Cycling UK Forum

ferdinand wrote:The only way they will get taken out is if someone takes the time to request the removal of each one or upgrading in line with current standards.

How much does a heavy duty angle grinder cost?

Moderators!!! This is a repeat of a previous thread
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Pete Owens wrote:

ferdinand wrote:The only way they will get taken out is if someone takes the time to request the removal of each one or upgrading in line with current standards.

How much does a heavy duty angle grinder cost?

I don't know but apparently the £80 battery power ones are sufficient to cut barriers now, so I'm told

Happy to have this merged or moved.

Ferdinand

pwa wrote:I think the catalogue term for the A-frame things is something like "motorcycle inhibitor", if we are being picky.

Sadly they are also wheelchair inhibitors.
In the case shown in the photo the wheelchair is the only thing blocked (hard to manage curbs). everything else will clearly go round in the roadway thus putting themselves in danger and maybe causing accidents. It is a case of being worse than useless.

Just arm a few jolly cyclists with angle grinders, I'd happily cycle around if every so often I got to wreck something, I've already done a safety course for angle grinders too! Maybe make it law to be able to remove them, then have a recording system and league table added to Strava and they'd all be gone within a week.

Spotted this barrier posted on Twitter it's in South Lanarkshire

Paulatic wrote:Spotted this barrier posted on Twitter it's in South Lanarkshire

To judge that barrier fairly you would need to know the context. That could, for instance, be a permissive path where the landowner is keen on letting horses pass unhindered but wants to deter motor vehicles (including motorcycles). That step through gate could have replaced a simple full gate with a lock on it. It could be that the track, later on, is rough and unsuited to cyclists who are not ready and able to dismount and push. Context is important when judging access point infrastructure.

TimP wrote:

pwa wrote:I think the catalogue term for the A-frame things is something like "motorcycle inhibitor", if we are being picky.

Sadly they are also wheelchair inhibitors.
In the case shown in the photo the wheelchair is the only thing blocked (hard to manage curbs). everything else will clearly go round in the roadway thus putting themselves in danger and maybe causing accidents. It is a case of being worse than useless.

I have installed a few A-frames, and having installed them I enlisted the help of a wheelchair using colleague to test them. We also tested them with fairly large mobility scooters.

Rather than relying on some of your friends are disabled, it seems better to measure the barriers against the maximum permitted sizes for mobility scooters.

Another bike was damaged by barriers on yesterday's ride. New route to us, barrier much tighter than it should be. I'll report it but there's no good reason for a barrier on an unfenced path over green space between two roads. Any half decent motorcyclist can ride over smooth grass! They're mainly a trap for law abiding cyclists who try to stay on the tarmac so as not to damage the grass

mjr wrote:Rather than relying on some of your friends are disabled, it seems better to measure the barriers against the maximum permitted sizes for mobility scooters.

Another bike was damaged by barriers on yesterday's ride. New route to us, barrier much tighter than it should be. I'll report it but there's no good reason for a barrier on an unfenced path over green space between two roads. Any half decent motorcyclist can ride over smooth grass! They're mainly a trap for law abiding cyclists who try to stay on the tarmac so as not to damage the grass

What we did was install an A-frame as recommended by the manufacturer who, in turn, had designed it around wheelchairs and mobility scooters, then we tested with a wheelchair and a mobility scooter to make sure. We found that an otherwise okay piece of kit could be made difficult to use if there was insufficient space to line up the bike / wheelchair / mobility scooter.