Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 97 total)
  • Pushed from bike by walker…
  • mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    So – there I was on Sunday monring, enjoying a cheeky local ride. Where I ride (in Harogate) the access is, at best, useless. There is the Beryl Burton Cycleway (a dedicated cyclepath) which, in order to get to the next bit of bridleway and the next dedicated cyclepath/dog toilet, means using a mile or so of footpath.

    Normally I get absolutely no problems with walkers as I always slow down/stop and make sure I am very polite and friendly. On Sunday I was riding a quite narrow raised ‘northshore’ section and a couple were walking towards me. One person moved over and I slowed to almost a stop and we passed each other perfectly easily. As I approached the second person, he deliberately moved across at the last minute and pushed me off – with the inevitable ‘excuse’ that it is a footpath.

    I shouted a really lame comeback but have been left feeling wound up about it since – I have tried (unsuccessfully) in the past to get the council/Woodland Trust to look at joining up this particular piece of access upgraded as it would be very simple to make a separate cycle path so we can all enjoy the area and I know I was in the wrong to be riding it, but it is almost impossble (without using more roads) to get a decent ride around my area without using the odd bit of footpath. I was just left feeling realy annoyed that someone could act like that – there really was no need, other than to satisfy himself that he taught a cyclist a ‘lesson’.

    TheSanityAssassin
    Full Member

    Whatever the rights and wrongs of your alleged ‘trespass’, you were assaulted.

    I’m afraid to say that in similar circumstances I’d have lamped the ignorant bastid.

    Perhaps if you’re not 6’2″ and of suitably imposing stature then it quite possibly wouldn’t have happened in the first place though. Bullies don’t usually pick on bigger blokes.

    ballsofcottonwool
    Free Member

    Have you reported the assault to the police?

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    cynic-al
    Free Member

    Aye, tricky to deal with this sort of thing if you are not into violence though.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    There are two issues here, clearly.

    Your reasons for riding the footpath are purely selfish, but it doesn’t really seem to be relevant. He shouldn’t have pushed you off regardless. 😐

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    Nail square on head there, SA.

    Sadly…

    shinsplints
    Full Member

    What the sanity assassin said.

    alpin
    Free Member

    haha…. you got owned.

    @sanity assassin…. you don’t have to be big to get angry. throw your bike at them or kick him hard in the knees and ride off….

    richc
    Free Member

    so you were on a narrow raised dedicated footpath and you tried to squeeze past 2 walkers, and one got arsey.

    Why didn’t you just hop off and walk past them and then hop back on again?

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    Yeah – on discussing in the pub later, my mates pointed out the ‘assault’ thing. At the end of the day, the rights and wrongs of my riding there don’t give someone the permission to be a vigilante.

    I really wouldn’t bother wasting police time with it though – I wasn’t injured in the slightest – I was just left feeling annoyed about the whole experience.

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    so you were on a narrow raised dedicated footpath and you tried to squeeze past 2 walkers, and one got arsey.

    As said in my post – it was wide enough for us to pass and that had already been proved by the person’s friend who, by moving across, provided enough room for us to pass.

    Drac
    Full Member

    Maybe he recognise you from here and it a fellow STW out for revenge.

    Hope he doesn’t head up here.

    TheSanityAssassin
    Full Member

    alpin – Member
    haha…. you got owned.

    @sanity assassin…. you don’t have to be big to get angry. throw your bike at them or kick him hard in the knees and ride off….

    My comment was suggesting that if the OP was built like a brick 5hithouse then the assault is less likely to have taken place. The cowardly bastid that pushed him would have merely walked past and wished he had the b0ll0cks to assault someone his own size.

    righty
    Free Member

    don’t ride on a footpath you nobber 🙄

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    If you’re on a footpath, just get off and let them go past.
    Basic courtesy isn’t it?

    The guy was obviously a knob, but two wrongs etc.

    hora
    Free Member

    I cant comment without more info/pic of width of said trail, how hard the push was etc TBH.

    mk1fan
    Free Member

    No excuse for assaulting you.

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    If you’re on a footpath, just get off and let them go past.
    Basic courtesy isn’t it?

    As I said, I WAS being courteous – I slowed almost to a stop and moved right over. The space was there but he chose to move across at the last moment to deliberately knock me off.

    Whether the same would have happened had I stopped entirely we will never kow.

    Gingerbloke
    Free Member

    Had a similar incident yesterday, only difference been I was on a road between trails. We were riding side by side on a single track road, my friend on the left and I was sort of in the middle of the road. Two walkers coming towards me, when the one closest to me deliberately moved into the centre of the road, full eye contact made. She let out a hell of a scream when she collected my right elbow somewhere aroungd her right t1t……

    TheSanityAssassin
    Full Member

    Did you stop to kiss it better?

    Drac
    Full Member

    She let out a hell of a scream when she collected my right elbow somewhere aroungd her right t1t……

    Excellent that’ll help cyclist profiles.

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    Great PR there gingerbloke, keep up the good work 🙄

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    You were cycling on a footpath, on a Sunday morning (no one ever goes walking on a Sunday morning, do they?).

    Depends on your definition of courteous – I ride cheeky but choose my place and time, and stop and get off/push when I see someone coming.

    You didn’t have a right to be on that footpath. He did.

    Gingerbloke
    Free Member

    Because I had loads of time to get out of the way didn’t I???
    What I didn’t say was she was probably only a couple of metres in front of me when she took a deliberate step to her right to try and force me over…..

    richc
    Free Member

    genius, and people wonder why walkers give cyclists a hard time, muppet 🙄 mind you may’be it makes you feel big hitting women and I expect she was asking for it 😐

    as for the walkers having to squeeze past, why should he? OK he shouldn’t have pushed you, but you were on a FP FFS. Get off and walk if its narrow.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    Gingerbloke, I sincerely hope the next time you try that one the person you ride into gives you a mountain bike enema.

    alpin
    Free Member

    yeah. blah blah blah…. but did you kiss it better?

    Gingerbloke
    Free Member

    It was a road FFS. I braked and tried to avoid but had no time!!!! Good job I wasn’t a car. They are probably the same people who put logs and such across our favourite trails. I’m not trying to give us a bad name, if I was on an FP I would expect to be riding with a bit more caution and be ready to stop. I just wasn’t ready for her movement. I didn’t see it coming, Perhaps it will make me more aware in the future…

    Drac
    Full Member

    I’d be more prepared for dangers on a road than a bridleway or footpath.

    Gingerbloke
    Free Member

    And No I didn’t kiss it better…You didn’t see the size of her.

    project
    Free Member

    From experience people who frequent woodlands trust, are a bit odd, they think its there personal wood and hate bikes and kids, love signs telling you what to do etc, so that probably explains it, next time just take a picture of the offending chap, and report it to the police, pointless, but you may get a result, a chap in chester was knoccked off his bike by a militant walker, and had his arm broken on a sustrans path, the ambulance took 45 minutes to get to him as all the access points where locked.

    dave360
    Full Member

    Get off and walk and take up twice the space? Great idea.
    Annoying ignorant bastards are out there and on here, and well…everywhere. Most of the time it’s necessary to just suck it up. Sadly.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    Get off and walk and take up twice the space? Great idea.
    Annoying ignorant bastards are out there and on here, and well…everywhere. Most of the time it’s necessary to just suck it up. Sadly.

    God, Dave, life’s just so UNFAIR isn’t it?
    Perhaps we could just move to the side of the (foot)path, smile and say hello?

    About the annoying people, I know, but hopefully they’ll grow up and learn that with freedom comes responsibility. 🙄

    thepodge
    Free Member

    regardless of where you are its still assault.

    getting off and pushing the bike would probably have taken up more room.

    the guy was just being a nob.

    i remember doing a downhill race over Rawtenstall way and some walkers were protesting at the track being closed off by walking their whole family up the track despite marshals and spectators telling them to move (some nicely some not so nice). they only stopped after mum got hit by a bike, if it had been on of their kids they would have been in hospital.

    some people are just stupid

    miketually
    Free Member

    As others have said, you’re not actually breaking a law by riding on a footpath, and even if you were it still wouldn’t justify an assault.

    Plus, the only reason he has a legal right to walk there is because loads of walkers trespassed to get the right…

    sq225917
    Free Member

    If people look like being courteous, or there really isn’t space to pass without both of us taking action then I’ll pull right over and put an outside foot down. For the unsteady or large groups I’ll make superhuman effort to get out of their way.

    If however they give the stare that says ‘you’ll be getting off that bike to let us past’, then i’ll do just that. Making sure i’m on the outside and the angular parts of my bike are on the inside, and i’ll be buggered if i’ll give them any more space than they give me.

    It’s a two way street/path, some people have no interest in any form of compromise and see all other trail users as subservient to themselves.

    **** em.

    Spongebob
    Free Member

    Regardless of any laws and rights, if someone deliberately pushes you off your bike, they automatically loose the moral high ground.

    I’d have punched his lights out to enable him to regain his moral authority.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    (‘Tis all very interesting this. I hardly ever have any problems at all with “ignorant bastards”, whether walking, riding, driving, on the train etc etc. My conclusion from personal observation is that they are not everywhere at all, they are very rare indeed. As other people’s experience is that they are everywhere it seems at least possible that there are some people who are less fortunate than me, and who are actually followed around by ignorant bastards all the time. It may of course be that these people are simply unlucky, and that it is inevitable that a random distribution of ignorant bastards in the world will result in some people (like me) hardly ever meeting one while other people can hardly move without encountering an ignorant bastard. The other possibility which we ought to examine is that there is some explanation for the distribution of ignorant bastards, such that ignorant bastards congregate around particular sorts of people, or are attracted by particular activities or attitudes. Research is urgently needed to establish what behaviour or mindsets attract ignorant bastards. Of course, some radical theorists suggest that that ignorant bastards are not a fixed phenomenon, but are governed by some variant of the laws of relativity. One day perhaps science will solve these mysteries.) 😉

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    smile and say hello?
    As said on the OP, I am always very polite and 99.9% of the people I meet are very friendly – in the 100+ times I have ridden in the area, I have only had something similar twice before – ironically each time when I was actualy on the cyclepaths bits.

    Ohh, and the bridlepath that exists disapears into the river and through a house. It really is a mess where I live which is the annoying thing. Still, they are about to upgrade some more of the old train line to cyclepath so we can have about 10 miles of uninterupted flat straight cinder path covered in dog sh*t. Which is what cyclists want, right?

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    Why are you bringing the cycle/cinder path thing up? Not relevant at all.

    I’m simply talking about common courtesy.
    mastiles, I’m not trying to be deliberately provocative and I know that this idiot offended your sensibilities by pushing you, but:

    You did say it was a narrow part of a raised boardwalk.
    Would it really hurt that much to let them have their small, pointless ‘victory’ by just getting off and letting them past?
    Might help to change the idiots perception of cyclists instead of reinforcing his negative stereotypes.
    Does it really matter who’s in the right/wrong?

    Personally, I’d like to see the same access laws as Scotland used UK & GB wide, but judging from some of the comments on STW, I’m not sure we English are responsible enough.

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