CYCLISTS will hold a rally in the city today calling for a continuous segregated network for bikes.

Campaigners will present a 1,700-signature petition to Oxfordshire County Council urging it to make the city’s roads safer for cyclists.

Petition organiser Eleanor Watts, chairwoman of Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon, said: “This calls for ‘cycling super routes’ on major roads, offering continuous, uniform provision for segregate or semi-segregated cycle lanes.

“We must make cycling safer for the good of everyone, not just people who already choose to cycle.”

Chairman of Cyclox, Simon Hunt, said: “Nearly everyone I meet who doesn’t cycle says they’d like to get in the saddle more, but they baulk at riding a bike because to them it doesn’t feel safe.”

“The primary reason is because they feel apprehensive about mixing with motor traffic.

“Giving cycle users separate lanes is the most obvious, though not the only, way for cycling to be and feel safer.”

They will gather outside County Hall at 10am.