I have said this before but I mean it this time. Never and I mean never am I going to slow down and give respect to those ignorant horse riding B@stards cos never do I get a smile, thanks or kiss my F'in arris. I wouldn't mind but they don't pay road tax and I bet a pound to a pinch of sh!t that the vast majority of them have no insurance. If they cause an accident involving a 3rd party T and T biker where will the compensation come from. I bet these are the same people that think it is fun to chase a poor Fox half way round the county and then let it get torn apart by 5 dozen dogs. Tossers the lot of them. Well they can kiss my aris cos I have had a belly full of em.

you forgot about the sh!t they leave everywhere! that stuff is bloody slippy, and its always on teh corners!

stopped just up the road once for a ciggie after passing a horse, the dammed rider decided to have a go because my bike backfired! i was like yea im sorry, but i shut off for you so i wasnt going so fast, what would you rather me do, go past at 60 or have my bike backfire! so she gave me a load of abuse, anyway, passed her again wen i set off, no i didn't go past fast, but i didn't slow down either! didnt wanna risk my bike backfiring again now did i!!!!

My problem is when the Hunters and their Hounds burst out from a hedgerow unannounced, I don't expect animals to understand the Highway Code but the riders must hear the bikes on the twisty/rural roads

I generally get a smile and a thank you from horse riders in this area, if there's a group of them, it's often left to one to do the greetings, specially when there are youngsters learning.
I did some horse refresher training a few years ago, and we> (me, a mate from work and half a dozen six year olds) were all instructed to thank drivers and riders even though we were riding mainly on ministry land and there was very little traffic.

Maybe it's just a case of where you live Nick


Mine backfires on quick throttle roll-off as well Tony - so I tend to grab a handfull of clutch if there are large and dangerous animals about, it seems to reduce the liklihood of backfires, and I've no wish to be kicked by one of those beggars - it blardy well hurts.

yeah, I do the same, grab a handfull of clutch and let the bike roll until i pass them..

I think they should be made to stick to green lanes as they are the pr*cks who want to ban us bikers from green laning, so we should fight for them to be banned from the road!

Did Nick fall face first in a pile of horse sh!t this morning?

I feel that way about bloody cyclists. One hit my yesterday when I was walking into town, he was on the pavement and cornering so fast he couldn't change his lean angle and barged into me. Fortunately, he stayed on so I couldn't do something hghly regrettable to him. I nearly piled one this morning on my bike as she decided to jump off the pavement and join the road to take advantage of the traffic lights, without any kind of shoulder check. Gits.

Anyway, far be it from me to hijack a horse-slagging thread, I pull the clutch in to roll past, and nearly always get a nod of appreciation ... I agree with the bit about foxes though ... horse burgers all round.

We get a different class of horsey person here. They always give you a smile, are not stuck up and usually have a great sense of humour (eg.. saw a girl dressed as a cat riding a horse down our street yesterday). And they don't chase wee bushy tailed animals!

No, just one snooty stuck up horsey person too many. A thanks doesn't cost anything. Next time I will park up and give em a gob full. Whilst on the subject of sh1t. Who would be responsible if one was to have an off due to tractor mud or horse crap. Technically it is down to a 3rd party so what would be the score. The tractor issue would be easy enough, just follow the trail but horse muck, that could be tricky.

I think it's the highway authority ... they would defend themselves by saying they didn't know/hadn't had the opportunity to do anything yet. Unless the CPS decided it could prove the vehicle (or animal) owner had been wilfully negligent.

I get the feeling there's bits and bobs of prior ruling on this, but I can't find my book of highway law case history ...

We have nice horsey people where I live, but maybe that's because I'm married to one (who also has a full bike licence). You should hear some of the stories about the w@nkers who try to spook the horses as they go past or the Tw@ts who fail to see a person sitting down, 4 foot above a hedge. Needless to say they are all car drivers. As well a killing the rider having a spooked horse fall on a car would crush it's roof, killing those inside.

Nick, do agree with you re horse crap on the racing line. The better half says that this is where an experianced rider is on the outside on a kiddie, or inexperianced rider on the inside. A royal pain in the arris, but what if it was a hole in the road, or broken down car just round the corner instead?

Being on the inside or outside of a turn is down to which way the bend goes so as long as horsey pooh's on the inside of a right hander I will be alright.

A pot hole is easy, council issue. A broken down car is a bit more painful but just as easy as this would be a 3rd party issue also.

You could always DNA test the Poo

Just keep waving at them mate. If they don't wave back they're sad cows (a cow on a horse, hmm...). I almost fell of my bike today when a BMW moved right over to get out my way. What is happening to the world

Amazingly, I actually got "The Biker's Nod" off a cyclist on the way home last night. Could be he was a biker doing some exercise, I guess, but still made me go "eh?"

Nick I get the picture here that you are a horse lover?

I like horses and I don't really know that many riders to have a view either way on the riders but it all comes down to road etiquette and they seem to be, in my locale, up there in the not having any category. This is OK as they are not alone but for a body of people, that as a whole don't pay a red cent to use the road and drop potential hazards without any comeback, they should ride with a bit of a sunnier disposition. I know I would ride around with a bloody big grin on my face and wave at anything that moved like a nutter if it was free. IMAO it all comes down to a view that they are better than everyone else and we should all doff our caps to them. Well guess what.

Like some of the others, I never have a problem with horse riders in this area, they are always very appreciative when I slow down.

And don't blame horse riders for wanting motorised vehicles banned from green lanes - that's mostly down to the walkers!

I also do the silent clutch till passed thing.

Dont get me started on push bikes though, dont get me wrong, there a many sensible push bike riders out there, but i have encountered many more wakners on push bikes than tuther. On off the pavments, through red lights, up to a red light then all of a sudden they are a pedestrian and ride across the crossing. If we were to adopt that attitude on our bikes there would be an uproar.

A friend of ours was hit off by a push bike jumping from the pavement to the road in front of her, broke her elbow, no compensation to my memory. i know she could have gone through the Motor Insurers thingy but that takes years.

Not to mention on the road they swerve in and out of gaps in parked cars as if to keep them selfs safe from traffic by keeping out of the middle of the road, then swerve into your path to avoid a parked car.

Or they sit in the road making them selfs as big as possible so as not to be hit, good plan, but floored by the fact that they cause a bottle neck as cars try to squeeze past them becouse they are only doing about 10mph on a busy main road.

Call me Victor but.... I dont beleeeve it !

i hear what your saying Nick, i cant abide the "toff" mentality either, i do shut it off & coast past tho, this is because a lot of years ago my sister(who is a very good horse person) once had a champion horse bolt, 5 miles across country, because a plastic bag in a hedge had rustled.

dont even want to think what would happen if a bike with a loud can spooked it.
for the record i would like to see them banned from the public roads-they are a potential menace(horses that is, not bikes )

The horse riders around our way are generally OK, but I remember once in Scotland my mate and I passing a couple of women on horses. We slowed down and gave them a wide berth but the tosser on the lead horse actually swiped at my mate with her riding crop.

Another time in South Cheshire a couple of years ago the A34 was brought to a standstill 100 yards ahead of us by a hunt crossing the road in a long lazy diagonal, totally oblivious to everyone sitting in their road-taxed cars and acting like they owned the place (when a lot of the saddos probably didn't even own the nag they were strutting around on).

No matter what slice of the population you take, it seems there are w@nkers in pretty much the same proportion.

Shut off, slow down, and coast past too (as long as its not uphill )

I usually get a thank you nod / wave / smile

I think the mud/crap on the road falls to the Highway Authority but I think there is a duty on Farmers to avoid excessive mud or prevent tractors/animals causing havoc on the road

I've been trekking on horses several times and I have to say I MUCH preferred doing it scross open fields and the like. Clip-clopping along a road seems overly noisy and I felt like an obstruction more than anything else.

Mind you, when we rode into Boscastle I got real embarrassed because I was sat up on high with all these 'common' people in the high street waving as I went past (??!!). I'm just some ruafi geezer on holiday who fancied a bit of a hack, not flippin' royalty, yet here they are waving at me like I'm the Earl of Cornwall or something. Meanwhile, all these cars are chugging slowly behind us cause our guide is riding alongside us in the dominant position as we go uphill!!

I think horses should have the right to go on the roads if they need to, but stick to green routes wherever possible.