Yorkshire Dales ruined by motorcyclists

sloppyschleckonds

davidof wrote:

NikProwse wrote:

I rode in the Dales yesterday (Sedburgh/Ingleton/Hawes) for the first time and I have to say that a very pleasant ride was almost ruined by the motorbikes. They ride too close, they don't slow down or give way, their overtaking is often very dangerous. I hated their presence, the ever-constant noise of them along the valleys and how downright inconsiderate many of them were. I won't be riding in this area again at the weekend. Rant over, but is it just me?
Nik

Yeah, the BoBs are out of their winter hibernation, a bit groggy, slow reactions and overestimating their skillz.

Is this before they get on their bikes?

tangled_metal

There's a guy misunderstanding the bike exhaust thing and coming across as Mr nasty with hedge comments. So I'll try to explain what's happening.

Guy buys a super sport bike which is a road legal race machine, effectively. They are not happy with it because it doesn't sound as loud as the bikes they hear on race tracks. So they swap the original, road legal exhaust for a simple race pipe (perf inner tube surrounded by an outer case that may have nothing inside the exhaust) this allows exhaust straight out without noise reduction. It has no back pressure and helps improve performance. Add in a fuel air mix device that makes it run a bit richer, re-mapping of the engine ecu to cope with this and suddenly you have a decent jump in performance. The only cost is the bike is it's very noisy and the bike won't pass it's mot.

Then the biker has to get the bike through its mot. Easy, you take the original exhaust to your garage to put it back on. Suddenly it passes the mot. You get the paperwork for the mot and the garage puts the race pipe on.

This is very, very common in the super sports biker community. They'll never get caught in real life use but everyone the pass will have to put up with excessive noise. No choice about it, you can't escape the noise. This exhaust is not dangerous to anyone unless you can think 100 decibels counts as dangerous.

The exhaust issue is symptomatic of the attitude of a lot more of the biker community than they'd like to admit to. That attitude feels that there's very few laws and regulations affecting their hobby that they need to follow. There's the exhaust, speeding and dangerous riding in popular ridding areas such as devil's bridge near Kirby Lonsdale. I won't ride or drive on at least one bendy road near there at the weekend. It's just too dangerous. Bikers on the wrong side of the road around a blind bend are simply dangerous IME. Positively scary if you ever experience it. But that's the issue with popular biker spots. Perhaps they need to disperse such gatherings like they often do with customised car meets.

slowmart

We seem to have more custom bikes locally with offensively loud exhausts with riders who simply don't have the inclination to speed.

Given the ratio of idiot drivers in cars and vans we share the road with I'm surprised by the narrow and sometimes pointless arguments against bikes when proportionally they are a small percentage of overall road use.

StillGoing

cerutticolumn wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

cerutticolumn wrote:

I didn't claim that they are involved in more 'RTCs' (is that police speak for accidents?). I said that they were involved in a disproportionately higher number of accidents. That means that for any given motorbike, there is more chance of it being involved in an accident. As you say, this fact is reflected in insurance premiums.

The same point applies to your point about the number of near misses as a cyclist. Of course you will have had less with motorbikes than with cars, because there are many times more cars on the roads than there are motorbikes.

But that means - and going back to the OP, if you remember what it was about - that where there are large concentrations of large, fast motorbikes, like in the Dales, then you will get lots of accidents - some the fault of the motorbikes, others not - and this is dangerous, off-putting etc for cyclists.

If you still have any douts, go to the area on a Sunday, Bank holiday etc. and see for yourself.

Your claim is that motorcycles are a danger to everyone when the reality is they are no more dangerous than any other mode of transport. Your anti-motorcycle bias is distorting your "facts". What you allude to is individual perception only.

I live in close proximity to 4 race circuits that hold race meetings and trackdays for motorcycles. The roads I cycle are ideal for motorcycling having sweeping bends and good road surfaces. I can hear the wannabe Casey Stoner's and Marc Marquez's from miles away as they try and look the part on the local roads roundabout surfing. But two of them are all that has caused me any semblance of danger. 4 wheel transport on the other hand with drivers of all sexes, shapes, sizes, ethnicities and I dare say sexual orientation have caused me to come out with more expletives than my wife thinks I know.

By your final paragraph, because there's been a RTC involving a motorcycle, you're once again casting the blame for such a RTC on the motorcyclist for simply being there. This perfectly examples your individual perception and not fact. Go to a car rally and witness countless RTCs involving morons trying to do burnouts and doughnuts. Go to a sportive and witness the hapless ability of some riders that endanger others. Go to a large crowd gathering and witness assaults on others. What you get is a selection of individuals within the groups who don't conform to safe or normal behaviour. There is no hard fact that any one of them is more likely to break the law or cause danger to others than the other groups, but in my experience, it is the large crowd of people that will cause the most dangers. That, is my perception of crowds and not fact.

Statistics really aren't your forte, are they? Mine neither, but I''ll try and explain.
Using the data quoted above on accidents in N. Yorks and the data on modal share of trips, we find the following: that the modal share of cycling and P2W is roughly equal (around 2%), yet the latter are involved in many more accidents (27% of the total) than the former (16% IIRC). So you tell me which is more dangerous, cycling or motorcycling? (I'll give you a clue, divide the big number by the little number for each mode).
This isn't distorting facts, it's called basic maths.

And yet again you choose to ignore the fact that four wheeled transport accounts for more RTCs than 2 wheeled transport, but won't admit that you see a motorcycle involved in an RTC and the rider is at fault just for being there. Brilliant logic. Have you considered a career in politics? :roll:

bompington

Statistics, P3 style:

- in the UK only about one out of half a million people is killed by firearms every year
- therefore guns are not at all dangerous.

mamba80

Tangled Metal wrote:

There's a guy misunderstanding the bike exhaust thing and coming across as Mr nasty with hedge comments. So I'll try to explain what's happening.

Guy buys a super sport bike which is a road legal race machine, effectively. They are not happy with it because it doesn't sound as loud as the bikes they hear on race tracks. So they swap the original, road legal exhaust for a simple race pipe (perf inner tube surrounded by an outer case that may have nothing inside the exhaust) this allows exhaust straight out without noise reduction. It has no back pressure and helps improve performance. Add in a fuel air mix device that makes it run a bit richer, re-mapping of the engine ecu to cope with this and suddenly you have a decent jump in performance. The only cost is the bike is it's very noisy and the bike won't pass it's mot.

Then the biker has to get the bike through its mot. Easy, you take the original exhaust to your garage to put it back on. Suddenly it passes the mot. You get the paperwork for the mot and the garage puts the race pipe on.

This is very, very common in the super sports biker community. They'll never get caught in real life use but everyone the pass will have to put up with excessive noise. No choice about it, you can't escape the noise. This exhaust is not dangerous to anyone unless you can think 100 decibels counts as dangerous.

The exhaust issue is symptomatic of the attitude of a lot more of the biker community than they'd like to admit to. That attitude feels that there's very few laws and regulations affecting their hobby that they need to follow. There's the exhaust, speeding and dangerous riding in popular ridding areas such as devil's bridge near Kirby Lonsdale. I won't ride or drive on at least one bendy road near there at the weekend. It's just too dangerous. Bikers on the wrong side of the road around a blind bend are simply dangerous IME. Positively scary if you ever experience it. But that's the issue with popular biker spots. Perhaps they need to disperse such gatherings like they often do with customised cat meets.

i m not sure that the Cats protection league would endorse this sort of behaviour.

As i said, compared to all the other hazards we face daily on the roads, i m not sure that focusing on a few m/c's with loud pipe's is the correct one?

once you start banning or limiting one minority activity, you are on the road to banning many more, i m sure that many motorists get very p1$$ed off on Sat/sunday mornings getting caught up behind groups of cyclists on A and B roads across the country or delayed in a road race convoy ?
so ban em all!

craker

mamba80 wrote:

As i said, compared to all the other hazards we face daily on the roads, i m not sure that focusing on a few m/c's with loud pipe's is the correct one?

once you start banning or limiting one minority activity, you are on the road to banning many more, i m sure that many motorists get very p1$$ed off on Sat/sunday mornings getting caught up behind groups of cyclists on A and B roads across the country or delayed in a road race convoy ?
so ban em all!

It's symptomatic of the biking community that the 'pro biker' voices here don't recognise the noise as an issue. When you've spent all day putting up with bikes coming past with obscenely loud exhausts it spoils your environment, in the same way that clouds of pollution or a neighbour having a 16 hour party would.

gimpl

craker wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

As i said, compared to all the other hazards we face daily on the roads, i m not sure that focusing on a few m/c's with loud pipe's is the correct one?

once you start banning or limiting one minority activity, you are on the road to banning many more, i m sure that many motorists get very p1$$ed off on Sat/sunday mornings getting caught up behind groups of cyclists on A and B roads across the country or delayed in a road race convoy ?
so ban em all!

It's symptomatic of the biking community that the 'pro biker' voices here don't recognise the noise as an issue. When you've spent all day putting up with bikes coming past with obscenely loud exhausts it spoils your environment, in the same way that clouds of pollution or a neighbour having a 16 hour party would.

If you don't like where you live then move. Personally I wouldn't move to a house in the fist place that had the potential to cause me that level of noise pollution and if you didn't know it was like that before you moved then you most likely didn't do your research.

I am sympathetic to the general issue of noise pollution though.

bompington

Gimpl wrote:

If you don't like where you live then move. Personally I wouldn't move to a house in the fist place that had the potential to cause me that level of noise pollution and if you didn't know it was like that before you moved then you most likely didn't do your research.

Classic victim blaming there! It's nice to know, though, that I could have saved myself a lot of bother in my first flat - all I had to do was research the new neighbours who would move in 6 months later.

Seriously though, the FU mentality of the biker brigade is a bit obvious to the rest of us.

mamba80

craker wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

As i said, compared to all the other hazards we face daily on the roads, i m not sure that focusing on a few m/c's with loud pipe's is the correct one?

once you start banning or limiting one minority activity, you are on the road to banning many more, i m sure that many motorists get very p1$$ed off on Sat/sunday mornings getting caught up behind groups of cyclists on A and B roads across the country or delayed in a road race convoy ?
so ban em all!

It's symptomatic of the biking community that the 'pro biker' voices here don't recognise the noise as an issue. When you've spent all day putting up with bikes coming past with obscenely loud exhausts it spoils your environment, in the same way that clouds of pollution or a neighbour having a 16 hour party would.

i have complete sympathy if your life is being ruined by loud m/c's but have you been in contact with your local police/MP ? you ve rights and as you say they are breaking the law, so your local police can set up a few speed traps? esp if you live in a community where several households can report this issue? the police have a duty to act and it sounds like you need to be making more noise!!!!

gimpl

bompington wrote:

Gimpl wrote:

If you don't like where you live then move. Personally I wouldn't move to a house in the fist place that had the potential to cause me that level of noise pollution and if you didn't know it was like that before you moved then you most likely didn't do your research.

Classic victim blaming there! It's nice to know, though, that I could have saved myself a lot of bother in my first flat - all I had to do was research the new neighbours who would move in 6 months later.

Seriously though, the FU mentality of the biker brigade is a bit obvious to the rest of us.

Not quite.

As I mentioned I have sympathy for noise pollution and in your case the chances are you wouldn't have found out very much about your neighbours beforehand, even the ones living there at the time.

I live reasonably close to the M1 - I don't however live next to it like some people do as I wouldn't put up with the noise. If you choose to live somewhere where there are bikes whizzing past in the summer time then it would have been very easy for you to find that out before committing to renting or buying.

veronese68

bompington wrote:

Classic victim blaming there! It's nice to know, though, that I could have saved myself a lot of bother in my first flat - all I had to do was research the new neighbours who would move in 6 months later.

I think my level of sympathy would depend on how long Craker has lived in the house. If he bought it two years ago and it was a problem then I have no sympathy. It's like someone buying a house next to a pub then complaining about it. If he has owned it for forty years and it was never an issue before I would be rather more sympathetic. Unfortunately there are more people taking part in a variety of leisure activities be it cycling, motorcycling or whatever so unfortunately the nuisance value is increased to those that are bothered by it.

pinno

Veronese68 wrote:

bompington wrote:

Classic victim blaming there! It's nice to know, though, that I could have saved myself a lot of bother in my first flat - all I had to do was research the new neighbours who would move in 6 months later.

I think my level of sympathy would depend on how long Craker has lived in the house. If he bought it two years ago and it was a problem then I have no sympathy. It's like someone buying a house next to a pub then complaining about it. If he has owned it for forty years and it was never an issue before I would be rather more sympathetic. Unfortunately there are more people taking part in a variety of leisure activities be it cycling, motorcycling or whatever so unfortunately the nuisance value is increased to those that are bothered by it.

Run out of biscuits?

Guanajuato

cerutticolumn wrote:

My folks live in Kirkby Lonsdale, and when I visit, I always avoid cycling on a Sunday in the area because of the motorbikes. Too dangerous. You are probably alright on the lanes, but if you get onto the A65, Ingleton-Hawes road, or the Lune Valley road, then be prepared.

I ride a lot round KL, Lune Valley & Howgills. I can assure you, its not our motorised bretheren that put me off the A65 & A683. You'd have to be a monumental pillock to even think about rising on those roads.
Yes, some bikers can be pillocks, but the vast majority give plenty of room. The problem is the doddering old farts in their micras and the cockwombles in their Audi/BMW/Mercs/white 4x4s who seem to think that slowing down or moving out for other road users is unnecessary when traffic is coming the other direction. :x
Thanksfully, there's plenty of far better roads than those for riding on. Try the Old Hutton road towards Kendal, or the road west of the Lune, or the Old Scotch Rd instead. In fact, any of the lanes off the main roads.

tangled_metal

mamba80 wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

The exhaust issue is symptomatic of the attitude of a lot more of the biker community than they'd like to admit to. That attitude feels that there's very few laws and regulations affecting their hobby that they need to follow. There's the exhaust, speeding and dangerous riding in popular ridding areas such as devil's bridge near Kirby Lonsdale. I won't ride or drive on at least one bendy road near there at the weekend. It's just too dangerous. Bikers on the wrong side of the road around a blind bend are simply dangerous IME. Positively scary if you ever experience it. But that's the issue with popular biker spots. Perhaps they need to disperse such gatherings like they often do with customised cat meets.

i m not sure that the Cats protection league would endorse this sort of behaviour.

As i said, compared to all the other hazards we face daily on the roads, i m not sure that focusing on a few m/c's with loud pipe's is the correct one?

once you start banning or limiting one minority activity, you are on the road to banning many more, i m sure that many motorists get very p1$$ed off on Sat/sunday mornings getting caught up behind groups of cyclists on A and B roads across the country or delayed in a road race convoy ?
so ban em all!

Duly changed cats to cars. The police currently disperse custom car cruises I believe. Where you get a souped up cars with drivers performing dangerous stunts and even racing. I was comparing the fast bike gatherings with out and back time trials as the same level of problem. In certain locations this is a big problem that rarely gets police attention. I'm saying once identified that there's a problem I believe dispersal from these gathering points, just like with informal car gatherings, is the best answer. Make it clear to those involved it is a problem and is being addressed.

I have no desire to stop anyone doing their hobby. I just see that there is a problem with the activities some get into. If you haven't experienced such problem areas I suspect you cannot see how bad it can be. Add in the think bike signs when it's not the drivers being thoughtless. It just creates conflict, I'm sure the responsible bikers will recognise this.

BTW the loud pipe thing in my mind is a good signifier of a potential problem biker. It's part of a mindset I reckon. Although you'd complain about cars with that level of noise pollution from their exhaust pipes. I also reckon more cars get stopped for noise issue than bikes. IMHO excessive noise is anti-social wherever it comes from.

cerutticolumn

Guanajuato wrote:

cerutticolumn wrote:

My folks live in Kirkby Lonsdale, and when I visit, I always avoid cycling on a Sunday in the area because of the motorbikes. Too dangerous. You are probably alright on the lanes, but if you get onto the A65, Ingleton-Hawes road, or the Lune Valley road, then be prepared.

I ride a lot round KL, Lune Valley & Howgills. I can assure you, its not our motorised bretheren that put me off the A65 & A683. You'd have to be a monumental pillock to even think about rising on those roads.
Yes, some bikers can be pillocks, but the vast majority give plenty of room. The problem is the doddering old farts in their micras and the cockwombles in their Audi/BMW/Mercs/white 4x4s who seem to think that slowing down or moving out for other road users is unnecessary when traffic is coming the other direction. :x
Thanksfully, there's plenty of far better roads than those for riding on. Try the Old Hutton road towards Kendal, or the road west of the Lune, or the Old Scotch Rd instead. In fact, any of the lanes off the main roads.

Thanks for the tips. I have tried those roads - very nice. Normally, though I try to go up through Barbondale and into Dentdale (the climbs out are pretty tough) Hawes etc.
And no, I don't go onto the A65.
But the problem with all of this is that we seem to have normalised the idea the cyclists shouldn't go onto certain roads ever or on others at certain times (and I'm talking about rural roads here, not dual carriageways near cities). It's a shame really, and something that will take a long time and a lot of effort by cycling organisations, cyclists etc. to turn around.

tangled_metal

There's also the road past Barbon. A mate grew up around there and his family has been around that area for generations. It wasn't always as bad as now.

However the issue shouldn't be a case of "well you knew about it". There is a problem the fact it has been allowed to exist like that for years doesn't mean you should ignore it. Imagine the meet was happening somewhere more important. Say hospital for example. That is a problem and it wouldn't have ever been allowed to happen. My view is if the excessive noise isn't allowed there why is it allowed anywhere.

Now the noise from motorways is also an issue. Newer ones have solutions to reduce the impact designed in. Older ones not so because they were built before the current levels of use (excessive IMHO). However the motorways do provide a useful service overall. There are irrelevant journeys but also important ones. I don't feel bikers with excessively noisy race pipes racing around problem areas serve any value to society.

Hey I don't complain about people riding their bikes responsibly, same with car drivers and cyclists. I do complain about irresponsible riders. I feel three issues make for this problem. Irresponsible riders, pipes designed for pure performance on the road not sound reduction and excessive gatherings. The last two create excessive noise pollution. The first is a real danger, no matter how small the rate of accidents compared to cars.

Funny how cyclists are quick to go on about lack of traffic enforcement and lenient sentencing but they have a different view when it involves bikers if that's their other pastime.

slowmart

Does anyone think there's a car drivers forum where they complain of dangerous cyclists who choose to pedal on roads with a national limit and poor visibility when approaching a crest of a hill or a corner obscured by vegetation?

I totally agree regarding noise pollution though, be its bikes or cars.

veronese68

Slowmart wrote:

Does anyone think there's a car drivers forum where they complain of dangerous cyclists who choose to pedal on roads with a national limit and poor visibility when approaching a crest of a hill or a corner obscured by vegetation?

Without a shadow of a doubt. Here's an example I lifted from one of them:

Some Spotted Yoof wrote:

I was overtaking a van over a hump back bridge on a blind corner when I this damned fool on a push bike suddenly appeared in front of me riding in the opposite direction. Luckily for him due to my extreme skillz and talent I managed to brake and cut in just in time to avoid smearing him all over my tinted windscreen. Doesn't he know how dangerous it is to be riding on roads? He doesn't even pay road tax and if I'd hit him he wouldn't have had insurance either.
I think I only managed to brake enough because I painted my brake calipers red. The question is if I paint them gold will I stop any quicker?

I might have made that up

DavidJB

Veronese68 wrote:

Slowmart wrote:

Does anyone think there's a car drivers forum where they complain of dangerous cyclists who choose to pedal on roads with a national limit and poor visibility when approaching a crest of a hill or a corner obscured by vegetation?

Without a shadow of a doubt. Here's an example I lifted from one of them:

Some Spotted Yoof wrote:

I was overtaking a van over a hump back bridge on a blind corner when I this damned fool on a push bike suddenly appeared in front of me riding in the opposite direction. Luckily for him due to my extreme skillz and talent I managed to brake and cut in just in time to avoid smearing him all over my tinted windscreen. Doesn't he know how dangerous it is to be riding on roads? He doesn't even pay road tax and if I'd hit him he wouldn't have had insurance either.
I think I only managed to brake enough because I painted my brake calipers red. The question is if I paint them gold will I stop any quicker?

I might have made that up

My brake calipers are red

veronese68

DavidJB wrote:

My brake calipers are red

:oops:
If they are on something like a Maserati and it was delivered like that, it's acceptable. If they are on a Corsa and you painted them, not so much.

homers_double

Don't worry about it. His shitty brakes will be as good, if not better than your good brakes.

shimanobottombracket

bompington wrote:

Don't knock it, where would transplant patients be without them?

Agreed. Also the last thing anyone wants is more fudging speed cameras. Motorists will be even more pissed off and fiery when more and more bastard cameras go up.