Originally Posted by
mikeshoup
Unless its marked a bike path, its gonna be a sidewalk. The sidewalk there isn't posted as a bike route, so it defaults to a sidewalk instead of path. Sure as hell looks like a normal sidewalk to me. (Not that its not rideable, that might be perfectly safe)
That said, I don't really think anyone insisted he ride the road. He asked about where to ride in the road, so the answer was provided.
You're right about the last part, I've probably just accidentally started ranting. Just get tired of hearing the "the sidewalk is illegal and unsafe" theme - I find it to be as untrue as the old "it's always safer on the sidewalk" theme which was just as bad. I grew up in the suburbs, where a lot of "sidewalks" were obviously built with the intention that bikes would ride on them. Like here's one -
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...86.49,,0,14.58
Perhaps it would be "safer" to bike on the 55mph freeway? I mean, there's no giant signs saying you can bike on it. Or there's another stretch of 45mph highway by where I live where they built a double wide sidewalk clearly intended for bikers as well as peds - don't think biking on the street there would be a good idea either. Or the numberous interstate bridges - would it be safer to ride on the shoulder of an interstate than to bike across on the pedestrian walkway on the bridge? I mean the thing is like half a mile long - probably not a ton of pedestrians on it...
Anyways, sorry. Just had to get it off my chest I guess.
The larger width of the path the OP linked to suggests to me it's intended for bike use - pedestrian only sidewalks tend to be narrower, and/or in front of businesses. I think it's probably a little rude to take up a lane on a 2 lane road with a lot of traffic, if there's what appears to be a bike intended sidepath next to it. To be fair though, there are several places by me where I might stay on the road if there's no or little traffic, so maybe I'm imagining things.
If I was biking on the road there and couldn't or didn't use the path, I would definitely ride in further, far enough into the road to claim the lane. There just doesn't appear to be enough shoulder room on the road for a car and a biker to be in the lane at the same time.