If one hits you, they have broken the rules of YOUR game…. They didn’t even know they were playing!!

Agreed, would be better if roads were closed for TT events to go ahead. Surely the “game” a driver is playing is getting to their destination safely tho?

As people cycling on the road for FUN you are involving other non players in your games… doesn’t seem very fair to me.

logical conclusion don’t cycle on any road for fun – well thought out and well presented argument.

boris you seem to have missed the point running through this thread that dc courses are risked assessed, safe and fine for tt’ing on. You went ahead with motorcycle training but motorcycles are a more dangerous transport mode than cars presumably you carried out your own 2risk assesment” and were happy to gon ahead. Take your ditty to logical conclusion and one would never cycle on the road if cars are present.

“logical conclusion don’t cycle on any road for fun”

So riding on the road is fun, is it?

Ask any driver the same question.

Ask yourself as a driver the same question… Do you find driving fun?

So are DCs chosen for courses because they are the safest roads for cycling on?

Idiot A could have slowed and overtaken safely, Idiot B could have left more space. Both at fault, both contributed to someone dying, both probably walk out of court with their licences intact, cyclist blamed for lack of helmet.

SHHHHHHHHH you’ll wake TJ!

riding on the road is sometimes fun and sometimes it’s just to get you where you want to go.

Exactly the same as driving then. Stop trolling.

it actually terrifies me when I see cyclists on dual carriageways (TT or not). the fact remains that DC’s are extremely fast roads (arguably too fast in some cases) and some drivers (rightly or wrongly) don’t have the foresight to assume there might be cyclists there.

Sure, some drivers are dangerous but riding on a 60+mph road because its legal to do so is just plain dangerous IMO

So just because a TT course is risk assessed does that make it safe? My concern is that you are assessing the risk based on your own high standards of driving not the average standard of driving.

Believe me, I do risk assessments for a living and I know how easy it is to come up with the result which you want, not the actual result. I’d be very interested to see some of these risk assessments to do a little professional review. 🙂

And the point of the little rhyme is that you may be in the right (legally) when you do 70mph on a wet motorway, you might be in the right when you sit at 50mph in a trucks blind spot, you might be in the right when you filter at 50mph through stationary traffic. It doesn’t mean that it’s safe or sensible to do so.

Likewise you are in the right if you ride a bicycle down the centre of lane 1 of a DC wearing grey clothes doing a TT. But if you get hit, you still (IMO) bear some of the responsibility.

Sure, some drivers are dangerous but riding on a 60+mph road because its legal to do so is just plain dangerous IMO

but thats the legal speed limit in most of the country lanes around here, do we stop using these roads? Any difference in outcome being hit at 40 rather than 60 – no so thats those roads gone as well to cyclists. it’s not the speed limit that creates the danger it’s a whole host of factors which is why some dc’s are used for tt’ing and the vast majority of dc’s in the uk aren’t

[/quote]So are DCs chosen for courses because they are the safest roads for cycling on?

No they’re chosen for a wide variety of reasons but to become / remain tt courses they have to be safe which is why some dc’s are used for tt’ing and the vast majority of dc’s in the uk aren’t

Sure, some drivers are dangerous but riding on a 60+mph road because its legal to do so is just plain dangerous IMO

There are PLENTY of 60mph single carriage way A-roads, are we not suppoed to ride on these either? how the hell am i supposed to get out of town then?

Lets face it, this is the argument.

Rding/racing on DC’s is legal and should be safe.
Majority of drivers on DC’s do not expect cyclists (for many reasons).
So… should should TT’s continue to use (busy) DC’s when they know there is a significant increased risk.

Personally, i dont do TT’s on the busier DC’s but do race on a DC course that is quiet (ring road around industrial estate).

Many people i know are happy to race on the Busier DC tho, and that is there choice, and legal. However there have been 2 cyclists killed on that road in last year (not TT’ers) so its pretty obvious that some drivers on that road are not driving safely.

Country lanes are completely different to DC, they share the same speed LIMIT in some cases and thats where the similarity ends. most country roads are dangerous to drive at 40 let alone at the Nat. Limit (which is not 60 as it varies depending on the type of road)

2 cyclists killed on that road in last year (not TT’ers) so its pretty obvious that some drivers on that road are not driving safely.

yes and what we keep hearing is “woah there’s cyclists on a dual carriageway? well more fool them, bloody idiotic!” and completely ignoring the dangerous drivers.

So just because a TT course is risk assessed does that make it safe?

Well one would hope that the risks have been identified and measure put in place to minimise risk, hence warning signs, early start times etc or the course is not used. I’m fairly happy that those who carry out the risk assesments have the competitors safety as the number one prioirity – I personaly don’t risk assess courses but utilise the one created for the course we use.

Risk assesment is subjective and as has been said throughout, the subjective risk assesment of the people riding these courses is that it’s fine.

And the point of the little rhyme is that you may be in the right (legally) when you do 70mph on a wet motorway, you might be in the right when you sit at 50mph in a trucks blind spot, you might be in the right when you filter at 50mph through stationary traffic. It doesn’t mean that it’s safe or sensible to do so.

But as mentioned throughout the thread tt’ing on a dc is not a clear cut invitation to the grim reaper and can be a consideraby safer option than the examples you mention. I’m not arguing for tt’ing on dangerous roads or in dangerous conditiuons juts pointing out that tt’ing on a dc is not something that is an automatic no no.

Cyclists should be able to ride safely anywhere they are legally allowed to otherwise they should be barred from doing so as on the motorway.

Drivers should take care when driving but plenty think they’re safe in their tin boxes with all the airbags and other safety features most cars have now.

I fully support the idea of manditory re-tests for drivers and if you bring it into a conversation it’s scary how many people admit they’d be worried about keeping their driving licences if this was the case.

Ro5ey stop trolling. Driving can be enjoyable. IMHO the reason it’s normally not is due to other ignorant/aggressive/careless/don’t give a shit drivers who only care about themselves.

But to answer the OP’s question, surely if the riders have any care for their own safety they can stop chasing a personal best, inform someone of the (changing) conditions and try again another day.

yes and what we keep hearing is “woah there’s cyclists on a dual carriageway? well more fool them, bloody idiotic!” and completely ignoring the dangerous drivers.

But we as individuals can’t change the dangerous drivers. We can choose not to ride bikes where these drivers are most dangerous to us.

It’s like this. I live in Kent – one of the busiest counties in Britain for traffic. When I ride on the road I can choose roads where I can go out for 5 hours and get passed by maybe 20 cars. Or I can choose the A26 where 5 cyclists have been killed in the last 5 years within 10 miles of my house.

Now choosing these quiet roads does not make me immune from being hit, but it substantially reduces the chances.

I fully accept KILO’s point about some DC’s being chosen for being the safest places. My own experience of coming across a TT on a DC is that all the roundabouts and the ensuing conflict between cyclists gunning for a PB, and drivers made it bloody dangerous.

Boriselbrus sums it up perfectly.

The obession with chasing fast times on dual carriageways is bizarre.

Keep telling yourselves it’s because these courses have good sight lines and are safer than country lanes – you’re only kidding yourselves, no-one else

Some DCs are fine, to be fair.

And it’s not only good for setting a PB, it’s also easier and more satisfying I reckon to ride on steady gradients.

grantus – Member
Boriselbrus sums it up perfectly … these courses have good sight lines and are safer than country lanes – you’re only kidding yourselves, no-one else

boriselbrus I fully accept KILO’s point about some DC’s being chosen for being the safest places

*chuckles* chapeu kilo 🙂

You think I’m trolling

So you completely disregard my argument and think its silly. Maybe it is as an argument, what about as an observation?

You are playing and messing about… others road users aren’t and do not want to.

Could you answer me one question… which other road users should be allowed to race on the road?

Cars? Of course not. Motorbikes?(don’t get me started on colour coded leather clad motorcyclist) How about horses?

None of the above are…. so exactly why are cyclists?

In fact it doesn’t even matter why we are allowed to play in the road, I got a road bike recently and love it…. shhhh but it’s better than mtb… I’ve started because I want to have a crack at triathlon. Even contemplated riding the 20miles to work as training… but 5 minutes off of my bike spilt in a tri is for me not worth facing the potential dangers through East London for myself and my indirectly my family.

And the point is you ARE playing a game with a very dangerous opponent. And its super dangerous opponent who (and I’m sorry to labour the point) does not even want to play or aware that they are in a game.

Be safe out there guys.

so you’ve got a road bike but you are too afraid to ride it on the road, and you think that’s acceptable?

Your last post was more aimed at TTs in particular which I can’t defend (never having done one let alone organised one) but kilo seems to be successfully defending.
Your earlier posts were much more along the lines of any cyclist riding roads which *you* consider dangerous (despite being legal to ride) are idiots and/or being wilfully dangerous just for laughs – thats what I object to.

which other road users should be allowed to race on the road?

TTing isn’t racing. It’s just riding as fast as you can. That is not illegal, provided you keep below the speed limit.

TTing is no different to being on a commute and passing a slower rider.

TTing isn’t racing.

You may want to read this

Phrases like “There are a number of other points that will help everyone to enjoy safer racing:” in particular

http://ctt.org.uk/Beginners/BeginnersGeneralInfo/tabid/81/Default.aspx

So in summary;

Those against – it looks a bit dangerous, and causes trafic caos

Those for – its safe*, its legal**.

*Well TBH I dont see it being safe, yes I can legaly do 70 on a DC, and 60 on a country lane, but on average on a country lane I’ll be going a lot slower (my car says I’ve averages 35mph on A/B roads this week and thats mainly country driving) , and if I come accross a cyclist I can wait behind him and overtake when safe, on a DC everyone is doing 70 (so double my country roads average) and there isn’t really the option to slow down and wait for a gap in the fast lane, so you get trafic chaos. Yes if every driver was perfect we’d not have a problem, but drivers arent perfect (and neither are cyclists, just because we’re slower doesnt make us in the right).

** There was a thread on here about how we should legalise drugs recently, just because its legal(or illegal) doesn’t make it right (or wrong). My personal view would be that bikes should be banned from DC’s for our and others safety. When the laws were drawn up bikes probably overtook cars!

so we ban bikes from unsafe roads? where does that leave residents of cowfold*? If you start banning bikes from unsafe roads at some point it’s going to cause non-drivers a substantial problems. My commute involves a short section of DC (50mph) or an extra 1.5miles with lots of junctions some of them quite badly planned/thought out, it’s pretty close as to which is scaryest, the DC with line of sight and a whole 2 extra lanes for cars to use to overtake me should be safer.

That view TINAS is too car centric (as are most road rules/designs) sort out the dangerous road users not penalise the harmless ones.

*only 2 roads out of cowfold not actually DCs but bad roads for bikes and pretty soon no public transport either.

Bikes are already banned from some DCs

just back from a club 10 – all on a dc, no incidents whatsoever on the course, one girl fell off warming up on a nearby country lane, maybe we should only ride on dc’s tonight they were safer

Lets not forget, plenty of people get mown down whilst on the pavement, several hundred per year die from cars whilst not themselves on the road (including grass verges, traffic islands etc I think it’s ~400pa). Ban walking too. Oh yeah a few months ago a load of people queueing to get into a nightclub were ran into by a car, ban queueing for nightclubs too. Carry on like this and we’ll have tunnels from our front door to our parking spot, drive to works underground car park none of us ever have to get in the way of the fast shiny shiny cars.

2000 people per year die from cars (not including secondary stuff like pollution) and not much is being done about it, the numbers are falling but I’ll wager it’s the occupants of the cars getting better survival chances than those outside. It’s a messed up situation, then we get well meaning but shortsighted people (and cyclists!) suggesting removing the soft squishy objects from the roads to make things safer….. 😈

Now I’ve vented I may actually be able to get some sleep.
ps I do drive a bit, I like having a car, it gets me to nice places to ride, but our car culture is well ****** up.

yes I can legaly do 70 on a DC, and 60 on a country lane, but on average on a country lane I’ll be going a lot slower (my car says I’ve averages 35mph on A/B roads this week and thats mainly country driving)

“On average” isn’t a particularly useful stat though. Certainly most of our TTs round here are on 60 (or 50) limit roads, significant proportions of which I’d expect to be able to do the speed limit on (some of the 50 limit bit is safe at 70!) Don’t think I ever feel unsafe on those roads – have taken 4yo son TTing on a course most of which is NSL without any qualms (if Edu is reading this, hence the bars on the tandem 😉 ). Meanwhile I’ve also done TTs on DCs and not felt unsafe.

I did once contact a cycling club to comment about their TT – was being held on the A49 S of Ludlow on a sunny midsummer Saturday afternoon. Silly amounts of traffic, with drivers getting frustrated and doing stupid things – did the image of cycling no good whatsoever (and I’m normally one of the first to defend cycling on the road to those who complain about us “getting in the way”).

Well we’re not allowed on motorways, I can’t think of a legitimate reason to be allowed on DC’s, same speeds as motorways, similar trafic densities.

I’m not car centric, if it wasn’t for living away from home I do more miles by bike than by car, it’s only the 550mile round trip home that tips it the other way.

When the laws were drawn up cars and bikes shared unsurfaced roads, and neither would be much faster than the other, since then cars have gotten significantly faster and the roads have evolved to allow for this with DC’s, slip roads, motorways etc. These roads were never intended for use by bikes, presumably its a bit like the laws originaly drawn up to ban homosexuality, being lesbian was never illegal becasue Queen Vic couldn’t comprehend that anyone would do such a thing so saw no need to legislate against it, similarly I’m sure no one ever thought when the A1 (or whatever came first) was built that people would want to ride bikes on the thing.

By all means ride infront of a truck doing 70mph and hope to god that his subconcious hasn’t chosen that exact moment to distract him with thoughts of dinner/wife/mistress/pukka pies, but at the end of the day it’s the rider thats putting himself in the trucks way, and as kilo’s post on the first page shows, far too often the driver is only 99% perfect*.

And just to prove a point, taken from the DFT website, it only goes as far as A/non-A roads, but lets assume its a trend that follows from tiny minor road to A road tripple carridgeway, a reasnoble assumption given the actual figure for the difference is about 4x more casualties per mile traveled on a vs non-A roads.

when allowing for the amount of pedal cycle traffic, casualty rates are lower for non-A roads than for A roads, and

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/suppletablesfactsheets/pedalcyclist2008.pdf

If you’ve a statistic showing its save for all involved then lets see it but that report looks pretty damming.

*This doesnt make them murderes as someone up there put it, it makes them human.

Reminds me of Melbourne, on Sunday mornings (generally) you will find large groups of cyclists on the motorways, the inside lane becomes their track for the duration. They’ve even been known to close down the odd motorway for the benefit of them.

Now thats open minded policy making ….

I can’t think of a legitimate reason to be allowed on DC’s, same speeds as motorways, similar trafic densities.

Except often they aren’t the same speed as motorways and don’t have similar traffic densities. Occasionally it’s useful to be on a DC if it’s going in the same direction you are, rather than minor roads which aren’t. That said, I’m not sure I’ve ever ridden on an NSL DC.

I always used to prefer TTing on dual-carriageways as there was so much room for other traffic (and I’d often stay in hard shoulder area anyhow). Racing around B-roads and single carriageway A-roads I felt more at risk.

Most TTs are also done in the morning to try and avoid traffic but obviously if it’s a 50 or 100 miler then people are still going to racing into the afternoon.

At the end of the day if a car hits a TTer and claims they didn’t see him then the driver is at fault, chances are they were just on autopilot cruising at 70+ and thinking about many things other than actually driving (I know this as I’m guilty of it myself – being distracted that is not hitting someone…).

I can’t think of a legitimate reason to be allowed on DC’s

except DCs aren’t all out of town bypasses. They can be upgraded arterial roads, smack bang in the middle of the city and generally a reasonable way of getting where you want to go without heading miles out of your way or having to use ratruns (quite often presenting their own dangers)

I acknowledge your points tinas, I personally don’t want to go and ride every 70mph DC in the country just cos I can, 50s are scary enough for me and pretty boring to ride TBH (ignoring near death experiences) but if you start banning cyclists from roads without a damn good reason you’re marginalising cyclists even more than they are now.

Well designed DCs should be reasonably safe places to be, good sight lines, few junctions, multi lane so fairly easy to overtake properly. All we need is for people to drive appropriatley, these aren’t Mways, there are slow moving vehicles about watch what you are doing and drive safe. Not rocket science.

I acknowledge your points tinas, I personally don’t want to go and ride every 70mph DC in the country just cos I can, 50s are scary enough for me and pretty boring to ride TBH (ignoring near death experiences) but if you start banning cyclists from roads without a damn good reason you’re marginalising cyclists even more than they are now.

Well designed DCs should be reasonably safe places to be, good sight lines, few junctions, multi lane so fairly easy to overtake properly. All we need is for people to drive appropriatley, these aren’t Mways, there are slow moving vehicles about watch what you are doing and drive safe. Not rocket science.

Yes but TTers are using roads such as the A12 which are basically 2 lane motorways. Even overnight, early in the morning, or at weekends that road is often congested.

Of course banning cyclists from every DC would be stupid, but equally there is an element of responsibility on the part of organisers and individual cyclists to avoid dangerous routes where possible. Going back to the OP, in my humble opinion fog + rush hour would meet that criteria.

trying not to get wrapped up in all this but can’t help myself. Sorry not trying to get in an argument with everyone retro but do you mean the A12 near great yarmouth? This highlights my earlier point if you ban* bikes from it how the hell do you get from GY to lowestoft? either to the west of A12 on country roads miles out of your way or east of the A12 which includes, from the looks of google maps, a dirt road through a golf course, both routes probably lovely for a weekend jaunt but not for people who just want to travel from one to the other.

roads such as the A12 which are basically 2 lane motorways

are motorways or are (mis)treated as motorways?

*I know you didn’t suggest banning bikes from it but it sounds like the sort of DC that some would want a ban on.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/suppletablesfactsheets/pedalcyclist2008.pdf

Not seen this before! Some of those stats are worrying – especially the one about the number of hit and runs involving cyclists. Seems far more common that other collisions. Time to start using that helmet cam i think…

D0NK – Member

trying not to get wrapped up in all this but can’t help myself. Sorry not trying to get in an argument with everyone retro but do you mean the A12 near great yarmouth? This highlights my earlier point if you ban* bikes from it how the hell do you get from GY to lowestoft? either to the west of A12 on country roads miles out of your way or east of the A12 which includes, from the looks of google maps, a dirt road through a golf course, both routes probably lovely for a weekend jaunt but not for people who just want to travel from one to the other.

roads such as the A12 which are basically 2 lane motorways

are motorways or are (mis)treated as motorways?

*I know you didn’t suggest banning bikes from it but it sounds like the sort of DC that some would want a ban on.

No, not at all – I should have have been clearer in my post. I meant the bit in Essex. It goes from a single/small dual carriage way at the Suffolk end into a much larger/faster road around Colchester/Chelmsford and continues like this until it reaches the M25.

Cyclists should be able to ride safely anywhere they are legally allowed to otherwise they should be barred from doing so as on the motorway.

agreed… playing with your friends on a busy carriageway is another matter entirely however..

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/breaking_news_lorry_driver_arrested_after_cyclist_killed_on_a19_1_4170059