Sorry, I just had to laugh out loud at this one... Yeah, here in New York I'm gonna report this to the cops. Come on, man. They're just gonna laugh at me and then go back to pepper-spraying some kid who "looked suspicious." Hey, if I'm not careful, they might decide that *I* look suspicious!

The best I can do, and I do this all the time, is yell at them: "Hey man! You're going the wrong way!"

This.

It's not easy. I can't safely pass a jogger in many NYC bike lanes unless they yield and move all the way aside.

Fair enough, I've never ridden in NYC so I'm not qualified to make those judgements, but wasn't there a viral youtube video on bikelanes in your town? If that video wasn't edited for impact, it seems that joggers are the least of your worries?

If we expect cars to share the road with us, we can share the bike lane with a jogger or two. Cars travel 2-4 times faster than a bike normally; bikes travel 2 times faster than a jogger normally.

There are many reasons why a jogger might use the road, but safety and joint health can be primary reasons. As far as I know, it is perfectly legal to jog and/or walk on the side of the road in most areas. How does the "get the f*** on the sidewalk!" comment make you feel as a law abiding cyclist?

I think I have actually lowered my blood pressure by making it a point to not get worked up over stuff like this.

Me too, it's something else we're not going to be able to change. I just pull over to the right and stop if needed and life goes on for us all. I even gave up on wondering why so many of them wear black too, I just respect their need to blend in with the background.

Oh yeah, that's for sure! But that doesn't prevent me from b****ing about joggers since someone has brought up the subject Gotta keep this forum alive!

Perhaps I'll put my AirZound back on next week with my 2L supersized bottle and have some fun with them. Get really close, closer, closer, closer... ZZZZZZZZOUND... 102dB of pure loving! Watch them jump! Priceless Yeah, OK, it's mean, but they never hear my bell anyway, so...

I did a virtual bike trip through NYC a bit ago using Google Streetview. That was a wild ride. I like the occasional foray into full contact commuting, but not sure I'd want to do those streets every day. But seriously, can you go for a run in Manhattan on the sidewalk? If I was still a runner, I'd face the fury of a few cyclists rather than try to dodge the volume of humanity that walks the sidewalks there.

My problem is not that there are joggers in the bike lane per se, but because they feel entitled to be there and fail to yield to bikes either on purpose (and tell me to go f**k myself) or out of ignorance (headphones on and can't hear my bell). If these people were humble and respectful and acted properly I wouldn't have a problem. But it pisses me off when I can't pass such jackass, he's in the middle, won't hear my bell and then get annoyed when I yell at him, and it has to be me who makes the extra effort to avoid some self important and self centered ***hole who doesn't belong there in the first place. He should move over to the door zone, not me.

And I don't care if they can't run on the sidewalks if the option is to obstruct my movement in the bike lane. Hey, the sidewalk is too crowded for running, let's create slow moving running crowd in the bike lanes then.

Is the road just for cars?

The road is for all vehicles. The bike lane is for bikes only. The sidewalk is for pedestrians only. What's so hard to understand?

I encountered some fool jogging in the bike lane recently, where there was an huge empty sidewalk. This was on a descent where I am normally doing 30mph. The bike lane was easily wide enough for the both of us, but the fool was in the left half of it, and I didn't want to take my chances passing him on the right and getting caught between him and the curb if he veered toward it, since the fool had his back to me. So I passed him while on the white line dividing a 4-lane street from a 5-foot-wide bike lane, then listened to him screaming and ranting at me after I passed.

And just for the record, I have been alternating my workouts between cycling and jogging, and I use sidewalks for running.

It probably is softer, but it's also rough like sandpaper. I don't think that necessarily you take less damage on asphalt.

I am skeptical of the claims it makes a difference. How many people are so heavy they can measurably compress asphalt??? And if you really care about your feet/knees/legs, you don't use shoes with fat padding that make you heel strike. I run in Vibram Five Fingers which let me run the way man was intended, i.e. landing on the forefoot, so the calf can smoothly lower the heel to the ground.

sidewalks are built for pedestrians, bike lanes for bikes. am I missing something here?

That's a good point, I don't know if it's legal to jog or walk in the roadway. What is the law here? And would a flat paved area created for foot traffic that is located roughly 6 feet from the roadway have any bearing on the legality of foot traffic on a roadway?

That part we can agree on. A bit of mutual respect and understanding goes a long way, but those two things are sadly lacking when it comes to transportation. I think a lot of us are culprits in that though- many bikers don't try to understand and respect pedestrians any more than pedestrians try to understand and respect bikers. Which is what this whole debate really boils down to.

Depends on where you live. In many areas, it's legal as long as you run facing the flow of traffic and don't interfere with the normal flow of traffic (aka you have to get out of the way if there's a car or bike). In other areas, it may be illegal but they won't enforce it unless you're interfering in some significant way or cause an accident. Keep in mind that most traffic laws have a clause for what is practicable and safe- meaning they would factor in outside conditions like the presence/useability of the sidewalk and the condition of the road itself, just like they should for bikers. I've never seen a jogger cited or even warned for being in the street as long as they weren't causing a problem, and I've been running off and on for 10 years. We don't have bike lanes here (I wish) but I imagine it'd be about the same.

I'm not even going to bother going and finding it, but there were two posts in this thread that made me mad. Not just wow mad. But upset because we, as cyclists, are suppose to be objective.

"asphalt is not softer than concrete." Really Einstein? Is this your professional opinion, or did you just feel qualified to make this random bull**** assessment from inside the cab of your pickup truck? Because that's the type of logic you've engaged when you made this astute assessment of density-to-mass.

Concrete is an artificial material similar to stone that is used for many different structural purposes. It is made by mixing several different coarse aggregates such as sand and pebbles with water and cement and then allowing it to harden by hydration. Hydration causes crystals to form that interlock and bind together. According to the Brooklyn Public Library, concrete was first made in 500 BC and can last up to 50,000 years. Concrete is one of the most important building materials. From sidewalks to skyscrapers, we see concrete everyday everywhere. There are many different kinds of concrete. Reinforced concrete is strengthened by steel. This is done by casting concrete around steel rods or bars and most large structures such as bridges need this extra strong concrete. Prestressed concrete is made by casting concrete around steel cables stretched by hydraulic jacks. After the concrete hardens the jacks are released and the cables compress the concrete. Concrete when compressed is the strongest. This type of concrete is used for floors and roofs as well as other things. Precast concrete is cast and hardened before being used for construction. Precasting makes it possible to produce a mass number of concrete building materials. Nearly all of prestressed concrete is precast as are concrete blocks. Concrete blocks are made in various weights and sizes and they are used to make about two-thirds of masonry walls in the US. Engineers have designed kinds of concrete for certain uses. Air-entrained concrete is good in harsh weather and is used for roads and airport runways. High-early-strength Concrete is used in hurried jobs and cold weather because it hardens quicker than ordinary concrete. Lightweight concrete weighs less than any other concrete because it is made from pumice: a naturally light mineral.
Katrina Jones -- 1999

Density of concrete: 1750–2400 kg/m3

Significantly more difficult to find any physics info on asphalt. It's usually put down onto compacted dirt at less than 3 inches (20MM according to Wikipedia). It is used because of its ability to absorb energy, specifically sound. Since all energy is waves, it doesn't take a genius (or someone making random uneducated guesses) to figure out that when a foot hits the ground, it generates energy (also known as waves) which are absorbed based on these same principles.

Asphalt, crushed: 721-1000 kg/m3

tl;dr

concrete is upwards of 5-10 inches thicker, and twice the density (m3) of asphalt. It has significantly limited absorb ability; asphalt is used specifically for its ability to absorb energy.


To the gentleman who implied that softer, more cushioned shoes were the answer. Please be prepared for all the doctor's appointments that should be set up at your orthopedic institute.

Telling a runner with a neutral gait and no excessive weight issues to "buy a shoe that can absorb all the shock" is not only misinformation, you're going to cause them permanent, life-altering damage to their joints, their running style and probably cripple them. Good game.

tl;dr

Don't tell people to wear a specific shoe to accommodate your bias, you can't afford the lawsuits based on your misinformation.

I see this all the time on the Spadina Crescent bike lane here in Saskatoon. There's a beautiful pathway on the river bank, just a few meters away, but they want to run against traffic in a bike lane, on the road. Oh, and the pathway is also asphalt, so it's not a preference for one surface over another. I just don't get it.

Only variable I could think of is high-crime areas? If given the choice of running along a lake versus traffic, I'd take the lake 10/10 times.

I've seen this behavior steadily increasing where I live too. Probably some runner's bright idea that made it outside of a web forum and into a fitness magazine or vice versa. Just one more obstacle to avoid...or potentially have you thrown into traffic.

It's a big city or NYC thing. Out of the city, people are so nice to each other on the greenways that it feels weird.

People have been running before Sen. Gore invented the internet. Hard to believe, I know!