“Long lines” of cyclists arriving on cruise ships – including groups containing 50 riders – causing havoc for drivers on roads, locals claim

The people of Orkney are delighted that an ignorant southerner won't be vandalising their beautiful islands.

Or confusing them with shetland

But the people of Shetland might be disappointed when the ignorant southerner arrives on their doostep, having boycotted the wrong island.

Ah - but they won't be holding up the traffic.  They would be the traffic...

It does sound like a genuine "we need and want tourism, but not this much tourism!" thing going on there.  And the cruise operators may well be taking the mick.  That is a difficult balance to strike.

OTOH they could perhaps see opportunity in crisis and maybe ... build some cycle infra?

Another difficult choice though - we want unspoiled wild places / don't want to tarmac over everything.  BUT ... that genie is already truly out of the bottle because motor vehicles.  And the tourists are already there and as you suggest they'd just be there in minibuses or coaches otherwise ("A cycle rack in the corner of the car park would clearly not be in keeping with our world heritage neolithic ritual landscape...").

Why is no one talking about how windy it is up there and what that does to cycling. In my time on Orkney I think the wind dropped below 40mph a couple of times, so I was either blasting along at a great pace, or grinding in the lower gears at a snails pace. 

To be fair to the locals, the cruise ships must be a mixed blessing. Sometimes they bring extra people to the tourist stops but often they bring a mass of people in busses who are driven between the sights in a day and do not stop in local cafe/restraunts/hotels not putting too much into the local economy beyond the big tourist stops.  

I holidayed in Orkney the other year and that was the view I was getting.  If people come by car they stop for a few days, eat out, rent somewhere and travel round the island in smaller clumps. Tourists are always a balance, I stay on the edge of the cotswolds, and yes they bring employment and money, but they also bring traffic congestion and perhaps ruin some of the peace and quiet.

In the original article, there were a couple of replies from a local who did explain it can be a real problem at times due to the poorly organised groups.

The "havoc" is in the context of local driving, where you can do any journey at (at least) the speed limit, with no delays/congestion/junction queue anywhere and then park free near to where you want to go.

On the other hand the cruise ship groups do make the situation worse by the way they ride, which is more like a swarming slow motion closed road sportive field than club groups.

The photos in the article are on a length of about 5km of single track road with passing places. There's quite a bit of traffic that uses that as a through route as it's shorter, even though there's a quicker A road (2lane) road. The nature of that road will certainly amplify how much you feel you are held up and I'd guess the passing place discipline from the cycling groups is poor.
The rest of the route they use is 2 lane A road, which would mostly be easy to pass on if it wasn't for the traffic coming the other way.

On the other hand the local transport partnership floated plans for decent standard shared use paths for most of the roads in question, which could be done with 100% Scottish Government funding over a few years and got little support and plenty of negative comments too. 

There's 12 cruise ships with cycling groups due this whole year.
The delays for most drivers will amount to under 5 minutes and you could avoid the roads if you chose.
But perception.

Thanks for the local viewpoint, it is about what I expected having ridden on Orkney and I think the solution is to offer anyone who complains a free visit to London where they will be tasked with driving from one side to the other. that should cure them of any incentive to complain again! 

Thanks for the input. It seems this really is a bit of a non-issue. The only real problem on the route is the short single track road, but there's an alternative via an A-road.

Surely the facebook roads group could just get details of the route and dates/times from the cruise operators? Then those drivers who might be slightly delayed can adjust their route/plans?