6 ms·

Love riding but doing that next to high speed cars and trucks sucks. That doesn’t get to you?

matt7aylor 4y ago
It may depend a little on where you are but generally on a cycle tour, where speed isn't such a priority, you don't tend to be taking the same bigger roads used by high speed cars or trucks (or may even be on routes largely separate from the roads). It can happen on occasion that you might want/need to go down a slightly busier road, in that case being a bit more of an odd road user (heavily loaded bicycle stands out) often you get a bit more consideration but a bit of road confidence certainly doesn't hurt. I can't speak for everywhere but in Europe (where most of my experience is) I think you would be able to find plenty of routes without much traffic (checkout places like https://www.opencyclemap.org/ https://www.opencyclemap.org/ ) and ironically those routes would probably have much more to see on them than the routes that did have the cars and trucks on.
saiya-jin 4y ago
Sucks as its properly dangerous due to simple statistics (you need just 1 out of 10000 drivers to not pay enough attention, be high, super tired, getting seizure or heart attack, etc.). Riding on roads without dedicated full cycle lane sucks, period. Another point - directly breathing all fumes from thousands of cars every day, lorries, buses and other diesel marvels. More than compensating a healthy activity with equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. Fanatics always propagate their sports/activity as next coming of jesus, but as with everything there are pros and cons. Biking on standard roads has massive cons.
- mdpye 4y ago
  I don't know where you live, but the other thing I've noticed people who have never cycle toured really fail to notice is how many thousands of small roads there are, at least in Europe, which link everywhere. Agrigultural roads that you'd never bother (or even want) to take your car down. Residential streets that only the residents would drive on. I'd guess that on the average 5 day cycling tour in the UK and Europe, I'd see less than 1000 cars total, and often go for many hours without seeing any. Its glorious.
  - brudgers 4y ago
    Yes, it does depend on where you live. The Great Salt Lake in Utah is the size of Lichtenstein. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is longer than the Italian boot is wide. England is the size of Alabama.
    - strken 4y ago
      Australia is roughly the size of the continental US with a tenth the population and we still have lots of small roads in the populated coastal green bits, so I'm not sure what your point is. It can be harder to find a safe route somewhere in the country, I'll give you that.
      - brudgers 4y ago
        Australia like Western Europe can be traveled near sea level. For example, Bern, Geneva and Zurich are all less than 500m. The US is not like that. There are only a few routes in the west because the west is more than a thousand miles of mountains and deserts nearly all above 1500m and much of it above 2000m. It is hundreds of miles between north south routes in Arizona because of the Grand Canyon. And the eastern route goes from vast remoteness to vast remoteness, Navajo nation to the Great Basin (an internal drainage the size of France). I am not a general fan of American exceptionalism. But for geography, it holds. The average height of the Colorado Plateau is about 2000m…almost as high as the highest point in Australia. And the plateau is larger than Germany. I am glad it works on your machine.
        strken 4y ago
        Hey, I've lived in the US, and it's big enough that you need to specify where you're talking about. If for some reason your bicycle tour is going to take you around all of Arizona, that's a problem. If you're Californian and you don't live in the Sierras, what you've said doesn't hold as much, nor if you live in the Great Plains or New England. This is vaguely similar to Australia, which has gigantic deserts with terrible roads through them as most of the landmass, but geographically bikeable population centres where everyone actually lives.
- atari800 4y ago
  "Riding on roads without dedicated full cycle lane sucks, period." Sounds like you live in a large city or something. I can ride 100 miles on rural country lanes where I live, and only see a handful of cars all day. Please don't comment on subjects about which you know nothing.
  - thoms_a 4y ago
    Every time a car passes you with a massive speed differential, you are gambling with your life. As long as you (and your family) are willing to accept that risk, then all the power to you. Also, rural roads aren't exactly known for their alert drivers. Drunk driving is far more common due to lack of taxis/ubers.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      Good job on making the GP point. I seriously doubt you know what you are talking about.
tpm 4y ago
But you don't have to do that, if you plan accordingly. There are dedicated long distance cycle paths, see e.g. https://en.eurovelo.com/ https://en.eurovelo.com/
- ginko 4y ago
  The "dedicated cycle path" along the Atlantic Coast Route near me looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@63.3222885,10.1328111,3a,75y,346.2h,77.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s_DnDaQRvXt9w1QVGk-fIEA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D_DnDaQRvXt9w1QVGk-fIEA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D78.19244%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@63.3222885,10.1328111,3a,75y,34...
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    Yes, when bicycling in my town in Southern California, I often avoid the marked bicycle routes in favor of less busy streets with no marked bicycle route.
  - tpm 4y ago
    That's sad. Though Slovakia is not much better, we do have some bright spots. This is the Eurovelo along the Danube: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yL3Picyo2ZTuDaZ3A https://maps.app.goo.gl/yL3Picyo2ZTuDaZ3A
  - Lariscus 4y ago
    How much traffic can you expect on that road? I rode on similar roads and it was actually quite nice.
Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
In many places there's a network of tiny little roads that are a much more enjoyable alternative to riding next to traffic. This is certainly true of most of Europe, but also large parts of the US as well - I had a great cycling holiday a few years back in New York State and most of the roads were no busier than here in the UK. Ironically the single worst road was one south of Kingston which was a state-designated bike route! I run cycle.travel, a touring-focused bike routeplanner (based on OpenStreetMap data, of course) which aims to find these roads. It generally won't find as direct a cycle route as some of the bigger names, but by and large the route should be quieter and less stressful. https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map - always happy to hear comments/suggestions!
- thunfischbrot 4y ago
  This is a work of art. I check out different cycle routing options every couple of years and have never been satisfied with the high number of intersections with traffic lights and changes from road to bike path to sidewalk... Your routing algorithm taking into account Eurovelo routes is an amazing idea. Will test in the coming days! I suggest you show input validation hints before submitting forms, e.g. for the user name.
- timed0 4y ago
  Just to say I love cycle.travel. I have used it for several medium-length tours with kids and it suggests good, calm routes.
- matt7aylor 4y ago
  That is a great looking site, I'll give it a try and be sure to remember it for telling others. I love how you can pick a point and look for nearby campsites. Normally I plan my tour routes offline using downloaded OSM maps (something like velomap.org) in QMapshack. One thing I like doing on there is having POIs I can turn on/off with things like UNESCO World Heritage Sites, National Trust Sites, World Wonders from the Civilization games etc. so I can tweak my route to connect a few of those dots if it goes near them.
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  Cool resource, but I could see a key that tells me what the different symbols on the maps mean.
atari800 4y ago
I don't know about conditions anywhere in the world except the USA. But I've ridden across the USA, on different routes, multiple times. When bicycle touring in this country, you don't usually (almost never, in my case) do bike touring on roads that carry heavy traffic. You ride on mostly empty roads that have very low traffic counts. Every state compiles Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) statistics. There are roads where you might see one or two cars an hour. Those are the roads to ride on.
- jmspring 4y ago
  I’ve done a couple of tours years back in Europe. I did a few multi-day charity rides here in California. Some of those included stints on a stretch of 101. You realize how shitty our roads can be.

It may depend a little on where you are but generally on a cycle tour, where speed isn't such a priority, you don't tend to be taking the same bigger roads used by high speed cars or trucks (or may even be on routes largely separate from the roads). It can happen on occasion that you might want/need to go down a slightly busier road, in that case being a bit more of an odd road user (heavily loaded bicycle stands out) often you get a bit more consideration but a bit of road confidence certainly doesn't hurt. I can't speak for everywhere but in Europe (where most of my experience is) I think you would be able to find plenty of routes without much traffic (checkout places like https://www.opencyclemap.org/ https://www.opencyclemap.org/ ) and ironically those routes would probably have much more to see on them than the routes that did have the cars and trucks on.

saiya-jin 4y ago

Sucks as its properly dangerous due to simple statistics (you need just 1 out of 10000 drivers to not pay enough attention, be high, super tired, getting seizure or heart attack, etc.). Riding on roads without dedicated full cycle lane sucks, period. Another point - directly breathing all fumes from thousands of cars every day, lorries, buses and other diesel marvels. More than compensating a healthy activity with equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. Fanatics always propagate their sports/activity as next coming of jesus, but as with everything there are pros and cons. Biking on standard roads has massive cons.

mdpye 4y ago
I don't know where you live, but the other thing I've noticed people who have never cycle toured really fail to notice is how many thousands of small roads there are, at least in Europe, which link everywhere. Agrigultural roads that you'd never bother (or even want) to take your car down. Residential streets that only the residents would drive on. I'd guess that on the average 5 day cycling tour in the UK and Europe, I'd see less than 1000 cars total, and often go for many hours without seeing any. Its glorious.
- brudgers 4y ago
  Yes, it does depend on where you live. The Great Salt Lake in Utah is the size of Lichtenstein. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is longer than the Italian boot is wide. England is the size of Alabama.
  - strken 4y ago
    Australia is roughly the size of the continental US with a tenth the population and we still have lots of small roads in the populated coastal green bits, so I'm not sure what your point is. It can be harder to find a safe route somewhere in the country, I'll give you that.
    - brudgers 4y ago
      Australia like Western Europe can be traveled near sea level. For example, Bern, Geneva and Zurich are all less than 500m. The US is not like that. There are only a few routes in the west because the west is more than a thousand miles of mountains and deserts nearly all above 1500m and much of it above 2000m. It is hundreds of miles between north south routes in Arizona because of the Grand Canyon. And the eastern route goes from vast remoteness to vast remoteness, Navajo nation to the Great Basin (an internal drainage the size of France). I am not a general fan of American exceptionalism. But for geography, it holds. The average height of the Colorado Plateau is about 2000m…almost as high as the highest point in Australia. And the plateau is larger than Germany. I am glad it works on your machine.
      - strken 4y ago
        Hey, I've lived in the US, and it's big enough that you need to specify where you're talking about. If for some reason your bicycle tour is going to take you around all of Arizona, that's a problem. If you're Californian and you don't live in the Sierras, what you've said doesn't hold as much, nor if you live in the Great Plains or New England. This is vaguely similar to Australia, which has gigantic deserts with terrible roads through them as most of the landmass, but geographically bikeable population centres where everyone actually lives.
atari800 4y ago
"Riding on roads without dedicated full cycle lane sucks, period." Sounds like you live in a large city or something. I can ride 100 miles on rural country lanes where I live, and only see a handful of cars all day. Please don't comment on subjects about which you know nothing.
- thoms_a 4y ago
  Every time a car passes you with a massive speed differential, you are gambling with your life. As long as you (and your family) are willing to accept that risk, then all the power to you. Also, rural roads aren't exactly known for their alert drivers. Drunk driving is far more common due to lack of taxis/ubers.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Good job on making the GP point. I seriously doubt you know what you are talking about.

tpm 4y ago

But you don't have to do that, if you plan accordingly. There are dedicated long distance cycle paths, see e.g. https://en.eurovelo.com/ https://en.eurovelo.com/

ginko 4y ago
The "dedicated cycle path" along the Atlantic Coast Route near me looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@63.3222885,10.1328111,3a,75y,346.2h,77.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s_DnDaQRvXt9w1QVGk-fIEA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D_DnDaQRvXt9w1QVGk-fIEA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D78.19244%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@63.3222885,10.1328111,3a,75y,34...
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Yes, when bicycling in my town in Southern California, I often avoid the marked bicycle routes in favor of less busy streets with no marked bicycle route.
- tpm 4y ago
  That's sad. Though Slovakia is not much better, we do have some bright spots. This is the Eurovelo along the Danube: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yL3Picyo2ZTuDaZ3A https://maps.app.goo.gl/yL3Picyo2ZTuDaZ3A
- Lariscus 4y ago
  How much traffic can you expect on that road? I rode on similar roads and it was actually quite nice.

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago

In many places there's a network of tiny little roads that are a much more enjoyable alternative to riding next to traffic. This is certainly true of most of Europe, but also large parts of the US as well - I had a great cycling holiday a few years back in New York State and most of the roads were no busier than here in the UK. Ironically the single worst road was one south of Kingston which was a state-designated bike route! I run cycle.travel, a touring-focused bike routeplanner (based on OpenStreetMap data, of course) which aims to find these roads. It generally won't find as direct a cycle route as some of the bigger names, but by and large the route should be quieter and less stressful. https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map - always happy to hear comments/suggestions!

thunfischbrot 4y ago
This is a work of art. I check out different cycle routing options every couple of years and have never been satisfied with the high number of intersections with traffic lights and changes from road to bike path to sidewalk... Your routing algorithm taking into account Eurovelo routes is an amazing idea. Will test in the coming days! I suggest you show input validation hints before submitting forms, e.g. for the user name.
timed0 4y ago
Just to say I love cycle.travel. I have used it for several medium-length tours with kids and it suggests good, calm routes.
matt7aylor 4y ago
That is a great looking site, I'll give it a try and be sure to remember it for telling others. I love how you can pick a point and look for nearby campsites. Normally I plan my tour routes offline using downloaded OSM maps (something like velomap.org) in QMapshack. One thing I like doing on there is having POIs I can turn on/off with things like UNESCO World Heritage Sites, National Trust Sites, World Wonders from the Civilization games etc. so I can tweak my route to connect a few of those dots if it goes near them.
hermitcrab 4y ago
Cool resource, but I could see a key that tells me what the different symbols on the maps mean.

atari800 4y ago

I don't know about conditions anywhere in the world except the USA. But I've ridden across the USA, on different routes, multiple times. When bicycle touring in this country, you don't usually (almost never, in my case) do bike touring on roads that carry heavy traffic. You ride on mostly empty roads that have very low traffic counts. Every state compiles Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) statistics. There are roads where you might see one or two cars an hour. Those are the roads to ride on.

jmspring 4y ago
I’ve done a couple of tours years back in Europe. I did a few multi-day charity rides here in California. Some of those included stints on a stretch of 101. You realize how shitty our roads can be.