However, my cycling is really recreational in skill and speed, even when my destination is not recreational, e.g. work. My brother is a true serious cyclist who commutes exclusively by bike and rides daily in rain or snow, daylight and dark, just about anywhere. He maintains that bike paths are not a solution for commuting or serious cycle transportation–they are too slow, limited in scope, don’t connect well with other streets, often inadequately maintained, and cluttered with pedestrians, strollers, and weaving recreational riders who don’t know standard cycling rules of the road, He can cycle as fast as most vehicles on surface streets with 35 mile/hour speed limits and it would both slow him down and be dangerous for him to hop on and off of bike paths during his transportation routes. Now, best I know, my brother follows the rules of the road just like he is in an automotive vehicle. But, the other kind of “serious cyclist” is the sports cyclist who rides in packs of extremely conditioned cycliists who are riding for sport, not transportation. The latter are the folks who are probably annoying everyone. They are so focussed on speed, competition, drafting one another, etc. that they ignore the fact that they are on public roads with rules. They would be less intrusive if they would get their kicks at a velodrome or way out in the country where there’s no dense traffic. But it would probably take a lot of enforcement of traffic laws to change the culture of sports cyclists.