Colin Young commutes from Downer to Civic for work every day. Morning club rides and weekend long rides see him clock up to 250 kilometres in the saddle each week.

"The Cotter-Uriarra loop is an absolute favourite - so down Adelaide Avenue, up Cotter Road and up past Stromlo," he said.

Mr Young has volunteered to have a data collection device attached to his bike for four weeks, logging his cycling habits and recording the behaviour of cars on the road beside him. The Velograph devices currently installed on 16 Canberra volunteers' bikes use a Global Positioning System to identify the riders location, recording the lateral distance of any objects that pass them on the right.

Mr Young said his experience in Canberra was that drivers on big roads tended to leave a wider berth, however, there were still close passes every couple of weeks.

"I don't actually love being on the shared path," Mr Young said.

"They are more problematic because cars will come up and get quite close by trying to get past and not really considering the consequences to the cyclist."

He said it's not just car drivers who could sometimes be more considerate, cyclists too could occasionally be better behaved around pedestrians.

"In a way the ageing cycling infrastructure has not helped us, because cars are possessive of the roads," he said.

"The attitude of Canberra car drivers is roads are only for cars."

A study conducted by the University in Adelaide in 2021 found cycling hospitalisations in Australia had increased over the years, despite participation in the sport stagnating.

The ACT has a mandated minimum passing distance of one metre for overtaking cyclists at under 60km/h, with a distance of 1.5 metres required if a driver is overtaking at more than 60km/h.

Despite legislation, cyclists in the ACT often report feeling unsafe on the roads. Data collected for the 2021 study found cars overtaking behaviour was non compliant 12.3 per cent of the time when they were doing over 60 km/h and 2.8 per cent of the time when travelling below that speed.

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Bike lanes were generally associated with an increase in passing distance, except on trunk roads, where a bike lane resulted in closer passing events. The study found on trunk roads, which are assumed to accommodate heavy traffic, bike lanes may be insufficient to offer protection to cyclists and additional measures may be required.

The current study is also being undertaken in Melbourne and Adelaide to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how cyclists and cars use the public road network. Pedal Power ACT is organising the Canberra group.

A second intake of volunteers will be recruited to take part in the study in March. Cyclists can visit Project Velograph for more information.

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