On Aug 15, 12:13 pm, CoyoteBoy <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On 15 Aug, 11:45, Artleknock <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The idiots were doing time trials on a
> > major trunk road on the same day that all the holiday makers were
> > heading home from up north.
I tend to agree with the OP. I'm strongly in favour of cyclists having
the right to use all roads, but having a right doesn't mean it's a
good idea to exercise it all the time. This event amounted to reducing
a major trunk route to a single lane at a busy time, probably for a
substantial distance (I'm guessing the time trial used the road for a
greater distance than a typical stretch of road works). The
authorities go to some trouble to avoid peak times for road works.
There are two consequences to this: there are probably a few more
motorists now who hate cyclists, and some more with their prejudices
reinforced; and if it happens a lot, there will be moves to ban
cycling altogether on this sort of road, which would set a bad
precedent, and make life difficult for the times where there really is
no alternative to cycling on these roads. (There was a cycling ban on
the A40 Cheltenham-Gloucester for a while, but this has now been
lifted.)
I guess dual carriageways that are quieter at the weekend than on
weekdays are probably very good places for time trials, because
traffic can pass safely. However, the A1 doesn't fit into this
category. I support the club's absolute right to hold time trials on
public roads, but it seems likely they could have chosen a better
location.
> There are always holiday makers heading home at some time or other, if
> people stopped for that there would be month-long periods where no-one
> rode in case they hit traffic.
No, a time trial is different from other sorts of riding. Somebody
going out on their own for a pootle/commute/shopping, wouldn't have
caused this sort of disruption. A club run would have consisted of one
or two clumps of riders, which would be a much shorter disruption.
Because it is spread out, a time trial takes quite a lot of capacity,
it's a planned event and the organisers should have known better.
I want to keep the right to cycle on all roads, to do that we need to
be sensible about how we use the right - we want drivers to be
considerate and treat us with respect, we need to do the same for
them.
Rob