Avoiding congestion in Dublin city centre by using the Grand Canal cycle route

Wizardej

I have to admit I used to cycle on that path before I got used to the cobbles every day. It's grand when you get used to it though is it good for the tyres if they are very pumped up? I'm more wary of the actual cycle path now especially at night with some people doing some crazy overtaking with no lights and all dressed in black!! I'm lit up like a Christmas tree but still having close calls.

Valentine1

DaithiMC wrote: »

What ticks me off is the City Council trying to pass off something as a cycleway when it obviously isn't. Not many of us would share your desire to have a Paris-Roubaix section on our commute. I go round to Macken Street these days.

Fair enough but it's only 300 metres long and neither I nor anybody else along there is taking part in the Paris-Roubaix, the cobbles really aren't that bad. Chris Froome might be right to worry about his precision carbon machine on the cobbles of Northern France but Joe commuter on his beater has little to worry about.

Obviously it isn't an ideal surface for a cycle path but my only point is that is not so bad that people need to zoom along the narrow paths, I've had a number of near comings together whilst walking on that street.

I used to go around by Barrow Street when on my road bike but that surface is so potholed I'm more likely to damage a wheel there than on the cobbles.

check_six

I sort of like the cobbles. I love the time machine effect that going from the cobbles on Clanwilliam Terrace to the super smooth tarmac of Grand Canal Quay (just after the "Time Tunnel" that the trains go over).

The cobbled road that goes down the side of RCSI on Stephen's Green is always a laugh when it gets wet and/or icy. By laugh I mean a white knuckle terror ride, of course. (But still fun!).

There used to be a great patch of cobbles on Mayor St Upper in what is now part of the IFSC. The road was very wide and had very little traffic, so high margin for error. You could really bounce along at a decent pace there.

I realise I may be in a minority here...

monument

The Dutch are phasing out the use of bricks* on cycle paths, with older routes replaced by the smooth surface. * = these are bricks which come nowhere as near the discomfort as cobblestones.

It just does not compute that TCD can get rid of lines of cobblestones from their main courtyards and all around the campus for access but the city council can't do the same in an area with modern office buildings. The objections due to removal of parking seems to have played a larger roll in this.

Then what makes it worse is it's cobblestones followed by:

1. crapy cycle lane at the junction

2. shared space across the square

3. a junction without anything showing there will be cyclists traveling onto and off the square

4. more of nothing showing the route

5. more crap cycle lanes filtering into the advanced stop box

6. a stretch of cycleway with only a tiny footpath beside it so people walk on both

7. a cycleway which narrows to nothing

8. shared use on a corner with no sightlines

9. a few of unneeded shared use junctions

tomasrojo

After the cobblestones, I hadn't a clue what was going on. I nearly got off and walked because I thought I'd blundered into a pedestrian zone.

DaithiMC

Valentine1 wrote: »

Fair enough but it's only 300 metres long and neither I nor anybody else along there is taking part in the Paris-Roubaix, the cobbles really aren't that bad. Chris Froome might be right to worry about his precision carbon machine on the cobbles of Northern France but Joe commuter on his beater has little to worry about.

Obviously it isn't an ideal surface for a cycle path but my only point is that is not so bad that people need to zoom along the narrow paths, I've had a number of near comings together whilst walking on that street.

I used to go around by Barrow Street when on my road bike but that surface is so potholed I'm more likely to damage a wheel there than on the cobbles.

I don't disagree with that and I am fortunate my commute ends in Pearse St so I have the option to go around to Macken Street but the presence of the cobbles does act as an incentive for people to use the footpath.