Recommendations for lightweight but effective bell

[Trull]

One bit of advice I've been given is never to use a bell when alerting a horse rider to your presence. Always talk to the rider. I've been told that this enables the horse to recognise that there is actually a person on the bike, and that bells may make the horse go nuts. Whether this is true I don't know, but I'm rather afraid of horses and suspect that they are not too keen on me. I always try to get a "lovely weather" type conversation with the rider, in the hope that this will make the horse think that me and the rider are old mates, and thus be less likely to try to kill me. It has worked so far.

Aye X2, always speak to horse riders, there's loads round here in Aberdeenshire and speaking calms the rider and the horse (who may be wearing blinkers). Good idea to tune your brakes to avoid loud squeels as well. Its a good plan to not show your teeth either, same reason.

 

[Trull]

Fitted the wee bell last night - rode into town to attend Aberdeen Astro Soc's talk on remote controlling professional telescopes (and had a go!). Naturally the streets were deserted and I just enjoyed a solitary starlight cycle home with no wind and lovely views of the moon glinting in the Dee over Torry Brig.

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

Aye X2, always speak to horse riders, there's loads round here in Aberdeenshire and speaking calms the rider and the horse (who may be wearing blinkers). Good idea to tune your brakes to avoid loud squeels as well. Its a good plan to not show your teeth either, same reason.

I don't mean to be rude but, surely a horse that is so easily spooked shouldn't be on a shared path? I've seen horses all over the place where I live...busy highways, busy heavily used by mtb's bridle ways and I've never seen a horse spooked. Not even by the horrible clanging noise a mtb descending at speed makes.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I don't mean to be rude but, surely a horse that is so easily spooked shouldn't be on a shared path? I've seen horses all over the place where I live...busy highways, busy heavily used by mtb's bridle ways and I've never seen a horse spooked. Not even by the horrible clanging noise a mtb descending at speed makes.

Maybe so, but I don't trust the monsters. Maybe I was a sugar lump in a previous life. I always slow down to walking pace and roll past jabbering nervously at the rider about the weather, as the giant beast gives me the evil eye.

 

[Trull]

I don't mean to be rude but, surely a horse that is so easily spooked shouldn't be on a shared path? I've seen horses all over the place where I live...busy highways, busy heavily used by mtb's bridle ways and I've never seen a horse spooked. Not even by the horrible clanging noise a mtb descending at speed makes.

All horses can be spooked, even the ridiculously well trained steeds like Franklyn Sugar my cousin works with, as Dogtrousers rightly says. Thankfully up here in Scotlandshire we have access to the land as a given so there are very few of what English law abiding people would call Bridleways, I think (and I'm sure someone will pop up with the answer). Mostly they are cross-country or on the quieter roads round here. Some people get lucky with these things, but I'd rather not chance it, a horse's hoof contains considerably more energy than a 22 rifle bullet when they kick.

 

[Trull]

My take home from this thread, is that a gentle ping followed up with a request to pass seems to be the group consensus to minimise the risk of fisticuffs. Point taken and lesson learnt :-)

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

My take home from this thread, is that a gentle ping followed up with a request to pass seems to be the group consensus to minimise the risk of fisticuffs. Point taken and lesson learnt :-)

That's all well and good but, earphones, deafness, ignorance, belligerence and noisy kids playing tend to make a bell useless and ineffective (@Pennine-Paul ) will testify to this through experience of my bell. All the things that according to some will spook a horse, therefore the horse needs to be taken somewhere where these things don't go on.
If a horse booted a kid, cyclist or anyone else because it got spooked by a simple noise then I assume the jockey would be the one responsible, wouldn't they?

 

[MontyVeda]

It's not often that BFF is missed.

i always miss him whenever horses and refuse collectors are mentioned

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

Who's BFF?

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

A spooked horse isn't necessarily one in a total panic. Horses can see a remarkably long way behind themselves, so if they see what could be a predator creeping silently up on them they can start to feel edgy to their rider. It can be something as subtle as the horse constantly turning its head to try and look back, tensing up and quickening its pace. None of this would be obvious to a passer-by, but to a rider that's a spooked horse and it can be unnerving. Horses have as much if not more right to be on the road than most other users, as they were there first.

I've not said they don't have any rights to on the bridle ways (as a former mtb'er I appreciate the effort horse riders put into developing routes (mtl for one shining example)), I'd never say that at all. I'm just suggesting, as some have said on this thread that a spooked horse will lash out, that if a horse is of a nervous disposition that a tiny ping will spook it - it might be wise to avoid such places that's all.