Well, I finally got to ride my bike in Singapore. (You might remember my last trip down there. Okay, you probably don't remember that.) It was actually not as bad as I was expecting. Their bike infrastructure is still basically non-existent. It seems like when Singapore became independent 50 years ago, the government seems to have made a point of being modern. Looking to America for ideas, this meant clearing the roads for cars. So the few bike paths through the city are hidden away in parks and tucked away from the cars. That isn't for me.
The strange thing is that I felt quite comfortable riding on the roads. I am used to riding fast and tangling with traffic. While there really weren't bike lanes or cycle tracks, the main roads generally have two or three lanes. I could usually ride in the center of the right lane and not be bothered at all. Sure, I got honked at a few times, but again I am used to that.What I didn't expect was Singapore to be so big. I hadn't realized that it is about 30 miles across. I never did get the scale of it right. I kept thinking for things to be much closer than they were.
I also heard from several residents about something else. Something they called "night cycling". This would be a group of friends getting together to ride their bikes in the cooler weather after dark and when traffic congestion had died down. At dinner one evening I even saw a group of about a dozen people riding around. It reminded me of Point 83.
-Dravis
The strange thing is that I felt quite comfortable riding on the roads. I am used to riding fast and tangling with traffic. While there really weren't bike lanes or cycle tracks, the main roads generally have two or three lanes. I could usually ride in the center of the right lane and not be bothered at all. Sure, I got honked at a few times, but again I am used to that.What I didn't expect was Singapore to be so big. I hadn't realized that it is about 30 miles across. I never did get the scale of it right. I kept thinking for things to be much closer than they were.
I also heard from several residents about something else. Something they called "night cycling". This would be a group of friends getting together to ride their bikes in the cooler weather after dark and when traffic congestion had died down. At dinner one evening I even saw a group of about a dozen people riding around. It reminded me of Point 83.
-Dravis
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