Advantages of cyclepaths - riding through the rain is more pleasant

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/search/label/rain

There are many advantages of having a network of good quality cyclepaths. Some of them are particularly evident in bad weather such as rain or mist. There are no worries about whether you can be seen, there is little chance of skidding on spilled diesel when you're not on the road, and there is little chance of being sprayed by motor vehicles passing at speed when you are several metres from those vehicles.

This cycle path is mostly separated from the parallel road by about 4 m. This is adequate to provide all these advantages. The cycle path is on both sides of the road, single direction and 2.5 m wide on each side.

When you ride a fully enclosed velomobile, such as the Sinner Mango in this video, you also don't suffer the discomfort of being soaking wet and cold when cycling in the rain, and your speed is not much affected either.

Read more about the Mango velomobile here: http://hembrow.eu/personal/sinnermango.html

http://www.dutchbikebits.com
http://www.hembrowcyclingholidays.com

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• rain
• cycling
• cyclepath
• fietspad

[ponypruhest]

@David:

I look so much forward to get my Mango the day after tomorrow. I probably cant sleep tomorrow night :-D

[DavidHembrow]

@ponypruhest I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot. Get plenty of sleep, though, as you'll need your energy. Perhaps if you "count Mangos" it'll help you to get to sleep...

[ponypruhest]

t=7m13s

tell us your (average) speed on this nice smooth surface

[DavidHembrow]

@ponypruhest I just worked it out. It took me 7.5 minutes on the nice new smooth concrete bit, and it's 5 km long, so 40 km/h average for that stretch. As you might imagine, this was probably the fastest stretch (though the bit from De Punt to Vries isn't bad either). Slowing down in Vries and then Assen itself brought the overall average down to 36.5 km/h. There was a headwind, after all, and I was actually being quite careful in the wet... It's a world away from a normal bike.

[ponypruhest]

t=1m11s

Is it the path or your acceleration that makes the camera bounce?

[DavidHembrow]

@ponypruhest A bit of both. That's not the smoothest bit of path, and I am accelerating just after the junction.

[BlogKingMan]

Cycle path have priority at junctions so no bumps... amazing Dutch engineering. Fat chance of that happening in USA. Thanks for the tour. I'm looking into that bike style now.

[oratwi]

Similar to the day we had here.. ;-) Looks like a really smooth, flowing ride. Wish we had tracks like that here.