CapSizer

Agreed. I was really expecting it to be done properly, but it's far from good. There's a sidewalk, but it's full of obstacles.

Rules don't come into it. Many buses are totally packed during peak hours, so getting on with a bike is simply physically impossible. On the trunk route, at least, another bus will be along soon, so it's simply a case of waiting for one that has space. I have to say, the bus commuters are very tolerant, not seen a dirty look yet.

Have to agree completely with you. Here's the trick with using bikes to get the cars out of the city - If people have to walk, you need nearly everywhere to be within 1 or at most 2 km of a railway station, which is very difficult to achieve. If bikes and safe parking for bikes are available, then you only need everywhere to be within say 5 km of a railway station. Much more achievable. Which is why the Dutch build these huge bike parking facilities at their railway stations. This is dreaming of Utopia, of course, but we can start fixing existing rail facilities now, and start building new facilities and infrastructure. Now.

Definitely agreed on the need for hard engineering, although many cities in the world have done exactly that ... I keep looking at the Google Earth images and consistently fail to come up with a viable alternative route. Having said all that, crazy as it is, I don't find it particularly intimidating, mostly because the traffic goes quite slowly. I went down there by car yesterday, and it is easy to see why. There are so many obstacles and threats (badly parked cars, pedestrians crossing anywhere, street vendors, heavy traffic, bergies, etc.) that there is no temptation to drive fast. It is the clear wide open stroads, which invite drivers to go fast, that I fear.

I would respectfully beg to disagree with that statement. Yes, the layout of the city is awkward and inefficient, but an efficient and comprehensive urban railway system would go a long way towards dealing with that. NMT only works with very good public transit. Biking works with public transit. Yes ... I know. We don't do efficient. But without quality public transit we are inevitably doomed to car hell.

Much has been written on this topic. I am currently reading Dan Piatkowski's "Bicycle City". To be honest, so far he hasn't mentioned anything that I haven't read elsewhere, but I guess it is a good summary. Long story short ... it helps to frame the question as "How do we make the city a place that works for people, rather than for cars." That leads to concepts of livable cities and equitable access. Bikelanes are a big part of making all that happen, but not an end in themselves. Cape Town's current approach is basically just pretending to do the right things.

Good question. If it is not separated with a substantial barrier, I would say no. Looking at Octotel in particular, who believe that the bike lane was provided as free parking for their fleet.

I've been through there several times since the resurfacing. The funny thing is that although it is still the wild west, not having any lines has not made it any worse, which tells us that the original painted bike lane was about as useful as the letter "g" in the word phlegm. Class 3 and 4 bikelanes are not NMT infrastructure, just free parking for cars. Narrowing the painted lanes will make it worse though.

I am hoping that the new road layout will make good provision for cyclists. I have not seen the plans (does anybody here know?) but I am under the impression that the city these days puts in decent space for cyclists wherever new roads are built.

Takes a foreigner to point out just how stupid this is. https://youtu.be/QATHqMt3qIs?si=ELvUdrXN6593YbA2

Thanks, good to know. Maybe OK if the welded area is kept inside the clamp ...

Thanks, I will try everyday! I won't try to get it welded. It failed without being heat-affected from welding, so I can't see it being strong enough after welding. It's not as if you can extra material there to make up for that.

Reviving this thread. Yesterday, I made the disappointing discovery that one of the rails on my B17 saddle had broken. On closer inspection, the other one also turned out to be nearly cracked through. I spent the day mentally composing a nasty letter to Brookes about their quality escape, to use Boeing-speak. Today I sat down and did the actual calculations, fully expecting the result to be failure at pathetically low stress. Well, no. Turns out that it failed pretty much on schedule, given the load (105 kg rider), saddle placement and the estimated number of fatigue cycles. So the lesson is, if you are this sort of size, position the rails slap bang in the middle of the possible range, Don't mess around at the limit. Mine was as far back as it could go. So next question, has anybody found a way of getting replacement rails for a B17 that does not involve an ox wagon from England?

Dunno, never done it on a Sunday, but use the MyCiti app to get an idea of schedules. If you want to make sure of avoiding risky areas (Paarden Island being deserted on Sundays) you may want to get on at Zoarvlei and off again at the Civic Centre. The trunk route carries buses from the T01 and T02 routes, and you can get on either. During less busy periods I think the buses run at 20 minute intervals on each route, and during peak periods much more frequently. The big unknown is how full the bus is likely to be, and this can be a bit random. During peak periods in the week they are packed, but one can generally get on OK after 8 in the morning. I would expect the buses not to be very full early on a Sunday morning, but YMMV.

I use the bus for this purpose. I need to get to Rosebank, so I get off/on at the Woodstock bus stop. However, during peak travel hours it is probably not going to be practical to find a spot on the bus. If your travel times are a bit more flexible, using the bus for the risky part is a viable option.