If you ride slowly and always give way to pedestrians, then there’s nothing for them to be pee’d off about, surely?

I only use the pavement when towing my daughter in the trailer: a 30m stretch allows me to avoid two right-hand turns on and off a busy road. I don’t feel in anyway bad about that.

Do you ride on pavements/allow your kids to ride on pavements? Has it ever been a problem?

Yes/yes. No.

Yes, but only when the lights are at red on the road and then I always get back onto the road after the junction…

Do you ride on pavements/allow your kids to ride on pavements? Has it ever been a problem?

Yes – but I try very hard not to inconvenience anyone else. Always Say “Excuse me/Thanks” if I have to trundle past someone who hasn’t seen me etc. I see no reason to use the road if there’s acres of empty pavement – some unt© may flatten me!

N/A

Not that I recall.

I do ride on the pavement when I’m with my 7yo son. I’d rather follow him at his pace so I can keep an eye on him and make sure he is polite and gives way to peds. Never had a problem passing people, including police and pcso. I would not be happy about him being on the road.
Actually I would be happy about him being on the road, it’s just the drivers that worry me.

Yes sometimes, I don’t see what the big problem is to use them occasionally, being cautious and courteous. Some people just like to moan for the sake of it.

When with the kids (11 and 4), I always cycle on the pavement unless the canal towpath is an option. I’d prefer to risk a fixed penalty than lose one of the children. The police when I pass them usually smile. I teach the kids to say “excuse me”, give pedestrians room and not to cycle too fast. We smile and say thank you to everyone we pass including the odd miserablist.

Riding beside the kids on the road isn’t an option as I would be going too slow for the traffic. I’ve tried cycling on the road with the 11 year old but unfortunately some drivers can’t seem to accomodate this and have blown their horns and tried to force him off the road. I’d like him to enjoy cycling so we’ll be sticking to pavements until he’s in his late teens.

Mostly I don’t, although I have taken a load of abuse from a pensioner who saw me stay on the bike for the 10 feet between the road and where the bike rack is outside the local tesco metro at 8am on a Sunday morning, I was also stopped on a path crossing a green by 2 community police men and threatened with a fine, must just be unlucky I guess

Yip, all the time, even the polis do it up here. Fairly accepted.

I was also stopped on a path crossing a green by 2 community police men and threatened with a fine, must just be unlucky I guess

I’m pretty sure it’s only footways (next to roads) where they can do that, isn’t it ?

Yep, seems that way
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/jul/28/cycling-pavement-offence

So unless there is some sort of by-law in place, cycling on a pavement that’s not beside a road may be fine.

In fairness, the community police officers can’t be expected to know the intricacies of the law as they may only have had 6 weeks training.

On my BMX I cycle on pavements.

Not only is it pretty scary being so low down next to cars etc but also people tend to treat other who ride a BMX differently… cars pass so close when I ride my BMX it’s not even funny.

On the MTB I guess I look a lot bigger (Or less like a clown – a 6.1ft male on a BMX always looks a bit off) so people assume I’d dent their car more if they hit me so give bigger gaps. On the MTB roads are fine.

I had a chat with a policeman in Sutton while crossing a dual carrigeway (using the pavement) that they “don’t consider it illegal in Sutton”. His words not mine.

Do you cycle on pavements?

This is actually a huge bugbear for me. Even in parts of the city where I can see why a cyclist would go on the pavement (unsafe junctions, trucks parked round a left turn etc), it really winds me up that they do. It’s illegal, it’s unsafe, and I hate it – and would generally wait behind said truck rather than skip round on the pavement.

But then I don’t see the huge issue with ‘safe’ (and I use that loosely to mean “there’s no traffic, no pedestrians have to stop/ slow or move out of the way etc”) RLJing, so I guess it just shows it takes all sorts.

I generally don’t cycle on the pavement as a matter of principle as I don’t want to give ammo to the Daily Mail brigade. I will occasionally nip along an empty pavement if safety demands it but it’s very rare and usually to avoid some kind of motorized SNAFU.

However, the minute my boy’s wobbling around on his first bike I’ll be riding wherever he goes and where he goes will probably be (at least sometimes) on the pavement where a safe cycle route is not present.

We will be respectful, polite and sensible, anyone who takes umbrage with that, well, no helping them really.

i cycle on pavements all the time, and couldnt give a toss about pedestrians, at worse a cyclist could ride into the back of a pedestrian causing some injuries, at worse on the road you are dead, no comparison as far as im concerned, had an argument with mr plod the other week about this topic, short story is i carried on cycling on the pavement as its not against the law yet, and i definately dont let my son cycle on the road around cardiff, i would rather have an argument with a pedestrian than put my son at risk of loosing his life on the road, the pedaestrians can only moan at me when i drive my car on the pavement, till then theve got no chance of changing my mind

Yes i do. If the path is busy i’ll pop onto the road until it clears a bit, but otherwise it’s 100% footpath where possible (except if there’s a bonus kerb that can be used as a jump onto the road).

Yes, but only when drunk.

p,s what i forgot to mention above is that you adjust your speed i cary a bell and only cycle at walking pace if there are people around, its the idiots who cycle on pavements doing upwards of 16 mph plus that give cyclists a bad name, same as the arseholes on bikes that insist on going on the taff trail bombing through the underpasses at ridiculous speeds, watched a few idiots last week going at least 17mph through the underpass on the taff trail and as they turned a corner went straight into a school outing of kids on a nature walk, my point is you get bell ends in all walks of life,pedestrians and drivers are no different, it all depends on the person

Surely this thread is troll central.

Do I cycle on pavements?

No I’m not a child.

Tbh i only divert onto the roads when there is a red light to jump or to bully a walker on a zebra crossing.

Surely this thread is troll central.

Nah, you want the “do you cycle over bridges” thread for that. 😀

But they do have some valid points above. More than 25mph on a pavement is a little irresponsible unless you have a bell. And you should definitely ride as aggressively as possible, to make the pedestrians know their place.

i,ve not lost an argument with a pedestrian in over 30 yrs, but i,ve lost quite a few arguments with cars over those yrs, no brainer,

Do you ride on pavements/allow your kids to ride on pavements? Has it ever been a problem?

in Melbourne Aus kids under 12 can ride on the pavement – it is legal for an accompanying adult to ride with them – we ride to school everyday on the pavement no problems except the odd car reversing out of a drive which makes urban pavement riding a bad option at any time would prefer to ride on the road but sometimes it doesn’t make sense in this case 3 junctions which I take extreme care at due to rat running / speeding / not looking style got up too late drivers.
Near our home in the UK a 100m on the pavement with the kids avoided a narrow hilly and busy set of bends on an A road and got us to some nice lanes so a no brainer

In general I’m a hater of shared paths that simply take space from peds and allow vehicles to take space from cyclists

I cycle on pavements, i cycle on roads, i cycle on paths, i cycle on trails, at all times i cycle with due care and respect for other users whether they be pedestrians/walkers or whatever, but if confronted needlessly for committing a crime such as cycling i will offer the annoyed party an opened arm hug (c’mon…you really need a hug to cheer you up) which really **** wi their minds.

Sounds like it’s universally agreed that it’s not a terrible crime to ride with your small children on a pavement then, providing due care/consideration is taken/not acting like a bellend!

£30 on the spot fine here, signs are up in town center, never heard of anyone being fined though, they seem more into doing parking tickets than safety.
Suppose when an old dear gets mown down on the pavement they might start dishing out tickets.

Is it not still illegal (possible by laws differ from county to county) to ride on the pavement ?

Then again i thought it was illegal to ride a bicycle without 2 independant braking systems….. loads seem quite incapable of managing that, see a few brakeless bmx’s ridden on pavements, don’t have fixie hipsters here 🙂