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Understanding the enemy
Since acquiring a "flatfoot" bicycle to treat a knee injury, I've gained insight into the Friends of the Bicycle who want us to put our bicycles into our cars and drive to special facilities to ride around in circles. This bike really is a pedestrian accelerator -- a great substitute for a wheelchair, not good at all at filling in for other types of vehicles. Riding on walkways doesn't feel nearly as inappropriate as it does on more-efficient machines. When I first heard of the Dutch bike paths, I wondered how they could work. Every person has a different natural pace, that pace varies in the same person (often during the same ride), and it's exhausting to ride more slowly than your natural pace. That means that bike-path design has to allow for overtaking, and if the path is to carry a substantial volume of traffic, the riders must be able to overtake without encroaching on the space reserved for traffic going the other way. Allow for that, and the "path" is as wide as a road! Then I learned that they do it by the simple expedient of restricting everyone to the pace of the person wobbling along on his very first ride. Ew, Gross! I'll *walk*, thank you. But *this* bike can't possibly be ridden in a non-exhausting manner anyway, so there is no penalty for slowing down to keep behind the butterfly*. (*That's an obscure reference to having been trapped behind a butterfly on the Corning Preserve bike path once. I didn't want to crush the little fellow, and he zig-zagged too randomly to make it safe to overtake.) -- joy beeson at comcast dot net http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ The above message is a Usenet post. I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site. |
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#2
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Understanding the enemy
On 3/26/2014 12:03 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
Since acquiring a "flatfoot" bicycle to treat a knee injury, I've gained insight into the Friends of the Bicycle who want us to put our bicycles into our cars and drive to special facilities to ride around in circles. This bike really is a pedestrian accelerator -- a great substitute for a wheelchair, not good at all at filling in for other types of vehicles. Riding on walkways doesn't feel nearly as inappropriate as it does on more-efficient machines. When I first heard of the Dutch bike paths, I wondered how they could work. Every person has a different natural pace, that pace varies in the same person (often during the same ride), and it's exhausting to ride more slowly than your natural pace. That means that bike-path design has to allow for overtaking, and if the path is to carry a substantial volume of traffic, the riders must be able to overtake without encroaching on the space reserved for traffic going the other way. Allow for that, and the "path" is as wide as a road! Then I learned that they do it by the simple expedient of restricting everyone to the pace of the person wobbling along on his very first ride. Ew, Gross! I'll *walk*, thank you. But *this* bike can't possibly be ridden in a non-exhausting manner anyway, so there is no penalty for slowing down to keep behind the butterfly*. (*That's an obscure reference to having been trapped behind a butterfly on the Corning Preserve bike path once. I didn't want to crush the little fellow, and he zig-zagged too randomly to make it safe to overtake.) Others have noted that restricting everyone to super-slow riding speeds can work in a super-dense city, where trip distances are very short (average 3 km or less). Also, if the city is very compact, the necessary total length & expense of "bike paths everywhere" is somewhat less. America features cities mostly built after the automobile existed, so average trip distances are much greater. Required path length would also be much greater. Slow speeds are much less practical. If my workplace had been 3 km from my house, a 10 mph speed would still have gotten me there in barely over 10 minutes. But it was actually 7 or 8 miles, and at my speed, it took me a bit less than half an hour. I wouldn't have wanted to increase that time by 50%. In these days of retirement, the time matters less; so when I make that same trip, I usually return home by the much longer, scenic route through the big metropolitan park. That helps make up for my lost commuting miles. -- - Frank Krygowski |
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Understanding the enemy
"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message ...
[...] America features cities mostly built after the automobile existed, so average trip distances are much greater. Required path length would also be much greater. Slow speeds are much less practical. If my workplace had been 3 km from my house, a 10 mph speed would still have gotten me there in barely over 10 minutes. But it was actually 7 or 8 miles, and at my speed, it took me a bit less than half an hour. I wouldn't have wanted to increase that time by 50%. A 10 mph speed on most bike paths that are being used by others is normal. Faster speeds only work well if the path is empty of others. If you want to go 20 mph, maybe you should be in the street. We are not free to go any speed we want regardless of others. The bike paths are there for ALL to use. Ed Dolan the Great aka Saint Edward the Great |
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