Barton Bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal (CC licensed image by gingerman:Flickr)
Yet another cyclist has been escorted off a motorway by police. Not in Surrey this time, but on the M60 in Manchester where the unnamed man followed his satnav on to the huge Barton Bridge across the Manchester Ship Canal.
Riding along the hard shoulder, the man reached the apex of the bridge, which rises to about 100ft above the water, then took his feet off the pedals and freewheeled the down the other side.
The Manchester Evening News’s Alex Hibbert reports that the rider was tracked on CCTV by Mike Duggan, a supervisor at North West Motorway Police control room
Mr Duggan said: “As soon as we got the call we started tracking him on CCTV.
“We were watching as he got to the top of the bridge, took his feet off the pedals and free wheeled down.
“He also veered across lanes and the slip road a couple of times. He managed to get all the way down to Junction 12, so he got quite far.
“When the patrol caught up with him he told officers it was his sat nav which had directed him on to the motorway. We’re not sure exactly what sort of sat-nav device he was using.”
The patrol spoke to the rider and then took him and his bike off the motorway. Mr Duggan added: “Hopefully we won’t see him again but you never know.
“My advice to people would be to not ride a push bike over the Barton Bridge, and also that if your sat-nav is telling you to do something dangerous, don’t do it.”
The Barton Bridge section of the M60 is notorious for traffic hold-ups, though in this case the confused rider seems to have caused no problems. During last month’s high winds, the bridge was closed after a collision between a lorry and a car, causing widespread traffic disruption.
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.