Originally Posted by
UniChris
That sounds a lot like a lack of experience coping with actual cities. The people who design tires seem to have some, and they know their market. You seemed to have some complaints about newbies not being adequately warned; but in my book, 2" tires on share bikes is exactly giving them tools to cope with what they will actually encounter.
Got news for you, Bucko, Denver isn’t a cowtown (never was). It’s not as large as NYC but it has paved roads and cars and busses and trains and all kinds of stuff you’d find in an “actual” city. For that matter, an “actual” city has roads that are passable on relatively narrow bike tires. I have lots and lots and lots of experience riding on roads, paths and single track on 2” tires that
aren’t paved. That kind of tire is absolutely unnecessary to ride around a village, town or even a city.
And my city riding experience isn’t just limited to Denver. I’ve ridden in many cities and all of them are suitable for a 35mm tire...max!
It's not just on street paths, it's off street ones, streets themselves, rural trails, gravel... You don't need to run 2 inch tires, but the only reason to limit yourself with road bike tires is if you plan to ride fast in good conditions only, or find they work for you in actual conditions. If they're not working, change them or ride for pleasure where they do work. All around cycling demands more versatility, especially when you can't go that fast anyway.
You can’t lecture me about riding versatility and tires. I’d wager that I know as much about riding as you do.
Most of the time, a narrow road tire...even a 23mm...will work in a city.
Of course, you can pick any tires you like; but keep in mind you were the one with complaints about specific surface conditions that created safety problems with them.
You are missing the point. The protected lane conditions aren’t something
I choose. They are forced on me.
They might not like to; but they often have to.
Not for long, not by design and not because the road was shoehorned into a space where it should be.
Again, a lack of practical experience with actual cities where the main travel section of roads can be patch upon patch upon needed but unapplied patch. Crumbling infrastructure is hardly limited to bike facilities.
If nothing else, the patches in the main travel lane get run over by hundreds to thousands of vehicle over time. Those patches upon patches get flattened out over time. The ones in the protected lanes...and they exist here...don’t. Bicycles simple don’t have the weight to flatten them.
2" drops are quite visible to an aware cyclist ;-) But actually the bike lanes I looked at this evening were for the most part some of the smoothest parts of the road, despite their various routing flaws with respect to other traffic.
What you are missing is that those are manhole covers...about 3’ in diameter...in the middle of a narrow lane without any maneuvering room. If the lane were out on the driver’s side of cars lining the curb, a bicyclist could maneuver around them. But when the lane is constrained there is no where for the bicyclist to go. There are cars on one side and a curb on the other. Hitting a parked car wouldn’t that much of a problem but catching a curb could result in an injury that takes a lot of time to heal.
That a dooring can still happen there in a few circumstance is worthy of thought, but on the whole when designed with proper width they're not as hazardous as you seem to think when used as intended, at the speeds envisioned - I cannot for example recall any news stories about someone being killed mid-block in a protected lane, but plenty about mid-block deaths in traffic. I do agree with you though on the discomfort with rejoining traffic flows at intersections.
The problem is that the protected lanes aren’t “designed” nor do they have a proper width. A “proper” width would be at least 11 feet which is standard driving lane. But the width of the ones I’ve seen (not just in Denver) are the wide of a car...about 6 feet plus a little bit. Overall, the width of protected lanes is about 8’ or 3’ below standard.
As for news stories, I can’t recall one about someone being killed mid-block of any kind.
No, entirely different - most of these blocks don't have any driveways. But people get killed mid block holding a consistent line by busses and trucks trying to squeeze by them where there isn't room, or when they swerve to avoid a door or sudden merge into the lane to illegally drop off a taxi passenger there.
You are talking about overtaking crashes. Those are rare by any statistic I’ve seen. It’s the one that scares people the most but the Denver study clearly shows the largest percentage of crashes involve turns, not sideswipes.