Post by Peter Ellis on Jun 13, 2011 12:33:43 GMT 1
Istria seems to be a Mecca for cyclists, particularly in the spring and autumn.
One thing that does concern me, though, is that some of our roads are highly unsuitable for cyclists, who take their life in their hands cycling on them
The Porec-Novigrad road is a good example. Although a trunk road, it is narrow and two commercial vehicles, trucks, buses, etc., have barely room to pass each other. In places, there is a deep drainage channel only a few centimetres from the edge of the asphalt. Any cyclist going into it would break their neck. In other places, there are rock walls, leaving nowhere to go in an emergency. The hilly parts, where cyclists are likely to be going slowly, are windy and the first a truck going even at 40kph is going to know about a cyclist struggling up hill at 10kph around a bend is when he is right on him. If something is coming the other way at the same time, there is nowhere to go. He cannot go left or right and there is insufficient stopping distance to avoid hitting the cyclist, who, because of the nature of the sides, has no chance to get out of the way either. A helmet is going to be irrelevant in this situation, going under a truck or bus.
Similar situations are possible on other roads, but this is the most dangerous one that I know. This is one road that it is definitely better not to cycle along.
One thing that does concern me, though, is that some of our roads are highly unsuitable for cyclists, who take their life in their hands cycling on them
The Porec-Novigrad road is a good example. Although a trunk road, it is narrow and two commercial vehicles, trucks, buses, etc., have barely room to pass each other. In places, there is a deep drainage channel only a few centimetres from the edge of the asphalt. Any cyclist going into it would break their neck. In other places, there are rock walls, leaving nowhere to go in an emergency. The hilly parts, where cyclists are likely to be going slowly, are windy and the first a truck going even at 40kph is going to know about a cyclist struggling up hill at 10kph around a bend is when he is right on him. If something is coming the other way at the same time, there is nowhere to go. He cannot go left or right and there is insufficient stopping distance to avoid hitting the cyclist, who, because of the nature of the sides, has no chance to get out of the way either. A helmet is going to be irrelevant in this situation, going under a truck or bus.
Similar situations are possible on other roads, but this is the most dangerous one that I know. This is one road that it is definitely better not to cycle along.