Table 4 Case study

Freya’s study

At the beginning of the study Freya, a woman in her thirties, was driving to a park-and-ride site (approximately 10 miles from her home) and then cycling approximately two miles to work (Table 3). She disliked doing this because she would spend a lot of time stationary in traffic. During the study she changed to cycling the whole journey (approximately eight miles). This change was prompted by the introduction of the busway which meant she did not have to cycle on roads for the whole journey. Taking up cycling to work also supported Freya’s motivation to lose weight and become fitter.

“A lot of the reason why I wanted to start cycling [along the busway to work] was to lose weight and to get fit and I lost three and a half stone over two years.”

Freya described becoming a more confident cyclist who felt more comfortable cycling on roads.

“One of the reasons I started cycling in the first place was because the busway was built because I didn’t like the idea of cycling on the roads, now I’d say I do go along the road route quite often but I’m a much more confident cycler than I was when I first started so it doesn’t bother me as much but having that way of getting in which is mainly off-road was actually, you know, part of the reason why I felt I could cycle all the way and start doing it.”

This feeling of confidence and competence was important because occasionally the maintenance track access path was too muddy and wet to cycle along. Therefore, Freya needed to be able to use roads to continue cycling.

“The stretch to get from the end of my road onto the busway is just a path so it gets very muddy, especially with the wet weather that we had a few months ago, it was just completely mud and waterlogged so I couldn’t cycle along it, so when it’s very wet I go a different route which is through Oakington and Girton and then down Huntingdon Road so that’s a road route rather than an off-road route.”