• Lets see if I can explain.
    Basically Germany has cycle lanes that are mandatory to use, then using the road is illegal. Not using them will not show on the tracker, but using them will be safer and if something happens while you ride on the main road when there is one of the mandatory lanes you will more liable.

    When not in Towns/villages this means you have a 2 Meter strip running either left or right next to the road. Those are often great because you wont get run over and sometimes have better surface, but sometimes more windy and up/downhill than the road or have tight bends, barriers keeping cars out etc. The problem is to actually see where they start when the village ends. Thats where you have to pay attention if you see the blue sign with the bike. The blue signs with bike and pedestrians basically mean shared sidewalk that is mandatory to use often used in villages.

    I took a random maps screenshot, as an example where you would have to cross the road when coming from the right to join the cycle way where the white cars are parked.

    Also outside villages speed limit is 100km/h which means you get close passes from cars doing 120. So even if I miss the entry to the separate lane I will often backtrack or go over the grass for my own safety. Drivers get quite annoyed when you don't use them.
    The Bike in red circle means no bicycles. Mostly used when theres works going on or the road is to fast.

  • Cool. I'll try to remember that. But annoyed drivers mean they know where I am which is better than distracted drivers. I'm mostly worried about accidentally taking illegal roads and getting time penalties. I want a clean race like last year.

  • No pictures though. Pff. But I guess blue sign with white bike and red circle with black bike on white are easy.
    Loads of fast group rides don't use those parallel lanes because they really are slowing you down.
    To get onto them often means slowing down for a very sharp bend, and sometimes it feels like you do twice the climbing than you would on the road. They often have faster tarmac because they are newer than the road, but they tend to have more crap on them also.
    I use them, but not sure if I'd bother in a race, guess when you share the roads for 5000kms with idiots in cars you don't care about some additional german idiots.

    One picture works. So you go through the village at speed, village end means slow down, check over shoulder, go left across road, two sharp turns, pick up speed again.
    Also I ride mostly Brandenburg, so while the rules and general layout are the same, what you find might be diferent.

About

Avatar for hippy @hippy started