Cycling in Geneva

I cycle pretty much every day in the city, and have been doing so since March.  I've seen a few things, learnt a lot, so this post introduces cycling in Geneva and talks about what Geneva is like for cyclists, why it is easy and a few of the hazards. I have other alien experiences not related in this post, so will maybe come back to them later. Enjoy the read...


Getting Around Geneva by Bike
Geneva is an easy cycling city, it naturally has some good things going for it, wide roads, a small geographic area and a reasonably large cycling population.  These things give the rider a sporting chance by making them highly visible on the roads and ensuring a decent number of car, truck and bus drivers know to look out for them. Cyclists in Geneva are favoured by the city's efforts to make their journeys safe and simpler.

Where to cycle in Geneva
Where to cycle in Geneva is quite a simple question, mostly the answer is near the edge, between the yellow broken lines and the kerb. On most roads cyclists are separated by yellow broken lines from cars and bikes and pretty often from buses and trams as well.  On bigger roads further out of town extra wide, beautifully tarmacked, pavements where pedestrians and cyclists are separated and you can really fly along these. Occasionally in the centre of the city cyclists have  a piece of pavement dedicated to them, often these are not as nicely maintained as those out of town, and as a purist this doesn't appeal to me.  A cyclist needs to stay alert on these stretches for people crossing the cycle-path, delivery vans pulling up onto it, and people who straying into it without paying attention.

Some local knowledge is useful
Though Geneva is no Copenhagen, where an estimated half of all journeys are made by bike, cycling is a popular means of getting around the city, because the weather is good, the distances are short and the roads are fairly safe, at least in summer.  The city is a fairly easy place to cycle and if you are new to the city, heading out on roads you don't know isn't really that worrying, because you're not likely to find yourself on a packed intersection with a half a dozen exits - because there aren't any. However, that isn't to suggest you can be complacent - despite the cycle friendly infrastructure, which includes cyclist specific traffic lights that give them a head-start on the rest of the traffic. In my own experience the biggest danger to cyclists in Geneva are the trams.

Falling off the bike
Since I was about 9 I've only done this three times, and twice of those were here in Geneva, both times because my front wheel got caught in the tram tracks. The first time was on a dry day, I was going like the clappers and I miss judged getting over the tram tracks, because I wasn't used to them being there.  Personally I'd never cycled in a city with tram tracks and so had little idea how to negotiate them.  At high speed I managed to plant the front tyre in the track, came flying off, wrecking my jeans and putting a nice hole in my knee.  About six weeks later on a wet day my tyre lost grip when it crossed a tram track and I went tumbling to the floor. This time I happened to have over trousers on and wasn't going so fast, so I slid, rather than bounced, but the result was undignified and painful.  Since these two experiments in self-destruction I've been both more careful, and more sensible about how I cross tram-tracks. I know make sure my tyres cross the track at a greater angle and I also make sure I cross tracks at low speeds, to minimise the disaster if I do come off my bike. These things help, but don't remove all the danger of trams.

The junction looked clear!
The other major danger trams pose is the confusion they contribute to priorities at traffic lights. Trams have their own lights and their own priority at junctions where they interact with other traffic, knowing what these lights mean can be useful to a cyclist following the tramlines. But if you aren't following the tramlines, and you arrive at a junction which appears to be empty, be careful because it might be that the traffic has stopped to allow a bus or a tram to breeze quickly through.  I'm glad I've never been surprised by a tram, not even slightly, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I have heard stories about people being taken out by a tram, and that I imagine to be a very unpleasant experience, if you ever remember it. It is the only thing about cycling in the city which might be alien to many cyclists new to the city, but a little common sense and caution means it really should be nothing to worry about. This does depend somewhat on the level of peer pressure you come under to ignore your own common sense, but more of that in another post...