The mathematics of Sky Ride

For the most part, the road space was two lanes wide. A single lane of motorway can accomodate 2100 cars/hour. So this road could have accomodated 4200 cars/hour, perhaps a bit more at slower speeds. Skyride had 85,000 participants, so the peak flows would have been what, 20,000 maybe 30,000 bikes/hour? That should give you an insight into how inefficiently we use roadspace in central London, when we allow almost total domination by motor vehicles thereby scaring would-be cyclists off the road.

And a recumbent cyclist heads home after London Sky Ride:

A great day, overshadowed rather on my way home by an idiot who overtook me when cycling along Hampton Court road, between Kingston and Hampton Court. I was about ten metres from queuing traffic. He screeched past me at maximum revs, he then swerved hard left in-front of me because he'd just noticed that the road was full of cars, which were plainly visible only metres ahead. I shouted at him: 'that was bloody clever'.
Naturally, I left the idiot behind in the traffic.

‘Recumbenteer’

from the Comments to this