Cycle path psychopaths

It's that time of year again, now that the clocks have changed when I think about cycling to work once more. Lighter nights and mornings, warmer temperatures, the increasing cost of diesel and a spreading waistline all mean it makes sense. A 22 mile round trip means it doesn't.
However my memory is short, so I forgot all the aches and pains caused last year, and on Monday I got out my bike and set off to work at 5 a.m.
I have two choices of route to work - one takes me along a disused railway line which at the nearest end is unmetalled, rough, bumpy and filled with rabbit holes. This necessitates a very powerful headlamp, as hitting one of these mini quarries at 15 mph is enough to send you over the handlebars, and straight to casualty. The latter end of this line is tarmac but strewn with burnt out cars, mopeds broken glass and burglars returning home from the night shift - in fact the nearer to Hull you get the more hazardous it becomes.
The alternative route is along the A1033, the main road running between Hull and Withernsea, which now is mostly a 30mph limit, which means cars are passing within an inch of your handlebars at only around 50 mph most days. On reaching the city boundary there is a cycle track. This should be good news but isn't.
Many years ago representatives of Hull City Council went on what they called a "fact finding tour" of Holland to study their cycle lanes before they built some in Hull. The same trip might be called a free holiday, a junket, or a waste of tax payers money. I am not sure what they did there, but I suspect they smoke some of the locally produced tobacco, as clearly they forgot all they had learnt about cycle lanes. I've been to Holland, and when not visiting prostitutes and smoking dope, and if not busy with their fingers in dykes (the dams that is, not lesbian prostitutes) the Hollandish people ride cycles. A lot. They do good cycle track. Their tracks are flat, level, well maintained and importantly SEPERATED from other traffic. They are not simply a bit of road with a different coloured surface and some white paint. They are purpose built, not a pavement split in half. They have to function well, as everybody in Holland has about 12 bikes each. They have one to ride to the train station, which they leave there, and one at the station at the other end of the line which they ride to work. Then they have a shopping bike, a bike for leisure, a bike for visiting prostitutes on, a holiday bike and bizarrely, in a country renown the world over for being flat, a Mountain bike. This makes for rather a lot of cycles on the road. They have multistorey cycle parks, there are so many.
Hull is of course a flat city. Possibly the flattest city in the UK, so you would think Hull City Council would really promote cycling, and possibly electric cars as well, but they do for both what John Prescott does for Weight Watchers. And the cycle paths they came up with are a joke.
Take the example I use alongside Hedon Road (A1033) from Saltend into the city. This a shared cycle and footpath, with a thick white line separating the two. I ride a cross mountain cycle - not an angry bike as the name might suggest, but a cross between a road bike and a mountain cycle. This gives me a compromise between a heavy duty frame and forks, capable of the abuse metered out by the potholed roads of the city, with road gearing and chunky road tyres capable of off road use but equally capable and grippy on the streets. What they do not grip on is slippery white lines which are raised about 1/2 an inch above the tarmac. White lines on roads are generally invisible or worn out, yet these are surprisingly well maintained and surprisingly slippery. Particularly at 20 to 25 mph which is reasonably achievable on the bike I ride.
At each junction, wherever the cycle track crosses a driveway, road, factory entrance etc they have seen fit to put those little nobbly pavers that let blind people know there is a road crossing. This is all very well on the pavement, but not on the cycle track, because at that point you are braking and steering, and loose grip again just at the critical moment. To make things worse the major junctions have barriers to steer around which necessitate a tight ninety degree turn, which is impossible even at low speed with no grip, turning and braking at the same time. They may as well have spread custard there. Why do we need those nobbly pavers there? I appreciate that there are a few blind cyclists around, but in my experience they ride tandems with a sighted rider at the front doing the navigation, braking and steering. An important safety tip, i feel, is not to put the blind person in charge. And even if he was up front I believe that they "see" the nobbles by feeling them through the soles of their feet - not helpful when your feet are on the pedals and you are sensing through the tyres via the frame and handlebars. And even if you did detect the nobbly pavers you would have to be doing less than walking pace to react and stop in time. So, HCC do away with those please. And whilst your at it remove the fluted pavers which act like tramlines to steer you into the railings as you try to negotiate the turn.
Next trim back the hedges and trees that border the cycle path and shield the view of traffic turning into the side roads so that cyclists can see it and vice versa. Also trim back the trees and hedges that border the track generally so that cyclists don't get soaked through with rain and dew as they cycle down avoiding the occasional pedestrian they might come across.
My next gripe is that whilst the cycle track is clearly marked with red coloured tarmac, lots of signs and white paint nothing is done about the cars that park on it, so cyclists have to swerve around these as well as other unexpected hazards. Amongst these is a bus shelter right in the middle of the cycle lane and believe it or not a post box. Yes instead of moving the pillar box the cycle lane deviates around it in a little chicane - not a sweeping diversion you might expect, but a slalom worthy of Cloisters. And the nearer to the city centre you get the more vague the cycle path becomes, petering out unexpectedly, then reappearing ambiguously at a set of traffic lights before disappearing again and then rejoining the road and mixing it with buses and heavy goods vehicles with the cyclist protected by nothing more than a faded line of white paint.
Some may say that cyclists deserve nothing better, as we pay no road tax, etc etc. however I hasten to point out that I DO pay road tax, I've paid it for the car I've left at home in order to risk my life and sanity for to ride the damn bike in the first place.
Once all that is done maybe, just maybe I will enjoy that 22 mile journey. If only the weather would improve too.