Melbourne is one of the world's great cycling cities. It is relatively flat, has some excellent and well-maintained off-road bicycle routes as well as some sweepingly beautiful road stretches along the bay. But its inner-city roads remain inherently dangerous for those who choose to pedal around town.

Two years ago, a survey conducted by the City of Melbourne found almost 15 per cent of vehicles entering the central business district in the morning peak period were bicycles, up from 10 per cent three years earlier. More than half of the cyclists entered from the northern side of the city, on busy main-road routes through Parkville, Carlton, Fitzroy and North Melbourne.

While most of these roads have bicycle paths marked on the bitumen, they remain hazardous for the thousands of cyclists who use them every day. The number of near misses is incalculable with cars turning in front of cyclists, swerving into the bicycle lanes, reversing unexpectedly into parking spots and flinging open car doors without looking.

A fascinating analysis of crash data, published in The Age today, gives some insight into inner Melbourne's various cycling black-spots, the places where there is a high concentration of accidents causing injury. Unsurprisingly, they tend to be roads where bicycles must compete for space with cars, trucks and trams, and where there is a busy turnover of short-term street car parking.

The worst stretch for cyclists is the four kilometres of Sydney Road in Brunswick where, a year ago, a 25-year old Italian chef, Alberto Paulon, was killed when a motorist opened a car door, knocking the cyclist and throwing him into the path of a passing truck.