Police in Devon stop cyclist riding the wrong way... along the M5 Motorway

Many moons ago when I was an inexperienced-at-riding-on roads-20-year-old on holiday in France with my then-boyfriend, we were riding along a road which we stayed on as it branched to the right and went uphill. Fortunately it didn't take us long to realise that it was a slip-road onto a motorway. Cue quick dismount, turn around and walk back to somewhere a bit more sensible. Panic over! :\

When I did my LeJog, my GPS insisted that I had to take a motorway turnoff, despite being set to 'cycling' mode, and I having deselected motorways and major A roads as options. So I guess it would be possible. In this case I navigated round it manually.

Long sections of boring straight road...not my idea of a nice ride!

Stumbled onto the busiest stretch of dual carriageway ever; it lead directly off a motorway with cars doing about 90mph in two narrow lanes.

oh wait - no - it was a time trial and i was racing at the time. my mistake.

Once did a group ride on the M40 between Warwick and Banbury - it was a lovely clear, run too, early on a Sunday (the week before it was opened to traffic)

It's always been an ambition of mine to actually ride down the M1 as fast as I could between 2 junctions just to say I'd done it. Christmas Day afternoon would be the best bet I reckon. I'm not thinking of a mid week jaunt. I'm not totally mental!!

If there's a decent hard shoulder it's not so bad.

I ride almost every day on sections of road that are major urban arteries or the equivalent of motorways, and UAE drivers are much faster and scarier than anything in Europe.

Not that I'm advocating them allowing bicycles on motorways but I feel safer there than I do going out in the lanes of Surrey.

On a motorway you largely have no interaction with the cars - you aren't coming into their lanes to get around parked cars, buses etc, you aren't expecting them to slow down or let you in, and there is no white van hidden by a hedgerow about to come around the corner.

There's very little conflict, which I think is the cause of many problems and much of the anger motorists seem to have at cyclists in the UK.

Of course if someone does get me it will be a bus or 4WD falling asleep at 120km/h and that will be the end.

Ironically the best cure for being on a motorway by mistake is probably to turn around straight away and ride off it - in the wrong direction

Even a busy dual carriageway can feel like a terrifying mistake if you accidentally get onto one due to an error in navigation while touring. I hope I never go one better and end up on a motorway. I presume your best option is to hop over the barrier and carry your bike back to civilisation over fields and bushes, if it's even possible.

Wasn't there a thing a couple of years ago in CW about a sportive being mistakenly directed down a motorway?

We ended up an a French motorway once just outside Grenoble. Scary. Fortunately, there was another junction very soon after and we made a safe exit.

Over here, I called the police once when I saw a cyclist* riding down the hard shoulder of the M60.

*I say "cyclist", it was some bloke on a supermarket special with a carrier bag of shopping on the handlebars.

Cleary a demand for a motorway parallel cycle route...

Often "cyclists" are mistaken for people on bicycles there is a BIG difference.

IMHO being a cyclist is largely an attitude.

I got on an unrestricted section of the North Circular last year - never again - it was the most scary 30 minutes of cycling I've ever done.

I've done this in Portugal. By mistake. I was travelling in the direction of the traffic though and took the first available exit.

happens to the best of us. Spent the scariest 10 cycling minutes of my life on Autobahn 14 near Magdeburg after a wrong turn...