Steep Hill - Cyclists Dismount

[ColinJ]

Let me see if I can check that...

No - the M100 route was much further west. I'll try to work out where the farm was by looking at the route and checking on Street View!

 

[roubaixtuesday]

No - the M100 route was much further west. I'll try to work out where the farm was by looking at the route and checking on Street View!

No need unless for your own interest!

I safely negotiated the tandem around cowshit corner today though :-)

 

[ColinJ]

No need unless for your own interest!

I safely negotiated the tandem around cowshit corner today though :-)

I was interested (just curious to see if I would recognise it 20-odd years on) but I haven't been able to spot it. I am assuming that the event's route was the same every year. I might have another look later but I'm not going to spend a whole evening on it!

 

[RoadRider400]

I would ride, these cyclist dismount signs are found in lots of places where its obviously OK to ride, I have come to the conclusions the people that approve them have never ridden a bike.

Or more likely to mitigate their liability if a cyclist comes a cropper on the way down.

 

[Mr Celine]

<--- My great-great uncle Jack.


He went touring in the Alps in the 1880s on his 'ordinary'. Rather than dismount on steep descents he hooked his legs over the handlebars.

 

[ColinJ]

<--- My great-great uncle Jack.


He went touring in the Alps in the 1880s on his 'ordinary'. Rather than dismount on steep descents he hooked his legs over the handlebars.

How old was he when he died, and what was he doing at the time...?

 

[Ian H]

<--- My great-great uncle Jack.


He went touring in the Alps in the 1880s on his 'ordinary'. Rather than dismount on steep descents he hooked his legs over the handlebars.

Standard procedure for descents. In the event of the front wheel being impeded, you'd be thrown feet first rather than landing head first (the 'imperial crowner').

 

[Mr Celine]

How old was he when he died, and what was he doing at the time...?

Dunno what he was doing, but he was at least 94. From a newspaper cutting -

Mr Rowley (94), who won many awards as a cyclist, including all-England championship trophies, still speaks spiritedly about a unique journey which he and two school friends made in the Alps on penny-farthing bicycles.

“My machine had a big wheel 54in high and had a ‘spoon’ brake which pressed on the solid tyre,” he recalls.

“I was about 17 and we cycled across France and Switzerland and then from one end of the Alps to the other. We averaged 60 miles a day. I used to coast downhill, putting my legs over the handlebars.”

 

[ColinJ]

Dunno what he was doing, but he was at least 94. From a newspaper cutting -

Excellent... I had visions of him being last seen disappearing into a ravine, closely followed by his 'ordinary'!

 

[TheCheapBikeMan]

Dismount and do the "walk of shame". No thanks =)

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Or more likely to mitigate their liability if a cyclist comes a cropper on the way down.

Fat chance of that, they have a legal obligation to maintain the highway in a fit state for cyclists.

 

[Dogtrousers]

There are two of these signs on the approach to Toy's Hill but I expect there are still a fair few cyclists come to grief from overestimating their skills/underestimating the hill. Best case outcome is an unscheduled arrival, Thomas Voeckler style, in someone's driveway. Worst case is, well, worse.

My least favourite descent is not far from here, called Jewel's Hill: steep, sharp bend, terrible surface, beware of buses coming up. I was once stopped from cycling up there by a grim-faced policewoman who told me that a cyclist had crashed there and I realised that the helicopter I'd seen was probably the air ambulance.

I rode down both of these yesterday. I survived. Neither requires walking. Just great care.

 

[ColinJ]

My least favourite descent is not far from here, called Jewel's Hill: steep, sharp bend, terrible surface, beware of buses coming up. I was once stopped from cycling up there by a grim-faced policewoman who told me that a cyclist had crashed there and I realised that the helicopter I'd seen was probably the air ambulance.

I rode down both of these yesterday. I survived. Neither requires walking. Just great care.

That brings back awful memories of THIS. Fortunately, I no longer remember it with the intensity that I did for the following few months.

 

[alchurch]

My worse moment on a decent was from the west heading to the bridge of brown in Scotland. I was going much too fast, a sharp left was indicated by those black and white reflector signs, but having just managed to get round , there was another bend right in front of me, with a gravel path off to the left alongside a farm building, I had to take that and come to a stop until my bottom had stopped squeaking.

 

[matticus]

My worse moment on a decent was from the west heading to the bridge of brown in Scotland. I was going much too fast, a sharp left was indicated by those black and white reflector signs, but having just managed to get round , there was another bend right in front of me, with a gravel path off to the left alongside a farm building, I had to take that and come to a stop until my bottom had stopped squeaking.

Thus giving birth to the phrase:

"I had a descent to the Bridge of Brown this afternoon."

(I rode down there on a sunny July day, and it did seem a bit tasty!)