South Perth Rouleurs

Ride Routes 20th – 26th June

The current influx of e-bikes and scooters on our roads and paths today is, in part, thanks to Former Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Barnaby Joyce. Back in 2021 he amended to Road Vehicles Standards Act to remove the requirements that imported e-bikes meet strict Australian or European safety standards. This opened up the market to cheap, high-powered products that are legal to sell, but not necessarily legal to use. In some cases, they should fall under the same rules are electric motorbikes.

The cheap price means that more and more are being sold and are finding their ways onto our roads and paths. In 2017 there were around 9,000 sales of e-bikes and that increased dramatically to 200,000 in 2022. From a transportation sense, this is a great thing. More people commuting by e-bike reduces the load on the roads and public transport, and in places like Perth, where we have an average of 138.7 completely clear days, it makes sense (Melbourne has 48.6).

However, there has been a downside. Unlike the e-scooter revolution that took place before hand, the e-bikes are seen as a more viable way of group riding that has turned into a form of hooning. Mass groups of e-bikes meet up for “rideouts” where they have been condemned by police for their bad and dangerous behaviour. There was one in particular earlier this year where a large group rode over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The increase in popularity, especially with younger people, has also meant an increase in e-bike related injuries, with a couple of notable deaths in Victoria this year. Emergency Departments in VIC and NSW have both reported and 400% increase in people arriving with e-bike related injuries since 2020.

So how does this affect us, as what I guess we consider to be regular bike riders. Well besides being tarred with the same brush, where unruly behaviour on the road on a pack of e-bikes puts the same angst onto us, it has at least made the government stand up and notice. In mid May, the WA State Government made changes to the road rules that affect both normal bike riders and eRidables. These aren’t sweeping changes that will see bikes given the same respect like they have in places like Amsterdam, but are definitely steps forward to improving our safety on the road.

There were four changes, but two are applicable to how we operate.
1. Bike riders and eRideable users are not required to use hand signals if it would be unsafe to do so, such as steep descents. If a device is fitted with brake lights, flashing light signalling devices or illuminated indicators then the rider is still required to use those.
2. Bike riders and eRideable users no longer need to keep left when travelling through single-lane roundabouts.

The first one is an interesting one as it makes sense that you need to control the bike and the brakes are on the handlebars. However, I do find that our safety as cyclists, is often in the hands of the drivers, and the clearer about our intentions we are, the safer we will be. If I’m doing a right hand turn and need to give way to oncoming traffic, I will be in the middle of the road. If I don’t make my intentions clear to the traffic coming up behind me, then things can start getting confusing. This is mainly due to everyone’s standard assumption that bike should be hard left in the gutter at all times. I will always to try to shoot out a quick signal even if I need to put both hands back on to brake properly.

The second change is one that I have always done and it is purely for my own safety. Roundabouts are a notorious choke point. Even if the roads leading up to and away from have a shoulder or bike lane, they automatically disappear as they approach it. Road lanes with a shoulder will reduce from 4.5 metres down to 3.5 metres at the entry to the roundabout. The new Dodge RAM 2500 is 2.2 metres wide stretching to 2.6 metres when including the extended mirrors. It doesn’t leave us a lot of room. When riding by myself, I will always check for a small break in traffic then move out to “take the lane” before entering the roundabout. Drivers don’t always have a good understanding of where the off-side of their vehicle is and it doesn’t take much to be on the receiving end of a quarter panel. The interesting thing about this change is that it now brings WA in line with the Australian Road Rules.

Will these changes mean we need to operate differently? Not really. Will they mean that we get more respect and less angst on the road? Doubtful. But if the intent is for the rules to reflect how more people travel and attempt to improve safety for all road users, then hopefully, it is a good thing.

(bonus points if you can name anyone in this photo from 2009)

https://southperthrouleurs.com.au/2026/06/18/ride-routes-20th-26th-june-3/

Ride Routes 13th – 19th June

Burke Drive Traffic Study - goodbye to another cycling haven. Last night I was invited to contribute to a traffic study on Burke Drive as representative of a user group. Apparently on the back of complaints in 2025 a petition was raised by about 60 locals to investigate traffic calming strategies. There were about 50 – 60 people in attendance, mostly residents from the affected area as well as a few user group representatives like myself.

The complaints mainly revolved around traffic noise and speed, with groups of motor bikes late at night being the primary concern. The data for the area showed that there are 2500 – 3000 traffic movements per day which is was not excessive for the layout and width of the road. An 85 percentile distribution showed an average speed of 54 – 55 kph which is above the limit for the area, although not by a lot. However, this also means that there are a number of vehicles much higher than that. Cycling data, showed 600 – 700 riders per day during the week rising to 1500 on Saturday. Hence the need to engage with the cycling community.

Crash data showed that between 2020 – 2024 the majority occurred at intersections or involved parking. For cyclists, there were 9 accidents during that time, although we are not sure if that was only car/bike interactions or also included crashes in groups from wheel touches, etc. If an ambulance was called, then a good chance it ended up in these stats.

A bunch of options were shown, from speed cushions (those bolt down half humps that we can ride around) through to full raised intersections and choke points. Each table of 4 – 5 people were then asked to discuss what they saw as the issue and what solutions they found acceptable. I was totally lucky and ended up on a table with 3 retired guys that live just back from Burke Drive, with 2 of them being cyclists. The third guy was into his V8’s but had no problem with bikes being on the road.

The funny thing was that our solution, after discussion, was to do nothing. Not that it solved the problem, but at least it didn’t make it worse. Our reasoning was that humps cause the vehicles to slow down, but then they accelerate again, causing more noise, especially motor bikes. Choke points were dangerous and restricted visibility and stopped vehicles getting around bikes. And pedestrian crossings would be ineffective as there was no clear point where the majority of pedestrian traffic came through, meaning that you would need so many of them along the length of the road.

Each table then presented and that is when we really got to see the how and why of what people were concerned about. Surprisingly, there were very few that were concerned about the groups of cyclist coming through and “holding up traffic”. I think that the majority of Burke Drive does not have many traffic islands, so there are many opportunities for vehicles to pass. The majority of the concerns were concentrated down the Canning Hwy end especially alongside that long sweeping corner where Troy Park oval is situated. Weekend sport, with cars parking on the roadside, kids moving about and cyclists in groups all at the same time was highlighted. Motor bike groups sweeping through that long corner at speed especially at night was another common complaint.

From our perspective, we weren’t the target, but we certainly will be affected by any changes. The one complaint aimed at us was a common one, and that is, loud conversations in the early morning. Speed humps won’t solve that and will probably make it worse as we will call them out, but it is a fair complaint that we as a wider cycling community can, and should, be more respectful of the environments we are riding through.

Again this was just an initial workshop and all feedback was to be taken on board. However, it was clear that you don’t hire consultants and run sessions like this to accept that doing nothing was the correct answer. The timeline was for another workshop with another group of residents and an online survey before the consultants will make their recommendations. It will then go to council in Sept/Oct and a decision will be made from there. From that standpoint I cannot see any changes in 2026, but next year may see us having to ride differently along a much loved stretch of the river loop.

https://southperthrouleurs.com.au/2026/06/11/ride-routes-13th-19th-june-3/

Ride Routes 6th – 12th June

Social Media Scrum. You may have noticed an increase in our social media presence this year. It is part of our rebuilding strategy to get a broader reach and attract new riders to our club. Social media on the best of days is hard. Finding content, pulling stuff together, formatting and posting all takes time and although there are AI apps to help, getting the right message is not something I would leave to a bot.

Unfortunately I took an awkward turn into the world of rage baiting this last week. There was an incident where a very impatient ute came right up the back of the Main 3 group and aggressively honked his horn repeatedly until he got by. We had just entered a section where the shoulder is protected by a kerb and as such couldn’t move across so he had to wait. He didn’t like that and kept honking until we moved. He was delayed a total of 15 seconds. It probably would have been less if he hadn’t aggressively pushed up to the group in the first place.

Now the Main 3 group is not the stereotypical lycra wearing alpha male tough guys. I would say the average age would be in the +50’s with about 30% of the group being female. This was probably a group made up of the same demographic as the driver’s parents. But we all get tarred with the same brush and get labelled as arrogant and entitled no matter what the law says for our use of the road.

Where this took a dark turn was when I posted this interaction on our socials, and to be fair, I did label the driver an impatient t**t. So that’s on me. Now I am never sure who really sees the things we post. A few weeks ago when I wrote about the AusCycling SGM we had our best engagement with well over 13,000 views and 41 interactions. Most videos we post get anywhere from 1,000-3,000 views depending on the content. However, in the world of rage baiting the key to engagement is getting people angry and this video seemed to get people angry.

The intent of the video was to call out some bad behaviour and maybe I should have refrained from the name calling. But the wonderful world of facebook algorithms meant that as soon as someone outside the cycling community commented, it then found its way into others feeds. By the time I turned off the commenting there were 318 comments and 263 reactions. This meant that it had pushed out even further than before and all of a sudden there are over 110,000 views. Now I would not recommend reading any of the comments. By the time I turned them off, there were a litany of homophobic slurs, multiple name calling, threats and pretty much anything else you can think of. It was clear that many people think we had “stolen” time from this poor innocent driver.

However, the old adage of “any publicity is good publicity” does hold true to some extent. The views of the surrounding posts have increased, and we have managed to pick up new followers to the page. The challenge now is to convert them to riders and then to members.

Rage baiting is not a strategy I would recommend, especially if you are not thick skinned as there are many people who feel big and strong behind the keyboard and are willing to let you know how right they are. But unfortunately social media is here to stay and we need to utilise it the best we can to get our message out there. I may just refrain from the name calling in the future, even if they were acting like a t**t.

https://southperthrouleurs.com.au/2026/06/04/ride-routes-6th-12th-june-2/