Machka 

I did quite a bit of cycling as a kid, with and without my parents. When I was really young, I rode on the sidewalk, but as I grew older my parents taught me how to ride on the road ... rules of the road, tips and tricks, and all that. Both parents cycled, and we would go out as a family. But they didn't mind if I set out on my own too.

My school also had a bicycle program, and I've still got the instruction manual. Again, we were taught the rules of the road (the bicycle instruction manual was based off the drivers education/highway act information) as well as some tips and tricks for bicycle handling.

But those 150,000 km I referred to were as an adult. I didn't encounter my first bicycle paths and lanes until I was well into adulthood and had been cycling for years. In fact, I had been a member of bicycle forums, and had seen people talking about bicycle lanes for a few years before I saw my first one. And I recall that my first reaction to it was "Oh how cute! A lane for bicycles!"

And yes, that short, pointless bicycle path I referred to ... one of the reasons I rarely rode it was because I considered it more dangerous than the road that ran along side it. The road was wide and fairly quiet with a reasonably low speed limit. They also closed sections of that road to motorised traffic on Sundays ... only non-motorised traffic allowed. But the path twisted and turned between tall bushes and trees, and thus had several blind curves ... you couldn't ride more than about 10 km/h for fear of coming around one of those blind curves and hitting people. And of course there were pedestrians, dog walkers, children running to and fro, groups of little old ladies standing just around those blind corners bird watching, rollerbladers, and all sorts out there. I could cycle the road at a decent pace without a single negative encounter with motorised vehicles ... or I could try to negotiate the obstacle course that was the bicycle path.