Adult cyclists who set bad example to children

I MUST take issue with the letter by Robert Heys (Yorkshire Post, June 6) where he criticises my stance with cyclists riding on urban footpaths.

I do not mention anywhere in my letter children cycling to school along Oatlands Drive in Harrogate.

I refer to adult cyclists using the pavements outside St Aidan’s School when there are adequate cycle lanes at both sides of the road.

On the occasions I witnessed this behaviour, the cycle lanes were unobstructed so there was no reason for them to be on the footpath.

My point was that this was a bad example for children to see and could obviously be taken by them as the norm in adulthood.

Fortunately, I see very few children cycling to school along this road which is obviously a godsend for the local pedestrians, as based on his advice we would have up to 3,300 child cyclists riding on the footpath every day outside this school.

From: Gerald Hodgson, Thorney Field, Spennithorne, Leyburn.

I FEEL I must protest at the letter from Robert Heys labelling me as a “cyclophobic”.

As I said in a previous letter, I am a cyclist and was, in fact, advocating much wider legitimate use of footpath space by cyclists.

Where I had agreed with Mr Sturdy was disapproval of ill-disciplined cyclists.

However, I fully agree with Mr Hey that cycle tracks are frequently blocked by cars, forcing cyclists to use other routes.

In any case, the facilities for cycling are woefully inadequate in British cities.