persuaded that cars could be allowed in subject to certain safeguards (Locomotive Acts of times past would be a good source of prior art)

 

[dellzeqq]

I believe urban cyclists use their immediate environment as a substitute for the kind of challenging activity roadies and MTBers get elsewhere. That's fine and well but short-sighted as a model for future transport planning.

I don't think you could be more wrong. Most people cycle in towns because it's convenient and relatively cheap. Not that they care one bit for 'future transport planning'

 

[lukesdad]

I don't think you could be more wrong. Most people cycle in towns because it's convenient and relatively cheap. Not that they care one bit for 'future transport planning'

Most people cycle in towns and cities because they are flat, this also goes for the earlier examples of Holland and Denmark. It also has a bearing on accident rates due to lack of fluctuation in speeds and easier visability.
Cycling will only increase when it is made easier to do so.

Carte blanche policies for the Uk cannot work due to the diverse situations we all find ourselves in hence the disagreement.

 

[mickle]

Most people cycle in towns and cities because they are flat, this also goes for the earlier examples of Holland and Denmark. It also has a bearing on accident rates due to lack of fluctuation in speeds and easier visability.
Cycling will only increase when it is made easier to do so.

Carte blanche policies for the Uk cannot work due to the diverse situations we all find ourselves in hense the disagreement.

Bristol for example - hilly. Lots and lots of cyclists.
Hereford for example - flat as a pancake. Few cyclists.

 

[Red Light]

Safety doesn't come in to the conversation - except at my insistence. Fair enough, you say, these people are already riding bikes, but, in answer to that I'd say that very many of them are considering riding a bike in a way that they've never done before, and some consideration of safety might be evident. What does come up time and time and time again is the question of fitness or stamina or speed. People do not believe they can cycle sixty miles.

I don't think that is at all similar to be honest. There is another "safety in numbers" which is it's easier to participate and more peer pressure to participate in group activities than solo. They are hardly going to say the whole group including yourself are in dire danger. They are concerned that they might be shown up in front of the group by challenging the group (raising the dangers) or failing the challenge.

All of the people reading this will know that if your bike is in decent shape, and you're not suffering from any particular impediment, and you take your time, you will get to Brighton. And yet people who are in their twenties and thirties routinely say that they would never be able to do it. My wife is the MD of a company that employs a lot of young people - they simply do not believe that they are fit enough to cycle to work - and that includes one young man who is closing on 10.5 seconds for the 100 metre sprint.

You should read up on Kurt Lewin and the rationalisation away of disconfirming information. It's at the heart of modern change management theory. The classical extreme example is the book When Prophecies Fail (there is a good synopsis on Wikipedia)

I can only repeat - when those madmen from Yorkshire bombed the tube and a no. 30 bus you could not get in to a bike shop in central London for three weeks afterward, because people in their thousands were picking up cycling because they thought the tube was dangerous...........

Classic change management theory in action. Change doesn't happen in general by challenging their current state - that tends to entrench people more. People change when their current state feels more scary to them than the new state. Mind you 7/7 is an extreme way of achieving it.

 

[lukesdad]

Bristol for example - hilly. Lots and lots of cyclists.
Hereford for example - flat as a pancake. Few cyclists.

Saw a lot when I was there in March cycling down the Avon Gorge and up on top at clifton. Didnt see many cycling between the two mind.

As for Hereford why would you want to cycle in it when you have all that lovely flat country around it.

 

[Dan B]

I'm not going to reread the whole thread to double-check, but there was some discussion earlier of the exact mechanism by which "safety in numbers" happens, and I don't believe the observation has been made that in addition to the immediate effect: "I am a cyclist surrounded by other cyclists thus safer", and the learning effect: "I am a driver used to being surrounded by cyclists, therefore I know how they ride and make appropriate allowances to drive my car around them safely even when they are not eight deep", there is for want of a better word a network effect: "I am a driver who lives/works in a cyclist-rich neighbourhood, and have friends/relatives/acquaintances who ride bikes, thus I perceive them as part of my tribe not part of the 'other'". Regardless of whether you ride a bike yourself it's much harder to rationalise bad behaviour towards cyclists if you know people - preferably, otherwise normal well-adjusted people - who are them.

 

[Origamist]

I'm not going to reread the whole thread to double-check, but there was some discussion earlier of the exact mechanism by which "safety in numbers" happens, and I don't believe the observation has been made that in addition to the immediate effect: "I am a cyclist surrounded by other cyclists thus safer", and the learning effect: "I am a driver used to being surrounded by cyclists, therefore I know how they ride and make appropriate allowances to drive my car around them safely even when they are not eight deep", there is for want of a better word a network effect: "I am a driver who lives/works in a cyclist-rich neighbourhood, and have friends/relatives/acquaintances who ride bikes, thus I perceive them as part of my tribe not part of the 'other'". Regardless of whether you ride a bike yourself it's much harder to rationalise bad behaviour towards cyclists if you know people - preferably, otherwise normal well-adjusted people - who are them.

...Or you are a cyclist yourself. This is another (well known) theory that has been posited to try and explain the SiN effect.

 

[Red Light]

I'm not going to reread the whole thread to double-check, but there was some discussion earlier of the exact mechanism by which "safety in numbers" happens, and I don't believe the observation has been made that in addition to the immediate effect: "I am a cyclist surrounded by other cyclists thus safer", and the learning effect: "I am a driver used to being surrounded by cyclists, therefore I know how they ride and make appropriate allowances to drive my car around them safely even when they are not eight deep", there is for want of a better word a network effect: "I am a driver who lives/works in a cyclist-rich neighbourhood, and have friends/relatives/acquaintances who ride bikes, thus I perceive them as part of my tribe not part of the 'other'". Regardless of whether you ride a bike yourself it's much harder to rationalise bad behaviour towards cyclists if you know people - preferably, otherwise normal well-adjusted people - who are them.

To stray onto another tricky topic, I find it very difficult to recognise even people I know well if they are on a bike and wearing a helmet. Sans helmet you can recognise them easily and even if you don't know them they appear as a real person not something anonymous on a bike.

 

[blockend]

I don't think you could be more wrong. Most people cycle in towns because it's convenient and relatively cheap. Not that they care one bit for 'future transport planning'

It is of course convenient and cheap. The downside is it is risky* and you have an even chance of having your bike pinched. Those most able to realise the benefits of the former and ameliorate the effects of the latter are the youthful and fit. Which just happens to be the core constituency of urban cyclists.
There are towns and cities where for geographical and historical reasons mass cycling never went away but they are the exceptions, as is the capital with its interventionist transport policies. For the rest of the country the portrait is very different and utility cycling negligible, even where sports cycling is on the up.

*The safety issue is a vexed one. Falling off hurts. Being knocked off hurts even more. I've been knocked off more than once and suspect most posters on cycling forums who've ridden long enough have too. I agree that one shouldn't misrepresent the dangers but they are ever-present and cycling boards replete with accident anecdote. That contradiction needs to be addressed intelligently and new riders given more than statistics by way of hope.

 

[summerdays]

Saw a lot when I was there in March cycling down the Avon Gorge and up on top at clifton. Didnt see many cycling between the two mind.

Well we are savvy cyclists who learn which are the best routes to tackle hills

I'm not going to reread the whole thread to double-check, but there was some discussion earlier of the exact mechanism by which "safety in numbers" happens, and I don't believe the observation has been made that in addition to the immediate effect: "I am a cyclist surrounded by other cyclists thus safer", and the learning effect: "I am a driver used to being surrounded by cyclists, therefore I know how they ride and make appropriate allowances to drive my car around them safely even when they are not eight deep", there is for want of a better word a network effect: "I am a driver who lives/works in a cyclist-rich neighbourhood, and have friends/relatives/acquaintances who ride bikes, thus I perceive them as part of my tribe not part of the 'other'". Regardless of whether you ride a bike yourself it's much harder to rationalise bad behaviour towards cyclists if you know people - preferably, otherwise normal well-adjusted people - who are them.

Another affect on the safety in numbers I would say would be they know that "some cyclists are idiots" as they will come across more unpredictable cyclists as well as more cyclists in general. So they are used to seeing (and muttering about) the unlit cyclist, one on the phone etc.

 

[Red Light]

*The safety issue is a vexed one. Falling off hurts. Being knocked off hurts even more. I've been knocked off more than once and suspect most posters on cycling forums who've ridden long enough have too.

Perhaps you need to read Cyclecraft to bring the topic full circle

 

[blockend]

Perhaps you need to read Cyclecraft to bring the topic full circle

We're talking 43 years of cycling and a handful of accidents. They were all scary and could easily have been worse if I paid the same inattention as the drivers concerned. Cyclecraft read, digested and filed in the appropriate receptacle.

 

[WilliamNB]

I'm sorry, but this is disingenous. The CEGB has been set up to campaign for segregation (and possibly to shoehorn people in to consultancy employment). Mr. Colostomy's blog makes the claim that, in denying the benefits of segration, Cyclecraft is destroying UK cycling. The proponents of segregation make presumptions about safety that are unfounded and care not one whit about the streets they would see disfigured. This thread is a response to that narrow, sectarian, misguided, dissimulating hogwash.

Show me the drawing.

Hmmm.....back to name-calling, are you?

Allow me to explain: I generally like to make my own mind up about things, after having tried to find out much about both sides of the coin. The CEGB does not decide for me, nor does Sustrans, nor indeed the CTC. Oh, and while I'm prepared to listen to your points of view, you don't decide for either, however much that fact may frustrate you.

When on my commute, I may choose to cycle part of the way on traffic-free paths, such as those through Central Park. Then again, I may choose to cycle on the road all the way. I tend to flip between these two options depending on my mood, and the time available (with the road option being quicker, as is so often the case).
I really enjoy traffic-free routes, and when and where feasible, I will mostly opt to use traffic-free routes. Despite this, I cycle in all sorts of traffic, too. After all, as has been so eloquently pointed out by many, the road network goes almost everywhere. And shock! horror! I even use some tactics from Cyclecraft, when cycling on the road. (Don't start celebrating, though: I still prefer traffic-free routes, as pointed out above).

Is that simple enough for you to understand, or shall I draw you the picture you keep asking for?

Moving on, I think you're a bully that tries to drown anybody that dares disagree with you. To achieve this, you use name-calling and dismissive statements.

That behaviour is in no way, shape or form "campaigning". If anything (aside from bullying) it is being a spin-doctor and quite frankly I've had enough of such rubbish to last me several lifetimes.

So why don't you do the world a favour, and try to grow up a little? You may find that part of being an adult is having debates. If you're fortunate, you may even learn something from some debates, and so grow as a human being. Being mature about a debate means allowing others to have their own opinions, however much you may disagree with them, while of course retaining the right to voice your opinions.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

I believe urban cyclists use their immediate environment as a substitute for the kind of challenging activity roadies and MTBers get elsewhere. That's fine and well but short-sighted as a model for future transport planning.

As an "urban cyclist" (i.e. commuter), I use my "immediate environment" (i.e. the roads) as a means of getting to work and back whilst also getting some exercise, which I would otherwise find hard to fit in. I don't need to get some kind of adrenaline rushing experience.