Awaiting the Giro effect – latest figures show overwhelming preference for car journeys in Northern Ireland

If you want to get a flavour for commuting around Belfast, follow the excellent @nigreenways on Twitter. His latest campaign is to stop the 4000+ private hire taxis from getting access to bus lanes, often the only safe area for cycling into central Belfast.

However, as stated above, cycling has never been as popular over here. Every race event and sportive has had a large upturn in attendees, and new clubs are forming all the time. Cycling is very much a popular reacreational pastime in NI.

I class myself as both a commuter and recreational cyclist, both are very different realities.

Using cycling commuter statics is a poor barometer of cycling popularity, cycling is really popular over here with many new clubs forming and a lot of clubs benefiting from the resurgence in cycling.
So many people new to cycling are to be found on cycle paths during the weekend and i'd hazard a guess that they wouldn't be commuting to work - so does their cycling activity not count?
Similarily, i cycle about 4k miles per year but commute by bike occasionally which would also discount myself.
Sounds like there needs to be a new more relevant poll.

I visited NI for the first time earlier this summer. The weather was bloody awful on the Sunday, but that didn't stop me coming across 100's of cyclist out braving the wind and rain on our drive back to the airport. Chapeau to the lot of them!

There is quite a large number of people who commute in Belfast itself but as Otis said there are a large number of people who live outside the main towns and cities so cycling isn't always practical. That said, there are an increasing number who are driving part of the way and cycling the rest. Part of the problem is the lack of cycling infrastructure in Belfast (and outlying areas). I haven't noticed as much antagonism when riding to work as many people on here would report but that's because there are so few bikes on the road, so in general people are fairly happy to put up with a slight delay, however if the numbers were to grow significantly I could foresee problems.

One unmentioned reason why cycle commuting is so low is the still largely rural nature of NI. Outside of Belfast it is difficult to commute to work due to the distances many people have to travel (in ironically the smallest part of what comes under UK jurisdiction)- for example I have a 52 mile round trip to work. I would even take a pay cut if I could get a job closer to home that would allow me to ride my bike to it.
Obviously driver attitudes leave a lot to be desired as well making the roads, both urban and rural, less attractive to cycle on and there is a car first mentality, but a lot of that grows out of my initial point-due to the rural nature of the region, the first priority of 17 year olds is to pass their driving test so that they can actually get to the nearest towns. That means the bike is not automatically thought of as a means of transport and once the R plates go up then the bike is left in the back of the shed.

Plus I quoted here before in another thread the local blogger who made a good point- the Belfast Marathon doesn't inspire more people to walk to the shops so why would the Giro inspire more people to take up cycling as a transport option as opposed to a sporting activity?