fidleyspromise
Well-Known Member
...generally they are hard working people who have jobs and so have to race/train then. The local police/authortities permit the organisers to control road safety and the roads tend to be closed. (whereas closing a road in the UK for even a major event is almost impossible). Yes its slightly inconvenient for people, ......not looking for excuses to prevent other people doing healthy hobbies and to abuse each other, and are happy to see other people enjoying themselves. Neither do they consider that one sport is superior to the other, ......
But then horse riders trying to get horses fit etc, are also hard working people who have jobs and so have to ride then. Not everyone has somewhere they can school so this may be the only way to get the horse ridden. Plus, there was one poster who mentioned she was turning horse out when a cyclist started being rude etc, so what should she do in this instance? Not turn horse out? Again, not everyone can ride every day of the week, and some with children for instance, can only ride maybe twice a week, so it may be that the night the cyclists are out, is the only night she can ride, so the way I read your post is that she shouldn't do her sport so that they can do theirs? (I could well have misinterpreted what you said though).
I do agree that rather than looking for ways to blame each other etc, we shouldn't be looking to prevent others doing their hobby/sport, and abusing each other, and again, neither sport is superior to the other. Its all about peoples attitudes and the same as there are rude cyclists, there are also rude horse-riders.
If they shut off the road up here that they use, then there would have been a lot of home owners unable to go out, horse owners unable to get to their horses, and the entrance to the beach would have been shut off. More than a little inconvenient, if you can't go check on your horse etc, as there were a few that had had fields so no YO.
The other thing that shocks me, as I do both sports, is how dependent a lot of equestrian competitors are on their family support network and don't actually do the sport as an independent adult on their own.
I'd be guilty of this! I find it really difficult to go to the shop myself due to severe lack of confidence. The only places I go are to the horses, work and to my parents. At the moment, I depend a lot on having someone with me otherwise I start panicing(sp?). I don't like it and I hate it, but I'm lucky that my OH doesn't mind coming to shows. I really hope that as time goes on, and I get to know a few of the events, I can then go on my own.
I'm afraid this is just something I cannot get worked up about. I'd just stay very relaxed about the whole thing, as for the life of me, I cannot understand this British hatred of cyclists, especially when the rest of the country is in such a mess.
And I have never, ever, met as bad behaving a cyclist as some of the spoilt princesses of the equestrian world. Just vile, some of them!
I think the whole point of the hatred of cyclists is the way they act to situations and are rude themselves. They will hog a road and you are unable to get past them for several miles (if at all). If you have to be somewhere due to an accident, and then get caught behind one cyclist on a single road and they are on the middle of it where you can't get past, it gets very frustrating. This was a regular occurrence last year, where you had to force your way past them. By the same token though, horse riders are thought of in the same way by drivers (not that that makes it any better). Anything not a vehicle is basically seen as a nuisance on the road.
See, the worst I've seen of a cyclist is the hogging of the road, whereas I can also believe some of the experiences on here, so I'm not as much a "hatred" of them as some people might be. Some laybys are long enough that they could pull into them still continuing, and letting a car past, but they won't move an inch, thereby the negative feeling towards them then gets higher. If I take my pony out training, I move her over so personally can't see why they don't.
I was naive on my last yard and there was a sign saying "road race" put up on the Friday so I though, great, I'll miss riding on Friday and take pony out on Saturday. Saturday I headed out and bikes started whizzing past. They went to the other side of road and pony ignored them. More came towards up. Pony didn't bat an eyelid. We then came upon the check point where they had bottles of water and I can't remember what they had but pony didn't like it. We got past after a few minutes and carried on. More cyclists whizzed past. There were emprt bottles of water thrown on the verges. How bloody charming, I though and took pony down the beach/into the forest. Coming back we met the last lot. I don't remember them being polite/rude but we managed to co-exist fine on the roads.
I drove back from the yard, and the marshalls had gone along the route and picked up all of their rubbish from the verges etc. so I can't say I had a bad experience of them at all and TBH, I thought it was a great experience for my pony.
I took another pony out, when they were training - again, they train several nights and during the day at weekends so if I never went out when they were training, I'd never get out - and a group of about 10 cyclists came from behind. The first couple got past, pony got upset and started spinning, the others hung back, I managed to get pony under control and the others got past without incident. No ill feeling from them and I did shout thanks.
we may not pay tax, but i will give way to traffic and dont act as if i have more right than anyone else to be on said road.
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