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Quest 474 - Trying out the sidepath between Fleron and Herve

198 views · Published 2 February 2013 · 2:01 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: SaintJohn1 · 2013 · Sports

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Today I tried riding on the the sidepath between Fleron and Herve, Belgium. The entire "route de Herve" road has recently been redone, at great expense (that's our taxes by the way) without asking the local cycling associations their opinion about the planned layout of the cycle facilities.

The result is this: hateful sidepaths and sidewalks that nobody uses - cyclists or pedestrians. In case you wonder, a sidepath is a bicycle path on a sidewalk. In this case, they've used green paving stones to distinguish the cycle path from the regular sidewalk, made of red paving stones.

The trouble is wih sidepaths is:

- You share the sidewalk with pedestrians who don't know - or care - about the subtle distinction between cycle path and sidewalk. Fortunately for bikers, no pedestrian in their right mind seem to want to take a stroll there.

- You have to ride up and down curb cuts every 30 feet.

- You have to stop at every intersection and go down the curb, and back up the next curb to climb back up the sidewalk.

- The sidewalk is slanted. For those of use who ride on three wheels, compensating for sidewalk crown gets tiring very fast.

- You have to contend with poles planted in the middle of the cycle path, billboards, bits of glass and other crud that's been blown off the main road onto the sidewalk/sidepath.

In this video, you see me climb onto the dedicated sidepath, only to get off it about halfway through the video to rejoin the main road, which visibly provides a much faster and much smoother ride.

In short: sidepaths are great for beginners. For anybody who cycles regularly, they suck pond water from the bottom, and are a wasteful use of road space and tax money.

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