Origin and destination

A few years ago I read an article, I forget where, which said something to the effect that there was no such thing as a road bike or a mountain bike, there was just bike. The point being, do not get hung up on having a specialized bike for each purpose, rather just use the bike you have at the moment to fill your needs. Of course there are limitations to this philosophy, e.g., I would hate to slog through a boulder strewn mudhole of a trail on a carbon fiber bike with 20mm wide tires, but to a degree any bike can fill a range of purposes.

A corollary to the statement above is that there is just cyclist, not road cyclist, not mountain cyclist, not commute cyclist, etc. I am a cyclist. I ride on roads, I ride on dirt (a little less, perhaps), I ride on the track, I ride for recreation, I tour on a bike, I commute on a bike, and I use a bike as a transport mechanism for cargo as well as myself. There are too many labels to apply, but just one will do: cyclist.

As a cyclist, I ride where I have to ride to accomplish whatever task is appropriate. Most of the time I want to get from point A to point D, and the route chosen is bound to a large extent by those two points, the origin and the destination. I do not choose points A and D because of the type of route that connects them; point A is where I am and point D is where I want to go, and the route is then chosen to connect the dots as effectivley as possible.

The current issue of Momentum has an article on riding in cities based upon a limited survey done by a researcher in Vancouver, BC. The article hints that city planners and cycling advocates should work towards implementing the preferences from this limited study, bike-only paths and multi-use paths (MUPs), rather than focusing on accommodations in the current road infrastructure. The problem with that type of focus, towards paths, is that until the path network is more or less as dense as the current road network the use of such paths becomes a route-centric view of cycling rather than an origin and destination centric view. In other words, my trip now goes from point B to point C because a path exists, even though I really want to get from A to D. How do I get from A to B and then from C to D? How much longer is the A-B, B-C, C-D combination then a more direct road-based trip from A-D? Factor into this discussion the fact that MUPs are among the most dangerous places to cycle, so if the objective is safe carriage then we are really talking of bicycle specific accommodations (paths) if the objective is to create a ’safe environment’ to foster cycling rather than the illusion of one. Creating an origin-destination centric network of such paths seems to be a rather daunting, and expensive, task. So I have to ask, can we afford to insist on separate accommodations, fighting for scarce resources to create a limited network of routes that do not get us from our origins to our destination just so we can be separated from other traffic? Or do we accommodate, learn the skills necessary to share the roads, teach others those skills, lobby to get better driver education and testing, and work to foster a better environment with the resources currently available? I am a cyclist, and my answer is I want to get from point A to point D and I will choose the path that accomplishes the goal today. See you on the road, trail, track, or path, whichever is close and available at the moment.