Growing hostility towards Mountainbikers and Cyclists

[kingbling]

only by 5 or 6 years

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Not really retro then!



By the way, "anyone wanting to cycle on roads in Switzerland must be of school age" isn't quite accurate. Anyone wanting to cycle on roads in Switzerland must be of school age or older !

 

[superstar1]

I saw a cyclist going down my road once.

 

[Mike Muz]

Being respectful in the first incidence will always help, booby traps are definitely not the answer but you can see how these incidences come to fruition i.e a walker complains to the local council or land owner on numerous occasions and is fobbed off, so takes matters into his own hands why because nothing is done about his just complaints. The same can be said of a car driver whose fed up of having his mirrors knocked or cyclists jumping a red lights across him so he chooses to block the road to get his own back or the cyclist who's had a near miss on the road and rides on the pavement no it's not right but we can see how things are exacerbated. It's a vicious circle out there people one which is near impossible to break.

Nicely put

 

[Mike Muz]

Re: Re:

The on road answer has got to be more lined off cycle lanes, less hostile

Not easy when a lot of the cars in this area park on the cycle lanes :facepalm:

Kerbstones don't work either here, as they only allow one bike width where they're put! :roll:

Class! :evil:

Still, it looks like they care, and that's all the politicians want people to think

 

[kingbling]

what happened to my video it existed a few hours ago :roll:

 

[BoyBurning]

Re:

Not read through the whole thread [sorry] but...

Last weekend I took our pup for a walk to a place I used to ride regularly with mates - some on here - and found that a lot of our routes had very purposefully been fenced and gated off, with a fair few 'no cycles' signs...

With the passage of 20 years without my presence I don't know why this might be, but the same thing [with fences] has happened in the local parks too to prevent / limit access by users.

I'm fairly certain the parks [ie. fencing off play areas, fencing in pools, grading pools so there's no steps etc] have been done to reduce liability for councils. Our council is particularly ardent [I have lived in areas with different councils] in their efforts to minimise any possible claim for personal injury on their land.

Maybe closing off access to bikes is a result of the same thinking?

One of the reasons I'm looking at a possible change of venue for ICONOCLASSIC is the hoops I have to jump through for the council, who's legal department is utterly unprepared to budge on the simplest of items lest it voids their insurance - and I mean really insignificant, common sense items...

I suspect this is unfortunately an area which councils are increasingly bearing down on in order to minimise their liability...

When we used to ride back in the day things really weren't an issue, but with the massive increase in users [of all mediums] of public spaces the resultantly varied notions of respect and responsibility are a possible cause.

Whilst we might not be running round on 8 inch suspension demons, jumping over walkers and being a general menace, it doesn't necessarily follow that other cyclist aren't - the usual story of blanket banning being easier than selective monitoring.

That being said, horse riders are still allowed full access on the same trails it seemed from my visit last weekend...

Remember the MBA article from '91 or so when police officers in Marin County were closing trails and using speed guns - we're just 30 years behind is all...

 

[legrandefromage]

A growing hostility to anyone having 'fun'.

 

[k-rod]

Re:

One of the major reasons that authorities control or restrict bike access to certain areas or trails, is because knobby tires do an incredible amount of erosive damage to the soil and flora of any area that gets frequented, so to save parks and ground-cover ... they shut areas down. Goes for dirt bikes too.

BITD, when we first started frequenting trails (in the eighties), there hadn't been enough fat tire traffic to start chewing up roots and cover, but after a decade of use and massive increases in numbers of bikes/riders and traffic, the damage started to show. Park boards got involved, trails got closed off, and other trails were 'gentrified' with layers of navy-jack gravel and other re-surfacing methods ... which although went a long way to protect the immediate environment (trail surfaces) ... it sure diminished the challenging nature of having stumps and roots and rocks and creeks to slam through and over and around.

A lot has changed, over these thirty or so years. Even more so in the media/communications field. Now the young hot-shots get air-lifted by chopper into the outback, and wail down massive alpine decents in no man's land on D/H bikes with 130 mm of susp. travel (doing immeasurably more damage, yet - in areas where regeneration takes 100 times longer).

 

[ti_pin_man]

I commuted into London for two years by bike, 15 miles each way most days. I saw cyclist knocked off, I saw blood, I saw cars run red lights and cyclist run red lights, hop pavements, go the wrong way down one way streets, ride without lights in the night.

What I take from this is really we are the same species as car drivers, gasp shock horror.

But what I also took from it is the context is very relevant. A driver has a lethal and very powerful weapon under their control, a cyclist is mostly just trying to survive. If a car hits a cyclist, maybe death, if a cyclist hits a car, oh dear a scratch. Better infrastructure would help but better education would help even more. I agree drivers should have to cycle in rush hour in a city centre to see it from the other side. Most cyclists are drivers but most drivers are not cyclists.

My conclusion is there are indeed knobs on both bikes and in cars. But that the knobs on bikes are more vulnerable and deserve more respect from car drivers, car drivers should have a duty of care to vulnerable road users - motorbikes/cycles and pedestrians.