Thank you for the few of you who gave me the useful comments....to the other bunch....well....kind of sad. It is totally legal to ride a bike in a 4 m wide sidewalk here in Barcelona, everybody does it.

As soon as Donald Trump becomes president, bike riding on the sidewalk will be outlawed in Spain.

As soon as Donald Trump becomes president, there will be a total and complete ban of Spaniards entering America.

Don't take it personally. If I told them of my plans to put a Brooks B190 on my fixed gear and cruise down the local sidewalks with my handlebars higher than my saddle, I'd get flack, too.

The local law enforcement here encourages bikers to use the sidewalks on roads without bike lanes. Their view is that a bike+pedestrian collision results in less serious injuries than a bike+auto collision.

Those are nice looking bikes, especially the oversized dedacciai steel. But they are not cheap and note the seat tube angle, not so good for touring the sidewalks. I'd go with the fuji feather or similar at a more reasonable 73 degrees, a lot more fun to ride around town.

Your local law enforcers are, frankly, morons.
(or they WANT cyclists to get killed.)

http://bicyclesafe.com

Adult Bicyclists in the United States

RiskFactors

Riding on the Sidewalk | League of American Bicyclists

If you are 4 years old with training wheels on your bike, the sidewalk is fine. If you are outside of that category, and you are riding on the sidewalk, you are wrong.

Who knows, it may be different in Spain. Maybe that's just the way **** goes over there.

http://bicyclesafe.com/images-collis...swalk-slam.gif

^This one is a little strange for a couple reasons. First is the fact that the crash occurs in the street, not on the sidewalk. Second, they show the biker riding on the wrong side of the road. Why? If the biker is on the correct side of the road, then all the regular safety precautions and risks of crossing the road would apply. You don't just fly through an intersection when there is car traffic without yielding the right of way, regardless of if you are using the bike lane or a crosswalk.



Riding on the Sidewalk | League of American Bicyclists

^If a bicyclist is invisible to a motorist while on the sidewalk, isn't that moot, as motorists don't belong on the sidewalk? When the bicyclist leaves the sidewalk he/she needs to take all the regular precautions of riding on the road.

Also legal to headbutt a brick wall, still stupid and a bad idea.

You can go faster and safer on the road.

I don't think that people will find much support or encouragement anywhere on this forum when it comes to riding on the sidewalk. It may differ in other countries, so take that with a grain of salt. Bicycles do not belong on the sidewalk. We belong on the road, preferably a bike lane if possible.

Or in the center of the lane as allowed by law when necessary for safety.

Usually sidewalk riders are also salmon (riding upstream), but I'll concede that that is not always the case.

If I'm in the regular lane moving with traffic then, yes, I do just fly through a (green light) intersection. The cars in my lane can't right hook me because they're behind or in front of me. If I'm in a bike lane then I have to watch for jackasses who don't check before turning right. (had this happen a few times) The more important point is that, on the sidewalk, every driveway and every parking lot have to be treated like cross streets. Plus, if your city sucks like mine, you'll find a lot of places without any sidewalks, or places where there's a frikkin' curb where the sidewalk crosses over a driveway.



Well, no, it's not moot. It's exactly the point. You're a fast moving vehicle in a place where other vehicle operators aren't looking for you - at all - and you regularly (every block or so) have to leave the sidewalk, enter the road, then re-enter the sidewalk. That's precisely why you're more likely to get hit there. Plus, you'll take a LOT a longer to get anywhere because you'll be slowing down every block or so, at least, to cross the street and get back on the sidewalk.

If you're going very slowly you can probably get away with it. If you're going my normal speed (and I ain't fast) - anywhere from 18-28mph(*) on my usual commute route - you'll get dead trying to ride the sidewalk.

IMO that is plain old dumb and asking for trouble.

When riding on the street I still treat driveways and parking lot entrances with extreme caution. I can't count how many times oncoming cars have made lefts in front of me to enter a shopping center.

This part I don't understand. Not being a smartass or combative. I just don't see it like that. On the rare occasion when I ride on the sidewalk I use the same caution entering the intersection that I would when riding on the street. LOOKING for Joe knucklehead to make a left into me, or the guy who makes a right-on-red in front of me. When I am on the street I slow down when I approach intersection in anticipation of those events. I just assume that ALL motorists are texting ALL the time.

I'll agree that 20mph is way too fast for a sidewalk. You are sharing space with pedestrians so turtle mode is appropriate.

I think it's perceived differently where I live because the sidewalks themselves are different. Unlike a big city where space is at a premium, many of the sidewalks here are WIDE. Like eight and ten feet wide. They are also FAR from the road, not at the curbs edge. Many are on greenbelts probably 15-20 away from the road. They have no furniture or signage on them. Some are stenciled with "bike" and an arrow, but there is no other sidewalks exclusively for pedestrians. Many of our intersections are traffic circles too, so the sidewalks just feed into them with the regular flow of traffic.

I really only use the sidewalk on one bridge I cross over. The bridge has only two lanes, they are narrow as hell, and there is no shoulder, NONE. So a car that needs to get past me will literally have to veer onto the wrong side of the road. Or, some timid drivers will just stay behind me and hold traffic up. Since I can't go 35mph I'd end up with a long line of cars behind me.

I've never actually experienced the left cross. I've only ever been right-hooked when I was in the bike lane and the jackass next to me decided to turn without signaling or bothering to look over. This is a case where being in traffic makes me feel safer. While some moron may not look closely enough to see a bike (covered in yellow with 300+ lumens of flashing light), they won't try to turn across two lanes of on-coming cars and trucks. I think the big problem, really, is that a lot of drivers see us, but they grossly underestimate our speed and, correspondingly, overestimate how much closing time they have to maneuver.

I don't think you're being combative, I think I'm just not being clear. I treat every lighted or signed intersection with due caution, but there a lot of tiny side streets around here that are just two-way stops where crossing traffic (me) isn't expected to stop. I watch for cars there, but I don't treat it like a lighted or four-way stop intersection - I don't slow down unless absolutely have to. Since I'm out playing in traffic, I only slow down where a car would slow down, otherwise I'll get harassed by people in the cars. From my perspective riding in the sidewalk would cause me to treat EVERY intersection as though it had a light or a four way stop and then slow down, or stop, accordingly. Like I said, doable if you're puttering along, but if you're going very fast at all it's better not to.