Arrgh! Hedge Cutting Season.

[Minotier]

Out for a ride this morning and I came up behind a sight that always gets me stressed, the local council trimming the roadside hedges with a tractor mounted device. Needless to say the road behind the tractor was a carpet of incredibly horrible sharp hawthorn thorns and cuttings.
Which if not doing their best to work their way into your tyres are equally adept at getting into your spokes and causing unintended emergency stops. I honestly think this practise is one of the most inconvenient and anti cycling activities around.
Luckily this time I avoided both punctures and diving over the handlebars. Of course I check the tyres by spinning a gloved hand over the tyres as soon as possible.
Do any of you have similar feelings about this?
Pete.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Do any of you have similar feelings about this?
Pete.

Yes. I've been fortunate in that I haven't come up behind a tractor in the process of cutting for a while now but last time it happened I picked up instant punctures in both tyres.

This is one of my pet hates as whoever is doing the cutting is legally supposed to clear up afterwards but they never do.

I've got better tyres now and so far have been okay (touches wood) but it is still a bugbear.

 

[tyred]

Michelin City puncture resistant tyres

 

[screenman]

Slime.

 

[Melonfish]

Out for a ride this morning and I came up behind a sight that always gets me stressed, the local council trimming the roadside hedges with a tractor mounted device. Needless to say the road behind the tractor was a carpet of incredibly horrible sharp hawthorn thorns and cuttings.
Which if not doing their best to work their way into your tyres are equally adept at getting into your spokes and causing unintended emergency stops. I honestly think this practise is one of the most inconvenient and anti cycling activities around.
Luckily this time I avoided both punctures and diving over the handlebars. Of course I check the tyres by spinning a gloved hand over the tyres as soon as possible.
Do any of you have similar feelings about this?
Pete.

last year i pulled no less then 4 2cm blackthorns out of my front wheel after getting caught on a farmers road. nasty stuff is blackthorn!
also kudos for the levs avatar
Pete

 

[Minotier]

Thanks.
But I should have mentioned I was on my 84 Clubman with 27''x 1 1/4 sport tyres fitted.
Made me realise that if I am going to use this as a winter training bike I will have to re tyre it, possibly with Conti ultra gator skins or similar.
My work bike is fitted with city jets and I am very pleased with those.
However good the puncture resistance I still find it annoying that the local authority deem it ok to leave this mess all over the countryside and offcuts of branches still can end up in your spokes or rear gears.!
Think I feel a letter coming on!

 

[Minotier]

[also kudos for the levs avatar
Pete[/quote]

Yea thanks fella, I think most cyclists are a bit crusty under the surface

 

[screenman]

Around here it is the farmers who cut the hedge, it is also up to them to clear up. If you see a mess or road hazard of any sort I hope that we all would report it to the highways, who are obliged to do something about it. A lot of cyclist I know moan about the hedge cutting but never bother to phone and report bad practise, unfortunately.

 

[Minotier]

Around here it is the farmers who cut the hedge, it is also up to them to clear up. If you see a mess or road hazard of any sort I hope that we all would report it to the highways, who are obliged to do something about it. A lot of cyclist I know moan about the hedge cutting but never bother to phone and report bad practise, unfortunately.

Went onto the local council website to register my complaint. There is an internal server error and I have been advised to try later!!!
I will phone them instead and will post their reply/action/inaction on here.

 

[trampyjoe]

Everytime I see a farmer with a hedgecutter out a little bit of me dies inside.

Couldn't care less about the punctures (although I must now boast about my spanking new marathon pluses) as that's part of owning a bike but the hedges get massacred by the flails :'(

 

[Minotier]

Everytime I see a farmer with a hedgecutter out a little bit of me dies inside.

Couldn't care less about the punctures (although I must now boast about my spanking new marathon pluses) as that's part of owning a bike but the hedges get massacred by the flails :'(

Sad but true.

 

[Melonfish]

Everytime I see a farmer with a hedgecutter out a little bit of me dies inside.

Couldn't care less about the punctures (although I must now boast about my spanking new marathon pluses) as that's part of owning a bike but the hedges get massacred by the flails :'(

truth, and farmers don't realise how much damage they do either, they end up promoting new growth incorrectly thus blocking out all the light and ending up with thick stalks on the bottom and a dense hedge 4-5 feet up that blocks all light and is useless as habitat!
seriously those chain/machine hedgers should be made illegal.
i haven't seen a properly layed hedge in years.

 

[trampyjoe]

truth, and farmers don't realise how much damage they do either, they end up promoting new growth incorrectly thus blocking out all the light and ending up with thick stalks on the bottom and a dense hedge 4-5 feet up that blocks all light and is useless as habitat!
seriously those chain/machine hedgers should be made illegal.
i haven't seen a properly layed hedge in years.

Not the best but done properly - https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=e...1rt2z30kO5kpiYq6VDmQ-Q&cbp=12,269.25,,0,15.35
(Done by about 40 students, one of which was me)

 

[Melonfish]

Not the best but done properly - https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=e...1rt2z30kO5kpiYq6VDmQ-Q&cbp=12,269.25,,0,15.35
(Done by about 40 students, one of which was me)

always great to cycle past a hedge you've worked on and see the re-growth in march mind

 

[ayceejay]

Back in the day farm labourers would spend the winter hedging and ditching and rebuilding stone walls, these three skills contributed more to the traditional English landscape than most people realize, if they did they would be more careful with the heritage.
I live in rural Quebec where some of the farm machinery is as wide as the whole road and hedges and trees are sacrificed to these monsters whose drivers want to go as far as they can in a straight line. We don't have that 'thorn in the road' problem here although I remember it well, the biggest hazard is negotiating around mud (or worse) left in the road from the farm machinery, you never ever see a person unattached to a machine