The differences between bikes is immaterial compared to the differences between riders, and those differences will occur everywhere.Chris Bertram wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 16:19 I started to compose a post pointing out the difference between Dutch and British bikes, but it was going nowhere. However, might those differences, and the consequent differencesin the behaviour of their riders, suggest different requirements for the infrastructure provided?
I have three bikes - a reasonably lightweight road-ish bike with 18 gears, a heavy city bike with 3 gears, and a Brompton. It's true that over a longer distance - say commuting, which is 20 km each way in my case - I will generally be quicker overall on the first, slower on the second and somewhere in between on the third. But the difference will be disproportionately be on (a) uphills and (b) against the wind. Speeds on the flat will differ little, and on the one decent downhill I will do 40-ish km/h on any of them if the traffic allows. Speeds in town, where there is more sharing between modes, and more traffic generally, are even more uniform, governed as they are by what is safe rather than what I or my bike are capable of.
Everyone reasonable accepts that they can't drive, cycle or even walk at the maximum possible speed they might choose because infrastructure isn't infinite or perfect, and there are other road users around. The last third of my route to work takes more like half the time because it's in town and there are other people
What is, however, not acceptable on any level is for "society", i.e. transport authorities, to decide that it is OK to force cyclists to slow down more, stop more, go round more awkward bends, up and down more hills, through more pinch points etc. on "cycle paths" than they would have to on the road, just because drivers might be delayed by 30 seconds.