Hello and a plea from us horse riders!

[PpPete]

I always call out and slow down for horse riders.... but the hunt behaviour described above brings to mind the famous Oscar Wilde quote.
Still we get similar behaviour from motons every day so we should be used to it by now.

 

[Dave Davenport]

Out on a ride last week, I was approaching a horse & rider on a country lane so as per usual I shouted 'bike coming by' about 20 yards back and then passed as wide as possible. The bleeding women on the horse only went and bloody waved & smiled and said 'thank you'!

 

[SEH]

I always call out and slow down for horse riders.... but the hunt behaviour described above brings to mind the famous Oscar Wilde quote.
Still we get similar behaviour from motons every day so we should be used to it by now.

I prefer another Oscar Wilde quote, "The Unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."

 

[Recycler]

I feel that I should make another comment following my earlier story about the hunters.
Yes, the hunt thing was poor, but I have no problems at all with horseriders on my local roads. They are invariably friendly and courteous and considerate.

Mind you; I don't think I would fancy going on the roads with something that doesn't have proper brakes fitted!!

 

[valetillidye]

I can cope with horses

Its dogs not on a lead that give me nightmares

 

[Linford]

Got to respect the back end of a horse. Anyone who doesn't is really asking for trouble

 

[ianrauk]

Out on a ride last week, I was approaching a horse & rider on a country lane so as per usual I shouted 'bike coming by' about 20 yards back and then passed as wide as possible. The bleeding women on the horse only went and bloody waved & smiled and said 'thank you'!

Bloody cheek of it.

 

[Gary E]

The thing is, horse riders are usually on the roads for the enjoyment of the ride rather than the need to get somewhere quickly. Which tends to make their attitude to other road users more akin to cyclists than drivers.
So we have more in common than you may at first realise

 

[Eve]

I worry about spooking horses on the 'bent. I'm very low, and suspect my knees read like the shoulders of some predatory big cat. I've only ever seen one get really jumpy, and that seemed to be triggered by a fellow rider's flag. My approach tends to be start talking to the horse and rider as early as possible, and keep the conversation going whilst I'm waved past.

The flip side is that I fairly often run out of things to say, so end up going "I'm human... Yes, still human. A human on a bike. A laid back bike. But a bike. With a human on.. Yes, a human... etc..."

Seems to put the horse at ease, but the riders likely worry for my mental health.

I haven't managed to read all the replies yet but this really made me I think a few cyclists have worried for my sanity too as I am prone to having full blow conversations with my horse!

 

[Eve]

I

Hi Eve,

I used to drive tractors on country lanes so am used to stopping when I see a horse approaching. However, is it necessary to slow down on a bike, if the horse can see me coming?

If the horse looks like it's having a wobbly then yes please, but if not then you should be fine

 

[Eve]

Horses have excellent vision, hearing and sense of smell but they do have restrictions. They have poor depth perception (many won't walk in water as they can't assess how deep it may be) and they have poor speed tracking ability from anything approaching from front or behind. So they cannot reliably assess how quickly something is closing in on them from behind.

A further point to add is that they have a blind spot directly in front and behind them.

 

[Eve]

One final point in passing - in my experience, where I live, most (though definately not all) drivers are happy to slow down and pass horses with care. Wouldn't it be nice, as fellow riders, if we had the same consideration paid to us?

Oh, and finally, welcome to the forum Eve. Do you ride bikes or just mad animals?

Thanks! Just mad animals these days - had far too many accidents mountain biking that I felt it was time to hang up my lycra

RE the traffic - believe me, we have some drivers who deliberately try to scare the horses - one memorable occasion was when someone threw a banger under my horses feet!

 

[al78]

Hi Eve, I encounter horses on my commute regularly (especially in weather like we've been having recently) and I've always had good experiences with them so far.

There was one situation where I wasn't sure what to do. I was on a single track road which was lined with dense vegetation, so there was hardly any room either side of the road to pull over. There was a horse and rider approaching me and so, given the narrowness of the road, I stopped and got off. The horse still got spooked though, and the rider looked like she was struggling to control it. I tried talking to the rider and dropping the bike to make myself look as human as possible to reduce the threat perception to the horse, and the rider did kind of get it under control enough to pass me without incident. The thing is, I was nervous of the prospect that if the horse lost it and went for me I would have nowhere to go. Is there anything else I could have done here to calm the horse?

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Shall I go on Pistonheads and plead with them to stop driving like nobbers?

Or go on Horseyclipclop.com (or whatever the horserider equivalent of this site is) and plead for all of them to pick up their horseshit after them?

Hopefully I am proven to be out of order. I can live with that.

Quite, I was going to say something rather rude along the lines of

'Stop being a tw*t'

but hopefully you have learned

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

As for horse poo: I don't mind it at all. After all, it's just recycled grass. If I see a big fresh pile, I usually ride straight through it. Makes a satisfying swishing sound and leaves a cycle tyre shaped ravine.

And Eve: welcome.

Yes, welcome.

When riding through the New Forest one time, I was fast approaching a big pile of the proverbial (there were also cows about), but, unfortunately, I was being overtaken by someone in a 4x4 at the time and had nowhere to go.


There's nothing quite like shoot on your face in the mornings, is there?

Nowt wrong with 'oss sh t - shovel it up and put it on the garden. Since when did the human race become so squeamish?

After the war when everything became tarmacked over and everyone started driving about in metal boxes.
Somewhat ironic considering the amount of effluent created by them, both physically and metaphorically!

RE the traffic - believe me, we have some drivers who deliberately try to scare the horses - one memorable occasion was when someone threw a banger under my horses feet!

FFS!

A handgun usually helps.