[kazinator]

In any sort of mountainous Europe, or anywhere else, there is one road through the valley. The side roads will either be dead ends that go up some ravine, or else steer back to the main road.

Any side road advantageous to a cyclist (good pavement quality, shorter distance) will have cars, unless it's brand new and nobody knows about it.

You have to find the good side roads which are not usable to drivers, due to, say, obstacles that a cyclist can get around easily. If it's not obvious from the entrance to that road, you will need local knowledge.

There is always a risk that if you go down some random side road, you may be backing out to where you started.

Riding on roads outside of city limits isn't such a big deal that you'd bother, in the first place. It depends on the exact conditions. What is the visibility like? (Curve with rocky wall on one side, precipice on the other? Or field?) How wide is the paved shoulder? What are the speeds like?

[mdpye]

In Europe at least, this is true for a vanishingly small number of key mountain passes. And most of them have been bypassed with motorways on shallower grades which are significantly longer, but still quicker for cars to travel.

Everywhere else, the pyrennes, the alps and company are a spiderweb of tiny towns with tiny quiet roads between them, in a ratio of about 5:1 against the larger main roads. I've cycled them, traffic isn't a problem.

As for paving, on a tour I'll take a hard pack, unpaved surface with no traffic over a main road all day every day.

And knowing where the roads go? That's route planning! Have a little look at where you plan to go before you set out each morning. Strava's heat maps are really useful, though understand that road racers do prefer the highway, and they cycle a lot!

I do this every year, and traffic just doesn't come in to it except at the large terminal cities where we get the international trains or ferries from...

[kazinator]

If you want to go from town A to town B, and there is a direct A-B road, then you almost never want the A-C-B spiderweb path going through town C.

The A-C road may not be any different from the A-B one in terms of A-B being "main" and A-C being a "secondary" road, and the path will likely be longer.

A road actually going to a neighboring town is a strawman example of a side road.

[sebastianz]

> If you want to go from town A to town B, and there is a direct A-B road, then you almost never want the A-C-B spiderweb path going through town C.

He is talking about cycling for travel, exploration, sport and leisure - not about commuting. I have just done the same last week, a 5 day tour and can confirm, I planned everything around secondary, tertiary and country / farm roads. It was mostly empty, and a pleasure. (despite being longer than the "main" road)

[em-bee]

on a few bike trips i followed hiking trails. checking that the trail is going towards my destination and not in a circle. those trails were not always meant for bikes. i even remember carrying my heavy dutch-style bike and the luggage over rocks at one point, but that only slowed me down. it didn't stop me.