Cattle grids how to ride them on a road bike?

[totallyfixed]

Bunny hop if you have the skill and the speed, over 22 mph needed [for me] to clear it completely and if you do it properly it is possible to land the bike gently - that's the difficult bit .

 

[Steve Saunders]

One of the climbs beside me has a gradient between 14% and 25% and it has a couple of cattle grids on the steeper parts. I'm usually doing about 6-8 mph over them, not had an issue so far. It would be easy to come down this decent at 35mph+, but I've never had the bottle because of the cattle grids ... maybe I should just MTFU and blast down next time.

 

[fossyant]

Bunny hop if you have the skill and the speed, over 22 mph needed [for me] to clear it completely and if you do it properly it is possible to land the bike gently - that's the difficult bit .

Get it wrong and there could be a world of pain. TBH we used to do this all the time after coming down Winnats Pass !

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Here's another thought, if the grid is quite old it has possibly been repaired with lengths of steel that running at 90o to the bars, be careful though as these strips are usually worn very smooth so could be nasty in the rain.

 

[hoopdriver]

Get off and walk across. What's the big deal? Takes you an extra 30 seconds. Unless you're racing it really doesn't matter. As another poster says, get it wrong and there's a world of pain.

 

[SS Retro]

Thanks for the advice so far. Bunny hop yeah I hop the expansion joints on our local lifting bridge and land softly but a grid is bit far for me. There's one on the Coniston road that's on a bend its polished slick when its wet in the car you skid sideways over it so full speed on the bike could end in disaster.

 

[Robeh]

i always take them at speed

 

[Nearly there]

I tend to unclip one foot put it down push me and the bike slowly over it I dunno why I do this maybe because the grids I come to are at the top of a climb so Im not going fast enough to whiz across

 

[Cyclopathic]

Is nobody going to mention the joke where the two nuns are cycling over some cobbles and one turns to the other and says...

 

[Davidc]

I'm with hoopdriver - get off.

You can get away with the flat barred ones, but there are round barred ones on Exmoor which are very nasty.

 

[Rob3rt]

The 1st time I went over a cattle grid I didn't have any choice in the matter, I was midway back in the group, someone shouted cattle grid, as they would a pothole etc, then we were all across it before there was any time to think about it.

 

[ColinJ]

Bunny hop if you have the skill and the speed, over 22 mph needed [for me] to clear it completely and if you do it properly it is possible to land the bike gently - that's the difficult bit .

Get it wrong and there could be a world of pain. TBH we used to do this all the time after coming down Winnats Pass !

Tf and I both bunny-hopped the cattle grid descending off the Nick o' Pendle to Sabden on one of my forum rides - this one! (I don't think dr_pink was too happy about it ... )

 

[middleagecyclist]

Is nobody going to mention the joke where the two nuns are cycling over some cobbles and one turns to the other and says...

..."I've never come this way before"; the second one replies "Must be the cobbles"

That one?

 

[Red Light]

Bunny hop if you have the skill and the speed, over 22 mph needed [for me] to clear it completely and if you do it properly it is possible to land the bike gently - that's the difficult bit .

And if you are not good at it, landing hard on the slippy bars of the grid with the bike slightly sideways and the front wheel even further off could be an interesting and underwear changing experience.

 

[HovR]

Straight over at 90 degrees to the bars for me. Anything over about 15mph is usually pretty uneventful, wouldn't want to go slow and get stuck in the middle though.