motorcyclists whats the crack???

The-beast

having competed a 94 mile circular from kirkham to kirby lonsdale today, and having endured a torrent of abuse from many motorcyclists on the road especially around hornby i ask why the hostility, are they getting worse?? :? :?

Smokin Joe

Maybe you cut in too sharply after overtaking them?

The-beast

Smokin Joe wrote:

Maybe you cut in too sharply after overtaking them?

wvanry

any nodder can twist a grip - cycling though takes a whole more 'nuff said

guinea

I've never had a problem with motorcycles. Other than the ones that block me when filtering. Oh and the ones in the ASL. And the one that hit me on Vauxhall Bridge.

Actually, I ride a motorbike. However, I've never seen any aggro between either group.

StillGoing

Must have been riding Suzukis. GSXRs are ridden by chavs. A yamaha rider would've nodded politely.

wvanry

to be honest during the week I have always got on well with motorcyclist, weekends though seem to be another matter...

Bozman

Two wheels are better than four(in good weather!!),
A hell of alot of motorcyclists ride bikes and plenty of motorcycle racers train all year round on road bikes and a few race. A dickhead is a dickhead whether they ride a road bike or a motorbike(Yamaha!).

StillGoing

Oh lighten up! I spent all my time on the track and any racer will practice on the track and not the road. The track has shellgrip everywhere for one thing and no speed cameras. Most race bikes don't even have a daytime MOT so can't go on the road. After being on track the speed thing is out of your system meaning you don't feel the urge to ride fast on the road if you do have a road bike as well. There are dickheads on pushbikes just as they can be found on foot, in cars and on motorcycles.

davelakers

We get a lot of grief from motorcyclists up that way. Last year an arsehole kicked out at on our groups front wheels whilst we he was descending through Quernmore. That whole route through Quernmore Valley to Caton, through Hornby and up to Devils Bridge is their Sunday morning race track. Woe be tide anyone who holds them up. I hate that stretch of road primarily for that reason. Its bloody frightening sometimes when they purposely buzz us at speed.

Crapaud

Bikers must be different 'dahn sarf'. I can't say I've ever had any problems with them up here. Quite the opposite in fact - they're usually the ones to strike up a conversatiion when at a cafe stop. Top folk!

Also: biker chicks, women in leather FTW!
I can feel a new thread coming on ...

spinndrift

Yep - to be fair it's the only place I have grief from bikers too.

Perhaps they've got the knock back from the doggers in the picnic area so are p1ssed off.

rajMAN

Sounds like the Born Again Biker brigade, or MAMIL...Middle Aged Men in Leather or just di**heads with too much money.

robz400

First dry, slightly warm weekend of the year....

All the 'fair weather bikers' have obviously slide into their leahers and climbed aboard their shiney, barely used super fast steed for the first time in 6 months and are slowly riding around, 50 pencing every corner completely shitting themselves and taking it out on you.....

Give them a month or two to find their feet and they'll relax a bit and calm down!!

:roll:

Pross

Always found them really good in my area plus a few of them give up their time to be part of the NEG.

rick_chasey

What were they saying?

graeme_s-2

Generally no problem at all, but while descending during the ToB pro ride in the Peaks last year, I hit 50 miles an hour. As I was apexing a corner (on my side of the road), a biker coming the other way came round the bend towards me, aiming for the same apex flat out with his knee down. I'm not sure who crapped themselves more, but luckily we both stayed upright!

StillGoing

So both at fault then.

graeme_s-2

philthy3 wrote:

So both at fault then.

How do you figure that? I was on my side of the road. He came flying round the corner (having already passed numerous other cyclists) with his knee on the floor on my side of the road!

StillGoing

You should always be able to stop within the distance you can see in the eyes of traffic law. If there'd been a collision between you, both sides would have apportioned blame. He was riding like a prat in a totally unsuitable place, you were on a pedal cycle doing in your words 50mph going downhill around a bend. If it had been a closed road event then you'd have an argument. Maybe it was but you haven't made that clear? The damages would probably have been squared more in favour of yourself but you wouldn't have escaped blame and as a consequence more than likely received a lesser settlement in the event of an insurance claim.

graeme_s-2

philthy3 wrote:

You should always be able to stop within the distance you can see in the eyes of traffic law. If there'd been a collision between you, both sides would have apportioned blame. He was riding like a prat in a totally unsuitable place, you were on a pedal cycle doing in your words 50mph going downhill around a bend. If it had been a closed road event then you'd have an argument. Maybe it was but you haven't made that clear? The damages would probably have been squared more in favour of yourself but you wouldn't have escaped blame and as a consequence more than likely received a lesser settlement in the event of an insurance claim.

It's a fair point, it was on open roads. Given the distance I could see, if there had been a rider down, or a pot hole etc, I think I would have been able to slow and avoid it in time. In this case it wasn't a stationary object coming into my view, but a vehicle probably travelling faster than I was, meaning we were closing at in excess of 100 miles an hour. In that case, even if I had been stationary at the apex then the motorcyclist could have hit me.

StillGoing

I'm not denying there is an eliment of motorcyclists who are too scared to take their bravery onto the track and see the public road as their opportunity to ride like prats, but it isn't all motorcyclists. We know there are ignorant and yobbish cyclists amongst us who although they may not be what you'd term a serious cyclist, are still labelled as cyclists by their mode of transport. Having them riding on the pavements, through traffic lights and two abreat when to do so really does make it too dangerous for a car to pass due to the narrowness of the road doesn't make us look any better to non-cyclists than horseshit for brains motorcyclists do to you.

graeme_s-2

philthy3 wrote:

I'm not denying there is an eliment of motorcyclists who are too scared to take their bravery onto the track and see the public road as their opportunity to ride like prats, but it isn't all motorcyclists.

Absolutely agree. I was just repeating a story where I had encountered a specific motorcyclist who was riding like a dickhead at the time. I wasn't suggesting that all motorcyclists ride like that. I'm sure I would have passed other bikers even on that ride who were riding responsibly and courteously.

In fact, in 5 years of cycling that's the only incident involving a motorcyclist that I can remember at all, and I certainly couldn't say the same for car drivers, cyclists or pedestrians.

StillGoing

Up until this year I could be found on the race track on a regular basis the very place for high speed riding. I don't know why but some riders just don't have the balls to take that jump foollishly believing they are safer riding like prats on the road. I almost had a Gixer rider have a head on with me on my push bike when he overtook a line of traffic without considering my position on the road. A few months later he was dead having tanked himself up on drink and accelerated so fast out of a pub that a car pulling out of a junction was now in his way. Destroyed the driver's life forever.

rick_chasey

Can't say I've had a great experience with motorcyclists on Snakes Pass.

The-beast

Rick Chasey wrote:

What were they saying?

apart from the usual head shaking, it was a variety of hand gestures consisting of the the bird and the w@nker sign, and slowing down to call us and i quote "f**king scum" and basically wizzing past with inches to spare at what seemed 130mph, i know they arent all like that but wheres the love !

rick_chasey

The-beast wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

What were they saying?

apart from the usual head shaking, it was a variety of hand gestures consisting of the the bird and the w@nker sign, and slowing down to call us and i quote "f**king scum" and basically wizzing past with inches to spare at what seemed 130mph, i know they arent all like that but wheres the love !

Fair enough.

Was all the communcation one-way?

Bozman

I'm not defending the idiot minority but what looks and sounds fast maybe steady to a motorcyclist, accidents/incidents tend to happen when you get that adrenaline rush, forget your environment and road conditions. You also get alot of issues with old boys coming back to bikes, buying a BMW1000rr and thinking that'll be the same as that Kawasaki z650 they had in the 80s!
Most of us go through that dickhead stage and alot fail to come out of the otherside, the public roads are no place to ride at speed! lives are easily ruined and ended by that adrenaline rush, i should have gone to the track earlier but it took a big crash and ...."i'll never know how you survived that!" that got me to the track where i can push myself and the bike to the limit in controlled conditions.

poucher

Kinda knocks your faith in human nature a bit, incidents like this doesn't it ??

Having ridden both Motorbikes and bicycles for years I know what its like to be on the receiving end of stuff like this and there's totally no call for it, these will be the same type of w4nkers who belt through 30 mph limits at 70 mph!
There's a time and a place for everything, my mates and I operate on a "Stealth" policy and try not to draw attention to ourselves, which means no speeding in built up areas and no blatantly loud exhausts, once we are out into the countryside we let them rip.
When we do come up against cyclists, we whip the clutch in so the engine drops to tickover, slow the bike down on the brakes and move over as far as we can to give the biggest gap between us and any cyclists.

We try and "Leave everyone loving us" even so, the bikes still make a bit of a racket with just the chain whizzing around, and I'm sure horseriders look daggers at us because we don't switch our headlights off when we approach them, well, the fact is we can't switch them off !! since 2003 the european commision of do-gooders have insisted that all motorcycles headlamps are wired permenantly on a dipped beam.

Sad fact of life, there are totally ignorant selfish people who only think of themselves in a lot of cases, motorcyclists included.
Mind you, having said all that, I've had more near misses from middle aged women in trendy mini cars with mobile phones welded to their ears!!

Take care,

Poucher

The-beast

It just seems to me every group on the road hates the other, cars hate cyclists, horse riders hate bikes, we all hate horse boxes, caravans, micras and 90 year old Sunday drivers, roads aren't big enough for all these egos. As for all the speeding yes round devils bridge is a particularly bad strech of road and being a fireman I see the grim consequences of mindless thrill seeking on the roads.
And yes we did exchange some verbal and visual communication back at these morons, funny they never stop tho.

campagone

Why do motorcyclists ride mainly in the middle or as damn near to the middle of the road whenever they can? It's no wonder so many ot them end up having fatal head on collision's with oncoming vehicles. I know I tend to ride in the gutter and I would imagine I'd be pretty much the same on a motorcycle.
Must say though I've never had any abuse from them up here in North Wales.