Cyclists hitting an invisible gate.

[Tail End Charlie]

That gate could easily be missed, especially if it was usually open.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Calling @13 rider

 

[13 rider]

Calling @13 rider

I have no idea what you mean ,as if I would cycle into a closed gate

 

[Sharky]

A reporter from the Maily Dail asked one of the local residents,
"Do cyclists often crash into the gate?"

They replied, "No, only once"

 

[classic33]

A reporter from the Maily Dail asked one of the local residents,
"Do cyclists often crash into the gate?"

They replied, "No, only once"

The scooter rider is said to have hit it twice.

 

[winjim]

That gate could easily be hit, especially if it was usually open.

FTFY

 

[Tail End Charlie]

FTFY

I knew what I meant, but sometimes my words don't match my thoughts!

 

[cougie uk]

'Where's that?'
'Over there,' I replied. 'Just to the right of that tank.' There was a Second World War tank parked 15 metres away as a patriotic display.
'What tank?'
'The one just in front of us.'
'Where's that?'
'Well, look at the edge of the road just opposite us. Look up from that, and there's the tank.'
'…well. Oh! There. Well, I never knew there was a tank there.'
The tank was set against a distant background of a similar colour. No cyclists ran into it but I suspect the patriotic index of the place remained stubbornly unchanged. Presumably something similar is taking place at the crash gate.

I did ride past my mate coming the other way once. Winters day - dull. He liked the black look back then and I did not see him at all - he was under the shadows of trees too. Took him a few miles to catch up to me. Week after he had a fluo top and lights on. Never missed him since !

 

[steveindenmark]

I can't quite work out why the gate is so 'invisible' to them!?

Unlike the person who posted it to YouTube though, I don't think seeing people hurt themselves is funny...

Seen that a few times now.

Not even sure why there would be a gate there.

The gate will be there to stop vehicles. Its doing a good job 🙂

 

[Alex321]

The gate will be there to stop vehicles. Its doing a good job 🙂

And next to it there is one of those inverted V shaped cyclist pass-throughs.

 

[presta]

I reckon that this is it:


View attachment 722699

Snipped from here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...th,_Sheffield_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4909494.jpg

No real excuse for riding into it but...the shadow when the photo was taken and the track sweeping round to the right do disguise the diagonal. It is also at the bottom of a dip so I can imagine people wanting to carry a fair bit of speed to get up the opposite side.

I wondered whether there was a Strava segment along there. There is but it goes in the opposite direction: https://www.strava.com/segments/25297491

Viewed from higher up the hill, the gate will be in front of tarmac.

Yep, found it on Geograph too, in more difficult lighting conditions
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6357513

View attachment 722729

If I was descending at speed, most of my attention would be looking for poor surface hazards on that bit of rough track by the van, especially if I hadn't seen the gate against the grey tarmac from higher up.

The classic mistake, believing people are crashing because they cannot see when in most cases its because they're not actually looking properly.

My Accord was this colour.
I parked it at the roadside one day to go fellwalking, and when I was about a 1000' up the fellside I turned round for an aerial view of it and thought it had been stolen. I had to look long and hard before I could see it camouflaged against the tarmac it was parked on.

Although I can empathise with the pain those riders must have felt, I must be a terrible person as I enjoyed the schadenfreude of seeing them doing it to themselves as they were going too fast to stop in time.

Ride/drive within the distance you can see to be clear.

The problem with that rule is that any speed has a stopping distance, so unless you're allowed to assume the right to a clear way for a minimum distance, the only safe speed is zero.

In practice, the rule becomes ride/drive within the speed you're willing to crash from, which isn't much fun for a pedestrian who isn't party to that decision.

 

[Alex321]

Ride/drive within the distance you can see to be clear.

The problem with that rule is that any speed has a stopping distance, so unless you're allowed to assume the right to a clear way for a minimum distance, the only safe speed is zero.

In practice, the rule becomes ride/drive within the speed you're willing to crash from, which isn't much fun for a pedestrian who isn't party to that decision.

That is just not even close to true.

If you can see 200 yards of clear road in froint of you, then you can safely ride at a speed such that you can stop in 200 yards - half that if it is a single track road where somebody could be coming the opposite direction with no space to pass.

 

[Jody]

I knew what I meant, but sometimes my words don't match my thoughts!

I know the feeling

 

[presta]

That is just not even close to true.

If you can see 200 yards of clear road in froint of you, then you can safely ride at a speed such that you can stop in 200 yards - half that if it is a single track road where somebody could be coming the opposite direction with no space to pass.

In a 20mph zone your stopping distance is still 12m, so if a child runs out 4m in front of the car.......

 

[Alex321]

In a 20mph zone your stopping distance is still 12m, so if a child runs out 4m in front of the car.......

Well you can't really see that the road is clear if there is such an obstacle.

It does make it almost impossible to properly follow that rule then of course, but that isn't the situation we were talking about here.