Sir, – Eamon Ryan’s article about cycling tourism in Ireland (On Your Bike, June 20th) hits the nail on the head. Perhaps your readers would like to hear about an Asian cycling utopia.
South Korea has invested heavily in bike roads, in and around cities and along prominent rivers. Its centrepiece is a 600km route linking Seoul in the north (of the country) to Busan in the south.
Another novel idea used in a new purpose-built city called Sejong was to build a cycle road in the middle of the motorway linking Sejong and Daejeon. It comes with a roof over part of it.
People are using these bike roads as a method of commuting, as they are free of traffic; and a morning cycle to work along a river is enjoyable, as opposed to the gridlocked roads. At weekends the bike roads are filled with people using them for recreation.
As both our countries are of the same size and both are full of natural beauty, surely this is the no-brainer we can get behind to attract tourists into the country. – Yours, etc,
VINCENT McCARTHY,
Sintanjin dong,
Daedeok gu,
Daejeon,
South Korea.