There’s been some impressive work done by Councils in providing online cycle routes as well as being available to purchase in paper form.

I’ve been checking out some routes and have been impressed by detail such as terrain, hills, on/off road percentages as well as the inevitable rest stop/cafe information etc. This is so useful to encourage folk to get out and enjoy the countryside, it’s reassuring for them and reduces the fear factor of getting lost etc.

There is a grid reference for the starting point so that’s helpful. What is not helpful is the numbered points having longtitude/latitude figures. Who uses those, apart from Sir Ranulph Fiennes? Probably.

Despite Derbyshire’s reputation with mountain bikers (Rushup Edge, etc), they appear to be doing some good work to encourage “bums on saddles” for commuting and leisure cyclists through the Pedal Peak project.

For examples of the bad, check out ”Crap Cycle Lanes” (over 150 examples nationwide) 😯

Esme – that Pedal Peak looks good! Crap Cycles Lanes is another matter, what were they thinking!!

They are a worldwide standard so are likely to be useable by anyone with a GPS app on their phone, even if they are not from the UK and have no familiarity with the OS system that we might use.

Swansea CC have a great network of cycle paths, you can now cycle from the sea to the Brecon Beacons on dedicated cycle paths. The new link into our village is purpose built tarmac and better than the roads.

They are definitely getting better, but we need less of this madness

Swansea CC have a great network of cycle paths, you can now cycle from the sea to the Brecon Beacons on dedicated cycle paths. The new link into our village is purpose built tarmac and better than the roads.

They have indeed, although some of the signposting is random and I’m annoyed that my best route to work has been closed for the Swans. Other than that, there is an impressive network, including some really scenic stuff.

I recently rode a 70km loop around to Ammanford, pretty much all on quiet lanes or cyclepaths. I must have been on a busy road for less than 5km.

The recent additions round here are great, but are possibly a little underused as the roads aren’t really that busy tbh. However, the stuff they built through a local new town in the seventies is horrifically bad, makes no sense and has very, very little signage. Often takes you past people gates etc as well, which I’m always wary of.

My commute is great, 8.5 miles and only about a mile on a quiet road, all of the rest on dedicated cycle path, and it’s far more direct than taking the road.

And none of that green painted lane pish either.

The ‘cycle lane’ going from here down through the south side of Glasgow is outboard of the residents car parking line, so you effectively have to ride in the door opening zone. Madness. I sit a few feet out from this, much to the chagrin of many a motorist.

There are some good and very useful cycle lanes in Brighton and there are others harder to navigate than the South Pole in a whiteout.

They are a worldwide standard so are likely to be useable by anyone with a GPS app on their phone, even if they are not from the UK and have no familiarity with the OS system that we might use.

Wot’s wrong with OS British Grid? I don’t understand why the Council have used two different formats on the same route.

This one in Durham

They recently added this cycle lane. Problem is the car lane isn’t wide enough for a car now!

Which path has been closed Jon?

Wot’s wrong with OS British Grid? I don’t understand why the Council have used two different formats on the same route.

The OS are thinking of including lat/long coordinates on their paper maps to bring them in-line with GPS devices.

OS blog

Thanks gregsd, that’s goes over the top of my head!

Nipper, the one alongside the stadium. I think the Swans’ training pitches are being modified? The one on the other side of the river is the diversion but it’s narrow, slippery and dangerous in one place.

This one in Ambleside is just silly!

You’d still have to be using the correct datum – do the council mention what datum they’re using CG, as the one used as standard for OS maps is different to the global one? Not only that, but plenty of other countries use their own local datum for coordinates on maps. TBH I can’t see the huge benefit of providing information only of use to foreigners which makes it less useful to locals (it’s kind of like the French printing a guide mostly used by French people only in English because that’s the global language).

ah, and right on cue…

Not quite. As I was kind of expecting before I read that blog, they’re simply changing the datum used for printing their coordinates from the Airy 1830 used as a datum for the UK grid to the global WGS84. They already print lat/long around the edges of their maps, but it’s nowhere near so easy to use them as coordinates as it is the UK grid.

Actually I can kind of see the point of that. It shows drivers that they should be to the right of the cycle lane when overtaking cyclists – ie they should only overtake when there is no oncoming traffic and they can move fully to the right of the cycle lane. Probably requires too much thought for the typical UK driver unfortunately.

I don’t ride on the road much but there’s some good ones in Cardiff, especially under Coryton roundabout – for those who aren’t familiar with obscure roundabouts in other towns and cities it’s rather large – the biggest in Europe they say, arguably the biggest in in the world – there are bigger ones but they’re not roundabouts in traditional sense – anyway it’s multi-lane, multi-lighted and connects the A470 (major road that links North and South Wales – it’s that long that both Coed Y Brenin and Bike Park Wales are both on it) and the M4 with two large hotels and the North Cardiff Suburbs so it’s big, complex and busy with high speed traffic – cyclists and pedestrians are banned from using it, but that’s okay because the council built a brilliant network of cycle lanes over and under it, they’re all swoopy and bendy and I imagine they’re as close to fun to ride as roadies allow themselves.

Only the local Ajax riding club won’t know because despite all the above they insist on riding around the **** roundabout every Sunday morning leaving chaos in thier wake. Arseholes.

Most phone apps have nothing to do with OS maps and frankly OS maps are a daft solution for navigating on roads/cycleways. If you post Lat/Long into google maps* it will give you a location, if you post in an OS grid reference it won’t.

*which I’d wager would be the first port of call for most of us these days.

Incoming!

Nottingham currently have a consultation about extensions to their cycle network.

Both Nottingham and Derby have increasing cycling provision. And Sustrans and canals link the two quite nicely.

Happy to see off road routes incorporating bridleways and byways included. 🙂

The man has it.

Using Lat/Lon is a universal solution. It has, coincidentally, worked well for geocaching for years. No local conversion or anything to think about, just plug in the co-ordinates and go find the box.

This one in Ambleside is just silly!

Yes and no.
It’s weird, you ride along in that and the traffic waits patiently behind you. As soon as that bit of paint ends (the road remains exactly the same width), the traffic will just do whatever it takes to get past and we’re back to square one with dangerous overtakes.

The other downside of it is that because there is no alternative but to drive in the cycle lane, it basically says to drivers “yes, crack on, just drive in any old cycle lane”

East Dunbartonshire council has just spent over a million quid on 0.8 miles of on road segregated cycle lane which makes the situation worse than before. It’s a two way lane on one side of the road. Acceptable southbound but a waste of time northbound as it can take a considerable amount of time crossing the traffic stream to enter the lane then re-crossing 0.8 miles later.

Choosing not to use the lane has resulted in many cyclists suffering aggressive passing, spitting, and shouted abuse from drivers delayed on the now much narrowed main road.

The old on road lanes needed a better surface and parking issues dealt with in one place. Otherwise fine.

It seems according to a council reply to a local blogger’s enquiry they have deliberately made the on road lanes 3M wide so cyclists take the lane.

For the more confident cyclist the carriageway is being changed to be a uniform 3m wide (lining) therefore the cyclists who choose to remain on the carriageway can do so at a width promoted for a carriageway width in Cycling by Design. In your case this will mean you are taking the centre of the lane.

As part of the distance is uphill even fairly fit cyclists will be slowing traffic drastically.

http://www.magnatom.net/2015/05/bears-way-not-for-everyone.html