Hi Trevor, go to the first link at the top of this article, which explains that a cycle is a vehicle (but not a motor vehicle). The short answer is yes, cycles have the right to be on roads.

Yep. Keyword: Judgement. The more Rules we have, the less we are left to our own judgement and the poorer our judgement becomes. Studies have shown a clear correlation between reductions in road rules and an increase in both social responsibility and road safety. If you look at ‘traffic’ behaviour in a typical Spanish town square, for example, where the ‘road’ is open to pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles, everyone naturally assumes the role of road user, exercises a lot more judgement moving about and is generally a lot safer than they are in a typical ‘controlled’ town centre environment. As the renowned Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman remarked, “The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles”. His work around the concept of Shared Space is fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space

The Setting Speed Limits Rule is virtually silent on speed limits other than on roads (although as you have seen here, the definition of “road” is quite broad). It would seem that if a shared path was parallel to a roadway (i.e. part of the same “road”) then the prevailing speed limit there would apply.

As mentioned above, any users of a shared path must act always in a “careful and considerate manner” as well; the Rule includes a specific obligation for users of wheeled devices to “not operate the cycle or device at a speed that constitutes a hazard to other persons using the path.” Needless to say, this still is a judgement call and will depend a bit on the situation, e.g. 20km/h when you squeeze past another path user might be way too much, whereas 30km/h when you are more than a metre clear might be perfectly fine.

There are no posted speed limits, and how would you know if you’re going over any specified number? Speedos are not mandatory fitments.

However there’ll be some classic woolly phrase like “unsafe speed” of “dangerous speed” where its totally up to the discretion of the officer.

Question: what about speeds on shared paths? I assume that the posted speed limit applies on roadways, but many shared paths don’t have posted speed limits, yet anything much about 20 seems inappropriate when pedestrians are around.