Pony and trap

dabber

I had an unusual experience yesterday... I was about 50 miles into my ride and came up behind a pony and trap.

I guess I was traveling at about 19/20 mph and the pony and trap at about 14 mph. as I came nearer to it I politely called out "coming past on your right". The driver glanced behind and as the road was clear I started to overtake. As I got level with the driver he whipped the pony and it immediately started to accelerate quite hard leaving me stuck on the outside of it. Cars now started to appear in the opposite direction and I never felt I could accelerate hard enough to make a safe passing manoeuvre so I started to back off (after voicing my displeasure to the driver).

The good news is that the car coming the other way was a police car. He slowed down and wound down his window. The pony and trap sped off and and I stopped to tell him what had just happened. I think he had pretty much worked it out anyway as the pony and trap was in full flight by then. I left him turning round to go have word with the driver.

No big deal but something I hadn't expected to happen or have experienced before.

cougie

How bizarre !

The first time I encountered one was on a club ride.
The club Wag shouted out "Watch out - its a Trap !" - Cue much groaning.

Its still shouted now.

Never had any problems with them and never needed to race them.

jkboxall

I came across a couple of teenagers riding a Pony and Trap in the New Forest last summer - The same thing happened! I went to overtake, and they accelerated to stop me passing! I thought at first they were being a*rses, but they were just having a bit of fun! Ended up chatting to them while rolling along a wide road. They challenged me to a race, but I thought it was best I didn't! Didn't trust the Pony not to get spooked and kick me or something!!

dabber

This was on a moderately busy road so not the place to mess around trying to race. The other worrying thing would have been, if I'd managed to pull ahead how far would I have needed to go before pulling in without the pony running over me. Not an attractive proposition.

Lord_V

cougie wrote:

How bizarre !

The first time I encountered one was on a club ride.
The club Wag shouted out "Watch out - its a Trap !" - Cue much groaning.

Its still shouted now.

.

Unless that was done with the full Admiral Akbar then frankly that's an opportunity wasted....

team47b

DiscoBoy wrote:

A pikey was a dickhead? There's a surpise...

Rascist.

peat

I'll happily make it non-secular:

Person + Horse = dickhead.

They trump road cyclists in the self-righteousness stakes.

Giraffoto

team47b wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

A pikey was a dickhead? There's a surpise...

Rascist.

Racist, fascist, or a combination of the two?

StillGoing

Giraffoto wrote:

team47b wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

A pikey was a dickhead? There's a surpise...

Rascist.

Racist, fascist, or a combination of the two?

Don't care; he gets my vote. Let's not confuse Pikeys, Dags, Diddycoys, New Age Travellers, Squatters etc with peaceable Tinkers.

Mikey23

Often see one out on my local ride which up to now has been going the other way on a wide road. Am building a relationship dor the inevitable day when im stuck behind it on a narrow lane.. As jkb said, its all about communication and basic common sense

dabber

Mikey23 wrote:

As jkb said, its all about communication and basic common sense

As the OP for this thread I'd say that I'd taken reasonable care to communicate and act responsibly. In fact I'd probably avoided the problem by not calling out that I was about to overtake and just sprinted past before they could react. However, the danger is that the a*rsehole who was driving may just have done the same thing but with me in front of it and then who knows what the outcome would be.
As to the pikey references that have been made... I deliberately avoided making any comment about the people involved (driver and passenger) other than my view of them being a*rseholes and I only caught a fairly short glance of them when I came level with them. I will say that, IMO, they weren't members of the countrified horsey set.

drummer_boy

It's all very simple!! There are knobs everywhere!

On horses, on traps, in cars, on bikes, everywhere i tell you :-)!!

Mustn't generalise too much, and wife and daughter are full on horsey people, but pony trap drivers tend to enjoy a reputation in the horsey world for being difficult!

964cup

There were a whole bunch of traps coming out of Regent's Park the other day. Late at night, no lights or reflectors, what appeared to be limited control over the horses and complete disregard for other road users. No idea what was going on.

Mikey23

Interestingly, passed the above mentioned P&T today having not seen it for yonks. They are definitely of gypsy persuasion. Some cheery banter about the merits of struggling uphill on a bike as opposed to sitting back and letting the nag do it for you and was mine cheaper to keep took place before we went our separate ways

@964cup... From what im told they have these 'events' from time to time. Outside of the law but over before plod catches up, lot of money changing hands etc

ben@31

A few months ago I went for a run around a forrest.

I ended up behind two horses who slowly walking. Both horses and riders were unaware I was right behind them. It was quite a nervous experience trying to squeeze past two horses that were side by side on a narrow forrest track. The horses were massive and I was hoping I would not startle them. I can see why they're used to move crowds at a football match.

Bizarrely, the other day I went past a small kid on a bike wearing a classic horse riding helmet, like they were fox hunting on their bmx. One of those things that just looks out of place.

diy

Round my way they block the road with a white van so they can race in peace. I think the loser is allowed to knife the winner or something like that.