Bristol - cycling mecca

From a commuter point of view it has improved massively from when I first started working there in 1998 until I stopped working there late last year. From a leisure cycling point of view I don’t know as I’ve only ridden around there on a few races 30 years ago.

Pross said:

From a commuter point of view it has improved massively from when I first started working there in 1998 until I stopped working there late last year. From a leisure cycling point of view I don’t know as I’ve only ridden around there on a few races 30 years ago.

That's good to know. When they ban cars from 'The Centre' and rip up the road part covering over the Frome, then I'll know they are serious.

I was slightly taken aback when accosted by a random French person in the south of France telling me that of all the places in England they'd like to visit, it was Bristol, because it is the 'green capital of Europe', or something similarly unlikely. If nothing else, their marketing department is obviously doing a good job.

Is it Bath where Andrew Feather and all the GCN lot live? Not together obviously

I think with the cycling in the UK you need to think along the lines of "least bad" rather than "good"

joeyhalloran said:

I think with the cycling in the UK you need to think along the lines of "least bad" rather than "good"

I would disagree… Somerset is excellent for cycling… Yorkshire is excellent too. The problem with the UK are the very damp winters. Roads are crap from November to March. If you head to Italy, winters are cold but dry, you don’t need mudguards. But in terms of roads and scenery, with the exception of a few places Unesco worthy, the difference is not so much.

Bristol and Bath have both good and bad points where it comes to cycling infra. Bristol has more but Bath is building more segragated cycle lanes on main routes. However, most designs are based on what they 'think' people want after some basic consultations. Honestly, it's us cyclists own fault these schemes don't work as intended as we don't get involved enough in the responses to consultations. In Bristol there are plenty of Bus Lanes and the traffic is so slow it's a lot safer.
The best part is when you get outside of Bristol/Bath and into the surrounding countryside. There are some beautiful routes around here. Also a traffic free route between Bristol and Bath that is virtually flat. You can go beyond Bath through the Two Tunnels (longest cycling tunnel in UK) and on towards Radstock and beyond so a return trip is around 62 miles mostly on cyclepaths. There is also the Avon Cycleway that takes in a 100 miler route. Plenty of hills. Everywhere. Lakes too.

Here are the two routes I mention.

Cycling mecca certainly feels like a bit of a stretch.

This is my route home. Heading into town is great, I can use that bus lane on the other side. Going back it's a cycle path ending just as the road gets squeezed, then either stay on a 50mph road that shortly becomes 2 lanes wide full of frustrated commuters, or just stick to the extremely lumpy shared use path.

pangolin said:

This is my route home. Heading into town is great, I can use that bus lane on the other side. Going back it's a cycle path ending just as the road gets squeezed, then either stay on a 50mph road that shortly becomes 2 lanes wide full of frustrated commuters, or just stick to the extremely lumpy shared use path.

Yes, remember that one... I think I might have mentioned it on CS before... its that point in the road where they just said "Oh fxxk it, it's too hard to work out what to do with the bikes, so we'll just stop and let them work it out for themselves."

Yeah I found I still had a screenshot of it

pangolin said:

This is my route home. Heading into town is great, I can use that bus lane on the other side. Going back it's a cycle path ending just as the road gets squeezed, then either stay on a 50mph road that shortly becomes 2 lanes wide full of frustrated commuters, or just stick to the extremely lumpy shared use path.

Did that one a few times. The shared footway is horrendous with all the lumps and bumps from the tree roots. I don’t think the on carriageway lane was there when I did it.

Pross said:

briantrumpet said:

joeyhalloran said:

ugo.santalucia said:

joeyhalloran said:

I think with the cycling in the UK you need to think along the lines of "least bad" rather than "good"

I would disagree… Somerset is excellent for cycling… Yorkshire is excellent too. The problem with the UK are the very damp winters. Roads are censored from November to March. If you head to Italy, winters are cold but dry, you don’t need mudguards. But in terms of roads and scenery, with the exception of a few places Unesco worthy, the difference is not so much.

Sure, the UK is great for longer road riding and the variety of terrain is also good. My comment was based around driver attitude and cycling infrastructure

It's getting better, for sure. Devon has put in some really good shared-use paths - for instance the ones either side of the Exe that make commuting possible from quite a number of villages. They are proposing to do one up the Teign.

But with a proper shedload of money - which would just be a small percentage of the road budget - they could do some really ambitious stuff, such as buying back abandoned railway lines like the Exe Valley, which would make Tiverton a cyle-commuting town easily, and the Teign Valley line would be a very popular tourist route avoiding lumpy busy roads.

Comes down to money and priorities, and still roads are seen as the big ticket item to focus on, for the time being, at least. Wales has moved the dial, a bit, but a lot more needs to be done.

Problem in Wales is they’re doing things backwards and cutting road schemes before improving cycling facilities or public transport.

They have finally done some consultation for a cycle route between Cardiff and Newport on the A48 with the ‘full’ option being basically what I suggested was an obvious solution about 30 years ago i.e. making the carriageway one lane in each direction and reallocating the other 2 lanes.

Mind you, that might make the cycle schemes an easier sell - trouble is when they spend a lot of money on a cycle scheme which isn't well used to start with, all the anti-cycling trolls come out to play. They even came out to play when they built an extra cycle/walkway over the Exe on the bypass *so that the cars could still have four lanes* on the main bridge: all they did was moan about the walkway.

At least if you've got snarl-ups first, and then a cycling solution comes along, it's more likely to be used from the get-go.

But not ideal, no.

gethinceri said:

"They have finally done some consultation for a cycle route between Cardiff and Newport on the A48 with the ‘full’ option being basically what I suggested was an obvious solution about 30 years ago i.e. making the carriageway one lane in each direction and reallocating the other 2 lanes."


Surely that only needs to be a one-way, Westwards? Nobody in their right mind wants to go to Newport.


Unfortunately some have to go back through Newport to get home. A cycleway bypass would be nice though!