[Redvee]

DRTY WKND had a ride out from Cycle Republic on Sunday and the cake stop was Costa at the bottom of Cheddar Gorge, this is one of the group getting it a little wrong on the way down the gorge.

 

Topic

[davel]

Duncann wrote:

Duncann wrote:

madcarew wrote:

davel wrote:

MrBlackwell wrote:

I do remember seeing the car and making the choice to go in front while I could rather than risk losing it a split second later and actually hitting it…a decision that ultimately paid off seeing I didn’t hit the car, rock face or anything else and in fact brought my ride straight back onto the road…

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

I can remember two occasions off the top of my head that I’ve done exactly the same thing you have and gone wide/run off the road wide of a car, and was never at risk of crashing or being hit. You realised quickly that you’d run too wide and then made exactly the right choice and executed it spot on.

 

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

If only the same excuse was extended to many of the car drivers we see pilloried on these pages. Imagine if this was a car coming down the hill and the roles were reversed, the range rover was the cyclist, the cyclist was a car coming the other way. I imagine the comments would be of a soemwhat different tenor…..

True, although the consequences of a driver’s mistake are more likely to be serious for others than a cyclist’s error.

But if you weigh the greater care that a driver should have for others against the greater care that a cyclist should have for their vulnerable selves it all comes down to pay f*****g attention and don’t be reckless on the roads!

Exactly this.

@madcarew: come on, I suspect this doesn’t need explaining, does it? The drivers who are reported and pilloried here have impacted a cyclist in some way, often through being completely irresponsible with a 1 ton+ lump of metaldeath that kill 5 people in the UK every day. The pitchforks come out when it’s a driver being an arse or the justice system seems to be having one of its many farts. The roles being reversed would see the comments attack the driver for nearly squashing *someone else*.

This is a tad different: cyclist misjudges/lacks attention and threatens to put *himself alone* under a car or off a cliff.

When it’s pure unfortunate accident or the cyclist’s fault, we’re actually a civilised, sedate, reasonable bunch, by-and-large.

[Dnnnnnn]

madcarew wrote:

davel wrote:

MrBlackwell wrote:

I do remember seeing the car and making the choice to go in front while I could rather than risk losing it a split second later and actually hitting it…a decision that ultimately paid off seeing I didn’t hit the car, rock face or anything else and in fact brought my ride straight back onto the road…

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

I can remember two occasions off the top of my head that I’ve done exactly the same thing you have and gone wide/run off the road wide of a car, and was never at risk of crashing or being hit. You realised quickly that you’d run too wide and then made exactly the right choice and executed it spot on.

 

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

If only the same excuse was extended to many of the car drivers we see pilloried on these pages. Imagine if this was a car coming down the hill and the roles were reversed, the range rover was the cyclist, the cyclist was a car coming the other way. I imagine the comments would be of a soemwhat different tenor…..

True, although the consequences of a driver’s mistake are more likely to be serious for others than a cyclist’s error.

But if you weigh the greater care that a driver should have for others against the greater care that a cyclist should have for their vulnerable selves it all comes down to pay f*****g attention and don’t be reckless on the roads!

[S13SFC]

I went down it on Saturday

I went down it on Saturday about 20.30 as part of the Chase The Sun ride.

 

What an awesome descent and at that time of the evening we had only the goats to worry about. 

 

 

[Bmblbzzz]

I prefer climbing the Gorge

I prefer climbing the Gorge to descending it. Too much traffic of various sorts – cars, coaches, people wandering across the roads – and the tight bends, plus nasty gusting winds sometimes. The cars and coaches are usually either holding you up or overtaking you in stupid places. A friend who lives in Cheddar and used to commute to Bristol got mega-proficient at descending it, but a) lots of practice, b) mostly night shifts so not much traffic, c) she is a capable and bold, not to say courageous, descender anyway. 

I didn’t know there was a Costa at the bottom of the Gorge. We always go to either Forte’s or the little place opposite it. 

[madcarew]

Mr Blackwell seemed to me to

Mr Blackwell seemed to me to start the corner way too wide, and being up on the hoods had a higher centre of gravity which made it more difficult to change his trajectory when required. None of it seemed particularly high speed! Well saved, though surely with disc brakes this would never have happened 😉

FWIW, the amount of lean you had on was a long long way short of the bike falling over, so you could have turned considerably sharper. Next time put your weight on the inside handle bar and push down through your outside heel. You will turn a lot sharper.

[madcarew]

davel wrote:

MrBlackwell wrote:

I do remember seeing the car and making the choice to go in front while I could rather than risk losing it a split second later and actually hitting it…a decision that ultimately paid off seeing I didn’t hit the car, rock face or anything else and in fact brought my ride straight back onto the road…

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

I can remember two occasions off the top of my head that I’ve done exactly the same thing you have and gone wide/run off the road wide of a car, and was never at risk of crashing or being hit. You realised quickly that you’d run too wide and then made exactly the right choice and executed it spot on.

 

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

If only the same excuse was extended to many of the car drivers we see pilloried on these pages. Imagine if this was a car coming down the hill and the roles were reversed, the range rover was the cyclist, the cyclist was a car coming the other way. I imagine the comments would be of a soemwhat different tenor…..

[DaveE128]

Looks to me that maybe you

Looks to me that maybe you didn’t go into the bend wide enough?

[Redvee]

keirik wrote:

Looks to me like you were watching your mate rather than the bend and that’s why you ended up in the same place.

 

I was ahead of this incident as this was my first descent of the gorge and wanted a bit of space around me, I knew there were plenty of bends and they were a lot tighter and slower the nearer the bottom you got. When we all grouped up and found out about this I did ask if anybody wanted to see if my disc rotors were warm.

[davel]

MrBlackwell wrote:

MrBlackwell wrote:

I do remember seeing the car and making the choice to go in front while I could rather than risk losing it a split second later and actually hitting it…a decision that ultimately paid off seeing I didn’t hit the car, rock face or anything else and in fact brought my ride straight back onto the road…

Everyone’s misjudged/made a mistake.

I can remember two occasions off the top of my head that I’ve done exactly the same thing you have and gone wide/run off the road wide of a car, and was never at risk of crashing or being hit. You realised quickly that you’d run too wide and then made exactly the right choice and executed it spot on.

 

[MrBlackwell]

I am that rider!
I am that rider!

Whilst I hold my hands up to that fact it’s 100% all my fault..

Most definitely I wasn’t speeding up and was actually slowing down.. Just not enough!

I am familiar with that road and have ridden it many times so I just can’t explain what happened and why.

I do remember seeing the car and making the choice to go in front while I could rather than risk losing it a split second later and actually hitting it…a decision that ultimately paid off seeing I didn’t hit the car, rock face or anything else and in fact brought my ride straight back onto the road and carried on down to the cafe where I suffered suitable amounts of egg on face.

Lesson definitely learned.

[zanf]

SingleSpeed wrote:

SingleSpeed wrote:

LOL, fuck the crash you should market that music…I was in induced into a dream like trance

Tarazanio – ‘Jazziano’

Weird that cant seem to find anything about the artist

[keirik]

Looks to me like you were

Looks to me like you were watching your mate rather than the bend and that’s why you ended up in the same place.

Target fixation – well known to motorcyclists too – look where you want to go,.

 

Plus if the vanishing point isn’t moving away as fast as you are travelling then slow down because the corner is tightening up.

 

[alansmurphy]

Surely at the point of

Surely at the point of abandonment there was still the opportunity to stop quicker…

[The _Kaner]

permission to use the music

permission to use the music in my next gopro cycling vid?

[Canyon48]

Well that was pretty close.

Well that was pretty close.

Cheddar Gorge and Burrington Combe are my local climbs/descents. I’ve had my run-ins with both whilst descending (my own fault)….

I find Cheddar Gorge such a pain to descend (hard on the brakes and usually lots of traffic) that I don’t bother with it anymore.

My recommendation for anyone coming by the Mendips would be climb Cheddar Gorge and descend Burrington Combe (watch out for the REALLY tight left hander about 1/3 the way down though!

[Author]

Replies