Below is a video I took this morning of my ride to work. It’s a digital camera velcroed to the bars of the bike then stuck onto youTube, so please excuse the poor quality. I’ve also split the video into two parts.
Video 1: Wylam Avenue – Thompson Street – North Road (Whessoe Road Junction)
Video 2: North Road (Whessoe Road Junction) – Whessoe Road – Brinkburn Road – Salsbury Terr – Greenbank Road – Duke Street – Abbey Road
Nice one Mike. Vids clear enough to get a feel for your commute. I don’t think I spotted a single cycling-specific measure on your route, other than the little bit of “cycle route” on Greenbank Road but correct me if I’m wrong.
It looked like a high-energy battle with traffic for much of the time, the kind of journey that puts a lot of people off cycling. Maybe your young body doesn’t yet feel it, but I start to get neck muscle pains after 20mins of traffic-fighting cycling. Then there’s the regular encounters with car exhausts, the weaving in and out to get to the front of long queues at traffic lights, the occasional lack of space for passing traffic keen to get ahead. Psychologically a strain, even if physically healthy.
It would be an interesting contrast for me to film my commute to the station (which I’ll do in the next week or so), where I avoid traffic as much as possible, use pavements, cycle more leisurely etc. I can’t always avoid heavy traffic, but I reckon with these two examples we’d have the two main cyclist-types illustrated.
You’re right on the no specific cycling measures; I don’t think there are any other than the signs on Greenbank Road.
I could however, ride along the Riverside Path and then through North Park, the Brinkburn nature reserve and the path by the Brinkburn pub. that route would also get me from home to work, with almost no time spent on any roads.
However, I decided that dodging dog walkers on the way to work and riding on unlit cycleways on the way home was more stressful than dodging the traffic…
Actually, I just remembered the cycle path over the top of the railway bridge on Thompson Street on my way home. So, that’s one piece.