Porter20

For those of you who live in cities that have bike paths of like 15, 20 miles etc, how many of your use them? I am not talking about people that are out for a 10 mph little ride with friends chatting. I am referring to people that are looking for a safe place to log some miles while riding hard. Or are there to many other people using them to really get to cranking on them?

Machka 

There is no such thing as a "bike" path ... they are all MUPs and riding hard on a MUP is a very dangerous thing to do. Plus many of them have speed limits. If you want to ride hard ... stay OFF the bike paths. Ride on the road where you belong.

cwathne

in the Seattle area we have some very nice paved trails; one goes almost all the way around Lake Washington. I keep around a 19mph pace on this trail, but only during "off peak" hours

Busta Quad

Uh, paths (MUPs) are some of the most unsafe places to log miles.

StephenH

They're pretty variable. Here close to the house is a winding trail with frequent walkers. I ride on it, but it's good for maybe 12-14 mph, not a place to go fast. And be prepared to slow down for little kids or dogs.

But in places where the trails are more open, with better visibility and fewer walkers, you can pick that up some.

Look up some of Mr. Beanz' threads in the Clydesdale forum- evidently, they've got some pretty open straight trails that are good for a lot of miles at reasonable pace.

rooftest

Did a few hours on the SGRT today.

jcpups608

I have a lot of nice bike paths where I live and I pretty much only use them for the warm up/cool down easy spinning portions of my rides.

Doohickie

On the MUPs here in Fort Worth, you might be able to cruise at a good clip for stretches, but there are other users out there, bikes, pedestrians, dog walkers, joggers that you will overtake eventually and some of them are quite clueless about staying out of the way of a fast rider. They may not even know you're out there until you're on top of them and they've ambled into your path.

roccobike

There are two MUPS nearby. One is paved and too popular to ride fast. The other is compact gravel. I ride an older MTB on it with street tires and hit some pretty fast speeds. Before the cyclocomputer crapped out I hit over 25 MPH on one stretch. I'd like to ride a road bike on it, but I've seen others try and it can be a unique experience in sliding on gravel. There are very few folks using this path and most of those using it are other fast cyclists. There's supposed to be a speed limit that's enforced with radar, but I've never seen any signs or cops.

ChuteTheMall

Most of my riding is on mups, there are stretches where you can log miles, and there are opportunities to brake, slow down to pass, and then sprint away from strollers.

My first century was an impromptu tri-state ride out and back thru Rock Creek Park into Maryland, followed by a run down to Mt Vernon, VA and back, and then I went out on the W & OD trail far enough to hit 100 miles upon my return (to TR Island on the Potomac). I was never more than about 20 miles from my parked car, and very little of the ride was on roads. Unplanned & spontaneous, a glorious day to just keep riding.

Mups have different safety hazards from roads, but few of them come from behind. One of the hardest things (for me) is to try to balance fast riding with being polite to the unpredictable voters (aka speedbumps).

Putting together a non-mup road ride for me means driving way out of town, parking somewhere strange, then navigating a loop or an out & back, and hoping my motor vehicle will be as I left it.

MONGO!

I'll use them to get from A to B but there are too many people, kids and dogs to be hammering along them, plenty of roads for that.

Machka 

Nothing wrong with that. I drive out of town so I can ride on the highways in winter.

Jerseysbest

I just moved to DC and there seems to be a lot of them aruond here; the ones I've been on are not suitable for riding hard.

DScott

Oh, piffle.

I can do a 40 mile loop from my house that includes about 30 miles of "bike path" that is marked "Bikes Only". The "Bikes Only" path is wide, well-maintained, follows the beach down the coast, has no cars to worry about, and no stop signs. There are no speed limits, either. Other than the fact that it's flat flat flat, it's a great place to ride for couple of hours.

At just about any time other than later in the morning on weekends, there's rarely crowding, and I can ride as fast as I'm able. At non-peak times there are a few non-cyclists on the bike path, but they're easy to miss.

If you want to see the path I'm talking about, here's one view:




Another to see how wide the path is (goes by a power plant for a few hundred yards):



Check out this thread:

https://www.socalbikeforums.com/showt...902#post113902

(credit to robncircus)

The road isn't always preferable.

Machka 

Just because it is labelled "Bikes Only" doesn't necessarily keep non-bicycles (i.e. rollerbladers, joggers, kids, dogs, etc.) off.

ILUVUK

I use MUPs as a means to get out of the city and onto country roads where I can hammer....if I feel like it. But i don't ride hard on MUPs.

Doohickie

DScott-

I used to ride that all the time on this



when I lived in Playa del Rey and Culver City. In fact, the section from Marina del Rey to Imperial Hwy was part of my commute.

DScott

Of course not. But it's not like being on the streets is somehow safer. It's nice to take a break from dodging autos sometimes. I avoid it during peak hours, since then it is infuriating to dodge all the morons.

Beyond that, the signs on the "Bikes Only" path say you can knock over anybody not on a bike and it's OK. All right, I admit that part is just wishful thinking, but still...

agarose2000

Best routes I've found, if you have the luxury of living near mountains, is to pick the steepest community road you can find. Keeps the riffraff of pedestrians off the road, you can hammer as hard as you want and you'll still be going max 15 mph while dying, and there's invariably much less traffic the higher up you go. Our "epic" rides in the Santa Monica mountains are all remarkably low in car traffic for a major city such as LA, because of these reasons - I rode for 45 minutes uncontested by cars on Sat at 9AM last weekend.

RacerOne

Heck I rode a century last fall and only had about 5 cars pass me in the first three hours. I ride in the sticks.

thirdin77

There are a couple of paved paths that I use and I generally see more pedestrians where the path is in close proximiity to neighborhoods or parking areas. It's there that I have to keep an eye out, esp around blind corners, but away from these areas these paths can be fairly vacant and I can go as fast as I want.

Randochap

Depends. I'm lucky to live near one of the prettiest trail sytems anywhere and outside of the city you can safely push along at 30kph. Nearer town (where it's paved) it's the usual rush hour of peds, peds w/ dogs and other obstacles.

It's a nice break from traffic occasionally, especially on my 650b bike w/ nice fat tyres.

Jakedatc

I go on the one 2mi from my house for easy rest day recovery spins.. it's 30-33ish mi round trip depending if i do a short bit past my turn. I will only go on it during the late fall, winter, early spring or middle of the day weekdays during the summer. It's a mess otherwise in a tourist trap area. The worst part even when it's clear of people is a few dozen road crossings that kill any rhythm. Luckily i'm doing more and more mapped out rides so i'm using that less and less.

machka just because YOU haven't experienced something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.. you're constantly posting with your head in your little corner of canada.

rooftest

I thought that was a sewage treatment plant!

unterhausen

I have been known to limp home on one of the local bike paths. Even though the road I avoid is a designated bike route and there are 4 lane highways that are faster and almost as direct, there are people that insist on driving down it at more than twice the posted speed limit. Some of the rides out that way are pretty rough, if I've fried myself I'll take the path.