Cyclists on bridleways - do you come across them?

[Suechoccy]

My horses live alongside the guided busway's public bridleway (tarmac with wide grass verges along much of its 18km length from St Ives to Cambridge) which Ester mentions above in other posts. So they are well-acclimitized to both cyclists and buses.

To date, our encounters on horseback while using the guided busway public bridleway over its (12-15?) years of being open include meeting solo cyclists, tandem cyclists, trike cyclists, recumbent cyclists, HPV (yep like a horizontal space rocket) cyclist, unicyclists, wheelchair racers (like Olympian David Weir's machine), in-line skiers (skis with roller skates) with ski poles, roller skaters, electric skateboards (now those are well cool, lean back to brake, lean forward to go, the guy stopped and explained how it worked to me and horsey while he stroked horsey's nose), electric scooters, the very occasional helmetless motorbike, many electric solo bicycles, runners, birdwatchers with binoculars on tripods, dogwalkers, dog runners, mobility scooters with and without canvas roofs, manual and electric wheelchairs, kids on scoot-bikes (no pedals), solo bikes with trailers on the back, solo bikes with side cars, solo bikes with child-boxes on the front. And on the busway, single and double-decker buses, and gritting vehicles, and once a BMW saloon with 3 blown tyres whose driver had erroneously driven through the car trap, onto the busway past my horse field, and then turned left down my drove, driving very slowly as you do with 3 blown tyres.

I haven't yet met a rickshaw but it's only a matter of time. (I am a cyclist too so can sometimes be found cycling on this and other bridleways).

Part of me thinks a really good business venture, if I didn't have my own horses, would be to rent my field out to horse owners for despooking!

 

[ester]

Haha I will keep my eye out for a rickshaw, only a matter of time surely?!

I had one the other night, pitch black, could hear an engine but it didnt' really seem to be making much gain on me, and while I was on the roadie I'm not particularly speedy! Did start to get a little concerned - was a scooter with what I guess was like a lawn mower engine attached, hence not actually going that fast.

 

[luckyoldme]

Totally irrelevant but I have to mention it!
Yesterday I was collecting from a farm.
The road was not the best maybe room for a car to pass the truck if we both slowed down.
Then there it was....a penny farthing!
It looked a bit surreal to say the least !

 

[Kat]

Totally irrelevant but I have to mention it!
Yesterday I was collecting from a farm.
The road was not the best maybe room for a car to pass the truck if we both slowed down.
Then there it was....a penny farthing!
It looked a bit surreal to say the least !

Yes I met a penny-farthing while hacking the other day. I slowed to a walk to pass it just in case the horse was unsure and because the lane was narrow. Horse barely looked at it of course but I was very concerned about how he was going to fare as the very steep lane got ever steeper toward the valley bottom - it's a 1 in 4 that has been used for the national hill climb championship in the past.

 

[cauda equina]

I believe the penny farthing was popular with hipsters before they moved onto Defenders

 

[ihatework]

We get loads of cyclist round here.
The vast majority are great, both on & off road, certainly a noticeable improvement over the last 2-3 years so I reckon clubs must have been doing some horse education.

Sure you still get the odd tosspot, usually on a road bike in a group, but given I generally ride big well trained horses I tend to enjoy a game of chicken with them. They usually find where their brakes are ?

 

[luckyoldme]

We get loads of cyclist round here.
The vast majority are great, both on & off road, certainly a noticeable improvement over the last 2-3 years so I reckon clubs must have been doing some horse education.

Sure you still get the odd tosspot, usually on a road bike in a group, but given I generally ride big well trained horses I tend to enjoy a game of chicken with them. They usually find where their brakes are ?

What do you mean you play chicken with cyclists?

 

[cindars]

Have always met them on South Downs not too often on lower tracks. Our worst encounter was going up a fairly steep track to the Downs behind the next village,there is quite a drop through trees,luckily we ,there were two of us,had got off to walk the last steep bit when round the bend at high speed came a tandem,saw horses brakes on and nearly shot over the edge,rider was incandescent with rage,said leading horse was dangerous and generally really leading off until his wife got off the back and gave him an earful.