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[i]shut it of course - common sense [/i]
What if you trap lambs on the wrong side?
Leave all gates as you find them; but then we're pretty rural and sometimes see no one on rides.
Let's quote the most educated take on this one more shall we?
As a farmer........ SHUT THE GATE. I know we have been told for years to leave it as you found it. That was OK when there were only a few people out walking. Nowadays the numbers we get are staggering. It is nothing to see a coach load of ramblers out. Being such socially minded sorts the first will prop the gate open for the rest, they being strung out for miles, The last will find it open and leave it so, assuming it was open all along. I waste an average of about 5 days a year sorting out sheep that have mixed or escaped. Luckily my gates don't tend to go to open hill or to a main road (though the potential is there for both). You cannot imagine how angry it would make a farmer to have to get sheep back off the open mountain if they are not meant to be there. IF the farmer wanted that gate left open in such a busy area on such a popular path I can GUARANTEE, 100% that he will have made it clear by tying it open with 6 miles of string or sticking up a big hand painted sign saying "please don't close the gate". If he really wants it open then there is a very good reason (gathering stock or some other ground) and he really does not want the risk of someone shutting it in the meantime.
If you find and open gate on a path and close it when it should be left open, I will be mildly annoyed but it will not be the end of the world.
If you prop a gate open and then fail to close it afterwards I will be like Liam Neeson in "Taken"... I will find you, and I will kill you lol
hora - Member
Its not rocket science, Farmers who prop open gates tend to be within eyesight of you. IF they aren't then some lazy * or Strava muppet is on the lose.
Thanking you for the agricultural insight there Hora, coming from a farming background gates are held open with a device called "Whateverthe*comestohand" it's a very technical bit of kit that a lot of people would struggle to comprehend. Normally we used to prop gates open because we were not around and wanted them to stay open.
As said many times before Strava didn't invent pricks they have been there cutting corners, running people off trails and generally being pricks since time began.
It would all save a lot of time if farmers could just shoot people on sight for getting on their land like they used to!
I held the gate at the top of Beast (fluffy kitten) for our group on Sunday afternoon.
It was shut when we arrived... so it was shut when we left.
those spring-loaded gates are good - at least with them you know it's been propped open for a reason rather than left open.
I've always seen myself as a "gates open" kinda guy... (,) (.) but more often than not i'll close one if I can't see a reason for it to be open.
May I expand a little. My comments above were based on footpaths/bridleways/byways within national parks or in very well used touristy type areas. If out in a part of the country which rarely sees traffic then the old caveat of "leave it as you find it" would still apply since most farmers would simply leave a gate open if it needed to be left open on the assumption that no bugger ever walks/rides there anyway. However, within the touristy areas (where I guess 99% of us ride regularly as we are herd animals), I will always maintain it is better to alwyas shut a gate on the footpath unless there is a very good reason not to. This would include a sign saying DO NOT CLOSE, lots of string/wire etc, tying it open, or a farmer working in the near distance who is obviously about to use the gate. I would far rather find a gate I left open shut than one I left shut having been left open. The wind will often do the first for me anyway. And lambs certainly DO NOT need a gate left open to be on the wrong side of a fence so any farmer worth his salt will be checking on where they have got to on a daily basis anyway.
Loc al to us over near Talybont there a gate half way down a long Strava segment. We take it in turns to be the one who drops down first and does the gate, thus sacrificing his time on that occasion. Next time out someone else has to do it. It all goes around in the end. and the gate is always left shut.
by walkers (after I've passed them on the way down).
Swoon.