I spotted a piece on the Better By Bike website a few weeks ago called Style over Speed - about how people should embrace the go-slow movement that blogs like Copenhagen Cycle Chic and plenty of others do so well to promote and encourage. This brought about an impassioned response from someone else tolling the virtues of cycling as sport. I think they miss-understood the intentions of the original post. Now... I totally get sport cycling any why people participate. I get the masochistic joy of reaching the top of a hill as fast as you can, and making your legs and lungs burn in equal measure.
But two things have made me take the time to sit down and finally punch this out: the first was seeing one of the stickers above: now... I like bikes, and I love cycling... but I hate cyclists!
The second reason why, and the thing that really got me typing was an incident on my way to work the other morning on the Bristol Bath Railway Path. I was pootling (which is the official term for going slowly) down hill and was passing a lady who I presume was also on her way to work, when a cyclist in lycra on a drop handle-bared bike squeezed between us clipping us both. She screamed at him - I was too dumbstruck to do anything... but he didn't turn round to apologise - he just carried on at speed.
Now, as someone who rides a bike on a daily basis on and off road, with and without traffic, I know when and where speed is appropriate. I also know what it's like when a car cuts me up or passes too closely. When it happens - it takes you aback for a few seconds and then you feel angry for having been made to feel vulnerable - so I know the virtues of passing distances. I can imagine pedestrians feel exactly the same about bikes passing them, as 'we' do about cars passing 'us'. I get particularly annoyed about cars acting in an aggressive manner, and traveling at anti-social speeds, and I'm sorry to say that I'm beginning to feel the same way about a few (emphasis on the minority here) cyclists I see on a daily basis.
If you want to cycle at 25-30mph, don't do it on a cycle path! They're generally not designed for those kind of speeds... I don't want to stop lycra on the Railway Path per say, but please... if you're someone who expects to ride as fast as you damn well want - please spare a thought for the people you insist on passing within inches... slow down, and act in a civilised manner!
Because here's the rub... when you're walking, you're generally travelling at about 3-4mph. Cycling speed is generally at around 15mph and let's assume driving (in my ideal, perfect world) is about 25-30mph on city streets. Either way - the speed differential between the modes of travel is fixed at around 10mph. So even if you're going at a fast average speed on a bike passing a pedestrian - you feel like a car passing you at 30mph. Think about it... and slow down!
