They are all out to get us!

[ChrisBiggsUK]

Out nice and early this morning, doing my usual circular route to build my confidence.  Pootling along in a 30, when a car zooms right up behind me, gets right on my ass, revving his engine like crazy, and stays there the whole time until I got to some lights and turned off in a different direction.  Jerk!

And on my same circular route, had what was either a Squirrel or a Rat (difficult to tell in the pre-sunrise light) go full on Lemming and dart straight out into my path!  Luckily, although I have a problem with gears (I'm getting better by the day), I have no such issues with stopping safely and avoiding hazards.  You're not being squashed to death in the face by my bike, little furry thing!  Well, not today at least.

And then, to finish my circular route, had a cyclist coming down the hill in the opposite direction to which I was travelling suddenly swerve out and cut across my path at breakneck speeds, before disappearing into a side street on what was quite obviously not a stolen bicycle at all.  

An aggressive car, a suicidal furry thing and a lunatic bicyclist.  

This motorcycling thing is pretty exciting!  And it isn't even 06:30 yet!

[Simon Davey]

Ah yes, all perfectly normal, it all adds to building your skills, whether controlling the bike, or in the case of the aggressive driver, standing your ground whilst controlling your mind. 

 

[Shepherd]

As @Simon Davey says, hold your ground when idiots are behind revving up etc.

Middle of the lane, you've as much right as them to be there.

If you can manage to filter past them at the lights if they do get past you, so much the better - it can be a pleasant pastime 

[bud]

Yeah you will come across some right idiots at times. In the past couple of weeks I've had a car overtaking me near the top of a railway bridge. It is double white lines and 30 limit as only two vehicles wide. 

The car that suddenly appeared coming the other way was not happy. And the crazy thing is, a few hundred yards on it was a two lane carriageway on our side. If he had just wanted 30 seconds more.

The other was a crazy guy in a new mustang. I was following a car in front leaving a good distance as the road was wet. It's a 30mph road and the mustang flies past me. Pulling in behind the car in front. What he didn't overtake both of us I will never know.

Then for the next couple of miles, he was falling back. Then accelerating hard, then braking at the last minute, before starting all over again.

After a couple of miles of this the car in front pulled over into the bus lane to let him past. Sometimes that's the best option.

 

[manxie49]

Sad to say but my last near miss was with another motorbike, cutting a corner on a blind bend, basically taking a racing line (of sorts), very nearly a head on bang.  Hazards come in all shapes, manners and sizes.  I do a lot of riding around the country lanes and have grown to always expect the unexpected around each bend ....... The joys of motorcycling, I wouldn't swap those joys for the world 

[husoi]

Add to that the lunatic sheep in Harris. 

Whom after getting in magic mushrooms won't have any qualms in jumping in front of you like they are Arnold Schwarzenegger ready to take you and your bike on

[Simon Davey]

21 minutes ago, husoi said:

Add to that the lunatic sheep in Harris. 

Whom after getting in magic mushrooms won't have any qualms in jumping in front of you like they are Arnold Schwarzenegger ready to take you and your bike on

 

Is that just the locals, or actual sheep?

[S-Westerly]

I hate sheep. When I'm riding up on the moors of Durham and Northumberland the little shites will be happily doing whatever they do on the side of the road. At the last minute they regularly amble out into the middle and stop or decide to leap in front of you because their mates on the other side tell em the grass is better. Wooly fuckwits.

[Capt Sisko]

4 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

I hate sheep. When I'm riding up on the moors of Durham and Northumberland the little shites will be happily doing whatever they do on the side of the road. At the last minute they regularly amble out into the middle and stop or decide to leap in front of you because their mates on the other side tell em the grass is better. Wooly fuckwits.

Deer are an issue in my corner of Shropshire, and worse when one jumps out of a hedge, there's usually five or six that follow it. Then there are the ones that stop dead in their tracks in the middle of the road, turn to look at you with a stupid, oh, I wonder what that big light thing coming towards me a speed is. To mirror the thoughts of the Whale: "I wonder if it will be friends with me?"

Edited November 3, 2024 by Capt Sisko

[S-Westerly]

In Gloucestershire deer are a major road hazard too. Particularly at this time of year when the young bucks are roaming looking for territory. 

[Nick the wanderer]

Loads of deer around here too. Someone must go round picking them up mind because the roadkill doesn't stay around for long.

[Simon Davey]

32 minutes ago, Nick the wanderer said:

Loads of deer around here too. Someone must go round picking them up mind because the roadkill doesn't stay around for long.

Apparently, roadkill deer are no good for meat. The adrenaline from being hit and injured spoils the meat. Whereas shooting them (properly) kills them instantly. 

[Nick the wanderer]

Yeah I have heard that. The carcasses that get left must be eaten from the inside, even the corvids seem to leave them alone. Someone is collecting the latest batch, maybe for the skins but they don't stay on the side of the road long.

[S-Westerly]

I knew a guy used to feed road kill ones to his dogs.

[onesea]

Deer, Horses, pigs, sheep, badgers, cows year living near the new forest working shifts has its moments.

 

Oh and to protect them the police run speed cameras at random times day and night.  
 

I have had a few near misses.  
 

Worse in the spring when the foals are about and not got reflective collars, with the tourist that stop randomly to photograph and pet them. 

Those unfortunate enough to hit one are subject to endless keyboard hate on the local FB groups.

[S-Westerly]

Good reason to avoid FB like the plague it is.

[Capt Sisko]

Deer. At the age of fourteen that's how I learned to drive . My father was a keen shot and qualified deer management ranger for the Forestry Commission. Whilst the Forestry Commission were good at managing their deer, the National Trust weren’t and word soon got around the local farmers that should they want the deer that wandered into their land and eating all ther crops culled, my dad was the man.

At dusk, me driving a beat up old Land Rover (a SIII with a Perkins Deisel conversion), dad stood up in the back, shoulders, head & rifle sticking up through a big hole cut in the roof with his friend Brad working the spotting lamp would head off to the fields & wood bordering the NT land (honest we never wandered itnto it). At dusk it wasn’t to bad I could see enough, as it got dark, indeed got pitch black, no you can’t turn the lights on, it’ll ruin you’re night eyes and let the deer know where we are, (like a second hand Perkins diesel was quiet!).

Brad, could gut & quarter a deer in seconds by the early hours they were hanging in his cold room of his butchers. Back then there wasn't the tracability of meat like there is now and I was the only kid at school who said, oh no, not Venison sandwiches again!

[S-Westerly]

Ahem. Isn't lamping a serious no-no?

[Capt Sisko]

3 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

Ahem. Isn't lamping a serious no-no?

As were used to do it, i.e. with the a rifle and the permission of the land owner / farmer (who was often with us acting as a guide to what was his land) it was, and I believe still is perfectly legal. The BASC has a code of conduct for it. What isn't legal nowadays is the use of dogs which we didn't anyway. As my night time driving lessons occoured in the mid to late '70, shooting rules, firearms ownership and how you used them were a lot more relaxed than they are now. I got my first shotgun licence when I was 14 and was given a 12g five shot automatic Baretta shotgun for my sixteen birthday. Children nowadays lead such sheltered lives, I mean, I bet most of them don't even know how to make a half decent fertiliser bomb! 

[S-Westerly]

Ah yes the fertiliser bomb. Blew the glass out of headmasters greenhouse. Nothing to do with me mind. 

[Nick the wanderer]

Happy days in the woods with fertiliser bombs, that took me back..