Motorists vs Cyclists.... again

[Graham S]

11 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

Best you stay indoors and keep banging on that keyboard while  the rest of us train for Argust 

Enjoy! 😁 Hope you set a new personal best this year! 🥳💪

[PygaSchmyga]

10 hours ago, 117 said:

I agree, lets get the truth. Its obviously not going to happen here, so lets wait for the (great) authorities, yes?

Im really not sure how you see my remark of please read properly and leave me out of it as a cake eating exercise. That would imply that I am pushing to promote my opinion as the gospel truth, whereby I am not. 
If I had said "guess what I heard..." would that have made you read it differently and respond to my comment differently? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. 

My opening remark is as it stands, I am connected to a riding group that knows the motorbike driver. To what huge implication do you refer? Does that make me in automatic agreement with the info I provided? You seem to think it does. Does it make me accoutable to what I transcribed, Yes it would. Does it give you the right of emotional reply? Certainly not. A factual reply, yes sure. Lambasting myself or every motorcyclist out there in the reply doesnt give you the right of reply either. 

Whilst I do not endorse the actions of either road user, it by no means attributes any blame game from me to who was right or wrong in this case. You seem to think I am automatically for the motorbike driver and all forms of holiganism that is attributed to all evil people on 2 wheels with more than a few horse power avialable to them.

There is clear arguments for the pro's and con's of each road user in this entire thread (not only in this instance), and my info provided here is merely to highlight what is said on the otherside of the fence. 

I do, however, recognise that this might be a bit close to home to many cyclists in the area - perhaps you too, but please dont think for a second that I condone the actions of any road user that steps out of line. 

In closing, all users of the road know that it is an inherently dangerous game we all play everytime we get onto it, be in in a car, a bus, a taxi (heaven forbid), etc, and if you choose to increase that risk by using a patricularly dangerous part of the network of roads available then that is your choice, not mine. My love for the south african road and its users has diminished far beyond what you can imagine.
Mosty people avaoid these areas becuase of the risks involved. Period

As for the cyclist, I am very sorry for what happened to him and for where he is right now. I sincerely hope he will be on his bike again soon enough

 

 

 

just stop now, really

[PygaSchmyga]

16 hours ago, Oli4 said:

I was 1 or 2 minutes behind the accident yesterday morning. Your group of bikers are talking utter sh!t and there is nothing factual about their story. They were speeding BIG BIG time when they passed us, swerving across the lanes. Accident absolutely bound to happen - and it happened a few minutes later. They all belong to jail - no exception.

Chappies is a narrow road - but if everybody adheres to the speed limits, runners, cyclists, cars and motorbikes can safely co-exist. If d!pshits are allowed to use it as a race track, you can close it down for all other road users.

I live in the shadow of CP and also heard this group of @sshole motorcyclists come thumping through at breakneck speed - I have asked for the footage from our NW LPR cameras, so lets see.  Those bikes were redline revving coming into the first righthand corner from the Noordhoek side.  Maybe @117 should tell his tchommies not to treat Chappies as a race track, hmm?  All his posts have a DISTINCT absence of comment about how fast they were riding.  Tell your friends that I have been in contact with Andre Nel, CoCT head of traffic services as well as JP Smith and will be going through the LPR footage.  I am sure your friends are law abiding citizens and all have plates, right?

[Paul Ruinaard]

11 hours ago, vanniri said:

Once coming down F/hoek pass I could hear the ABS clapping from a superbike braking for me...

Also saw two guys on bikes at different times taking a tumble in front of me, one not more than 10 meters in front (after passing me) loosing control. I stopped and picked up his fenders and some scrap. He never got up...

Passed at least two bikers under blankets on Hels and Franschhoek - excl the above.

Luckily I live close to the F/hoek pass, as such I have ample opportunity to ride it. Plenty of times I have turned around when either cars or bikes are using it as a racing track.

About a year ago a bakkie with a trailer passed me while descending, he ever so slightly clipped me with the trailer. Took a tumble at >70km/h. Hardest I have ever fallen...

Stay safe 

 

This post scares me becaue it confirms what i suspected but i suppose I didnt want to acknowledge. Sports bikers in the winelands and in CTN passes are basically out of control. On a sunday morning the passes are humming with guys on big fast sports bikes. The fact less have died is a miracle.

I have gotten to the point where even though I had ridden motorbikes for a long time, i feel that the guys who feel its their right to ride like w@nkers in public roads need to be eliminated from the gene pool - a simple darwinian effect. Most of the guys i have seen are really not that capable - it is more the pose and the leathers etc, good at twisting the right hand grip in a straight line. Logic dictates that when it goes wrong at HIGH speed things happen that much faster and the scenery is unforgiving. I recently sold my Ducati not before taking it over Bains Kloof and Franschoek and Hels a couple of times (Multistrada not a sports bike) to see what all the fuss was about. Simply put they are all very tight with zero margin for error. Chappies as well. If you screw up or hit an errant diesel patch you are toast and will probably hurt yourself or die. I am not a patch on the rider i was so it was well within the limits and my abilities and speed limits TBH but it showed me that these actually were not such fun roads to ride - very little margin for error and you are busy as a rider. And if i was in my sports bilking prime (yes i rode like a w@nker as well - we all did) the only place i pushed the envelope was in track days, not public roads.

But the problem is always that when you fall the chances are small but real that your bike hits something or someone oncoming. You are in full leathers and have some protection although the concrete walls are hard. But the truth is when it hits someone else then you likely kill them - its just pure physics and energy.

This accident and the incidents you describe above are really symptomatic of a sports bike ridng population that feels its their right to run these tight and dangerous roads illegally with no plates on their bikes and no way to be caught. 

Anyone who has ridden a sports bike can guess much of what happened on Chappies - you have so much power nad are going so much faster its so easy to just swing past cars. Problems arise when you get so arrogant you lose respect for other road users and become blattantly direspectful. 

It needs to stop guys. THe only way is to put traffic calming zones all over these roads. If you go in to Europe and look at their roads you will understand what has ben done - there is no other way.

My sympathies with the guy who got hit on Chappies - hope he recovers. From the posts those are scary injuries. All he was doing was going for a ride with his mates, like all of us do.

 

[ChrisF]

13 minutes ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

This post scares me becaue it confirms what i suspected but i suppose I didnt want to acknowledge. Sports bikers in the winelands and in CTN passes are basically out of control. On a sunday morning the passes are humming with guys on big fast sports bikes. The fact less have died is a miracle.

.......

 

 

THIS is the problem with social media .... LACK OF CONTEXT.

 

YES, there have always been a handful of racers, and there will always be.

 

But it is NOT "every weekend", and it is not "always out of control".

 

 

DISCLAIMER - Before 2009 I dit a few hundred thousand km on motorcycles.  My stupid days were in the late 80's.  

 

 

I often drive over Hellshoogte for business, and I have cycled over there on many weekends.

 

 

You often get a few motorcycles, and sportscars, driving in excess of the speed limit.  But well within the limit of the vehicle - yea yea ... many previous posts about rider/driver ability !  Fact remains that the vast majority of these riders/drivers come off the throttle when there are other users on the road.  These riders/drivers dont scare me.

 

It is that 0,1% that exceeds their and their rides abilities ....

 

And as has been said in an earlier post - you quickly HEAR when a group decides to RACE a section of road.  Grab a coffee, they will move along soon enough.

 

 

PLEASE NOTE - I am not justifying why others exceed the speed limit on these twisties.  Merely weighing up MY RISK in sharing the road with them.

 

 

Statistically the Golden Arrow bus driver is more of a danger to me on my commute, the number of times they pushed me onto the pavement,,,.  Just crossing some of the busy intersections are more risky than a pass on the weekend,

[Hairy]

17 hours ago, Graham S said:

Clearly not understanding my point. 

If you choose to go to to Afghanistan on holiday and you end up being captured or killed is that considered victim blaming? Surely not since the general concensus is "You shouldnt have been there since everyone knows its dangerous"

Nothing is stopping you from going there, the land itself isnt dangerous, its just the people.....

The road itself isnt dangerous, its just the people using it

So by using a known dangerous section of road you are accepting the consequence of your action.

How is this victim blaming?

You are also putting an assumption on road user to act accordingly. 

The reality is that certain roads are dangerous and you cant rely on all road users to drive and use the road safely.

Putting your safety in other road users hands because "They should drive according to the law and pass when its safe" is pretty stupid tbh.

with this mindset you may as well stay at home for the rest of your life.

 

[Hairy]

16 hours ago, Oli4 said:

I read your entire post. I am not sure what you wanted me to do - let you "pass on information that [you] find factual" when it directly contradicts what I witnessed? You were not by the scene. You have nothing "factual". I was there. And I know speeding & reckless driving when I see it. 

When you write "I hear the cyclist was concused and is now in icu for standard check ups", it also contradicts all the information given so far (family and Stay Wider of the Rider).

And no - I don't trust "authorities to sort it out" in SA, especially when the victim is unconscious in ICU and certainly not in a position to lay charges. 

 

You note you were 1 or 2 minutes back, you witnessed the bikes speeding and riding recklessly, you did not however witness the collision.

How they were riding at the time of the collision is critical, how they were riding leading up to the collision is only setting the precedent of how they were riding.

[Paul Ruinaard]

31 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

 

THIS is the problem with social media .... LACK OF CONTEXT.

 

YES, there have always been a handful of racers, and there will always be.

 

But it is NOT "every weekend", and it is not "always out of control".

 

 

DISCLAIMER - Before 2009 I dit a few hundred thousand km on motorcycles.  My stupid days were in the late 80's.  

 

 

I often drive over Hellshoogte for business, and I have cycled over there on many weekends.

 

 

You often get a few motorcycles, and sportscars, driving in excess of the speed limit.  But well within the limit of the vehicle - yea yea ... many previous posts about rider/driver ability !  Fact remains that the vast majority of these riders/drivers come off the throttle when there are other users on the road.  These riders/drivers dont scare me.

 

It is that 0,1% that exceeds their and their rides abilities ....

 

And as has been said in an earlier post - you quickly HEAR when a group decides to RACE a section of road.  Grab a coffee, they will move along soon enough.

 

 

PLEASE NOTE - I am not justifying why others exceed the speed limit on these twisties.  Merely weighing up MY RISK in sharing the road with them.

 

 

Statistically the Golden Arrow bus driver is more of a danger to me on my commute, the number of times they pushed me onto the pavement,,,.  Just crossing some of the busy intersections are more risky than a pass on the weekend,

Yeah i am not really going to go down this rabbit hole too far. I think this exemplifies the issue at hand. Got nothing to do with social media. You seem to think that its the bike riders duty  to ensure that he gets out of the way of a motor bike rider who is using a public road illegally and at high speed and in a way that is dangerous to others.

FWIW I am local in Paarl and spend a lot of time on Franschoek pass and Hels and up Bains - we were there last weekend. I have also got the few hundred thousand kms on bikes - powered and not  - i am 60 and started riding motorbikes at 9 in the back yards so have been some places on two wheels and have ben on bicyles since 1995.

Every weekend especially in good weather its full here in the region with guys wanting to test their riding and driving abilties of their toys.  Cars i didn't mention - they are another complete discussion but the bikers definitely get my attention because of the above and the fact i was one of them. You really are being naive in assuming that closing the throttle from 180 or 200kmh to 140 allows you a better margin for error when someone in a skedonk pulls out of a side entrance in to your path. And you are naive if you think that your reactions are cat like and you will be able to avoid this type of incident. Especially if the only path to do so is to go in to the oncoming lane and or in to the cyclists coming upf rom the other side. And if it hasn't happened then its only a matter of time before it does.

Your abilties and your skills - That's all bravado mate and what you think you are capable of is really a matter of subjective opinion We all think we are skilled on a bike. You can crow all you want about your abilities and pedigree. And TBH you may be very skilled but the roads are not for using to demonstrate your abilities to put your knees down or carve curves fast.

They are there for the general public to use within a framework of laws. If these laws are flouted or disobeyed in other instances its not for you to decide you are immune from them nor to break them at will "because others do" . That's the issue here. Your belief your rights are higher/better/stronger than others - which is of course a fallacy,  irrespective of the taxes you pay the car you drive or the speed you ride on two or four wheels powered or unpowered.

 

 

Edited February 20 by Paul Ruinaard

[Graham S]

12 minutes ago, Hairy said:

with this mindset you may as well stay at home for the rest of your life.

 

lol alrighty then! 😎🤙

[Oli4]

1 hour ago, ChrisF said:

 

THIS is the problem with social media .... LACK OF CONTEXT.

 

YES, there have always been a handful of racers, and there will always be.

 

But it is NOT "every weekend", and it is not "always out of control".

 

 

DISCLAIMER - Before 2009 I dit a few hundred thousand km on motorcycles.  My stupid days were in the late 80's.  

 

 

I often drive over Hellshoogte for business, and I have cycled over there on many weekends.

 

 

You often get a few motorcycles, and sportscars, driving in excess of the speed limit.  But well within the limit of the vehicle - yea yea ... many previous posts about rider/driver ability !  Fact remains that the vast majority of these riders/drivers come off the throttle when there are other users on the road.  These riders/drivers dont scare me.

 

It is that 0,1% that exceeds their and their rides abilities ....

 

And as has been said in an earlier post - you quickly HEAR when a group decides to RACE a section of road.  Grab a coffee, they will move along soon enough.

 

 

PLEASE NOTE - I am not justifying why others exceed the speed limit on these twisties.  Merely weighing up MY RISK in sharing the road with them.

 

 

Statistically the Golden Arrow bus driver is more of a danger to me on my commute, the number of times they pushed me onto the pavement,,,.  Just crossing some of the busy intersections are more risky than a pass on the weekend,

So when you hear 6 idiots racing up and down Chappies, other motorists cyclists runners, busses and caracals for good measure should go have a cup of coffee? 

You're part of the problem.

[DieselnDust]

2 hours ago, Graham S said:

Enjoy! 😁 Hope you set a new personal best this year! 🥳💪

Thank you and best of luck with your effort as well 🍻🎉🎉🙏🏼

[DieselnDust]

38 minutes ago, Hairy said:

You note you were 1 or 2 minutes back, you witnessed the bikes speeding and riding recklessly, you did not however witness the collision.

How they were riding at the time of the collision is critical, how they were riding leading up to the collision is only setting the precedent of how they were riding.

Oooooooooo looook at lawyer Hairy…!!

you are technically right though , these Speeding cretins had a bout of safety conscience just as the accident was happening and slowed right down….

 

 

apologies for the sarcasm …I know I know it’s been a rough morning starting with jehovahs witnesses knocking on my door followed some braless unemployed animal rights activists asking for signatures to prevent livestock from emigrating to the Middle East with everyone else 

[Jewbacca]

Everybody fighting with everybody!

Let it go. This will take some time and most of you will have stopped fighting with each other long before this gets close to court/settlement.

I also doubt the actual truth will ever come to light, as the justice system uses a charge grading which the prosecutors will try to prove and the defence will try to create doubt or provide technical irregularities in the process that make that particular charge redundant. 

The truth is not what goes on trial.

We will know the truth if the cyclist and the moto guy sit down and agree what happened. 

As most of us have no to little skin in the game, the truth is also not ours to demand or defend. 

While things are heated, keep your heads, be patient on the roads and be nice to each other.

I will continue to think cars and bikes that easily exceed the speed limit have no place on our roads. GPS speed limit throttling and a small weiner mindset change.

Our road safety is shocking and speed kills.

Be safe out there everyone

[Bub Marley]

18 hours ago, Graham S said:

Clearly not understanding my point. 

If you choose to go to to Afghanistan on holiday and you end up being captured or killed is that considered victim blaming? Surely not since the general concensus is "You shouldnt have been there since everyone knows its dangerous"

Nothing is stopping you from going there, the land itself isnt dangerous, its just the people.....

The road itself isnt dangerous, its just the people using it

So by using a known dangerous section of road you are accepting the consequence of your action.

How is this victim blaming?

You are also putting an assumption on road user to act accordingly. 

The reality is that certain roads are dangerous and you cant rely on all road users to drive and use the road safely.

Putting your safety in other road users hands because "They should drive according to the law and pass when it’s safe" is pretty stupid tbh.

Did I read this correctly or am i going crazy?

 

You actually compared Chapmans Peak to Afghanistan? Wowzers. My mind is actually blown. Wow.

 

To me, Chappies is actually one of the safest roads to ride a bike. For the most part, there are more bikes there than cars and it’s never busy besides cyclists. That is not a dangerous road. What happened was a reckless driver taking the law into his own hands and endangering everyone else. A dangerous road is Kalk Bay to Simons Town where there is no shoulder and it’s packed with cars. Chappies is the complete opposite of this.

16 hours ago, 117 said:

No, you obviously didnt read the part where i said dont take your emotions out on me as the poster. 

No i wasnt there, and as i clearly stated i am merely passing on information. You decided on your own to bring emotions into it, not me. 

Perhaps take a breather then post again without emotional input, or go see someone about it as you could be traumatised by the event. Im not being sarcastic about it either

As for the local authorities,  there you and I agree but the outcome is not going to be decided here in the local court of social media, is it?

You passed on information which is not factual to be factual. Next time if you can’t verify your info then dont post it. I’m not sure what sort of response you were expecting here?

[Robbie Stewart]

22 hours ago, Hairy said:

My Harley is not noisy. 

So what are you saying? You don't ride a Harley, you just call it a Harley? 

[Hairy]

18 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Oooooooooo looook at lawyer Hairy…!!

you are technically right though , these Speeding cretins had a bout of safety conscience just as the accident was happening and slowed right down….

 

 

apologies for the sarcasm …I know I know it’s been a rough morning starting with jehovahs witnesses knocking on my door followed some braless unemployed animal rights activists asking for signatures to prevent livestock from emigrating to the Middle East with everyone else 

I get you.

If he did not witness anything he can not state anything.

Had my own challenges on the road this morning in P/Island. Coming back from buying 2kg of the best coffee in Cape Town (Deluxe), traffic is at a standstill and I legally lane split at a slow speed. Some dude in a car decides that this is not acceptable and as I pass him he veers into my direction ... thanks to many years of commuting on a bicycle through traffic I managed to read this and respond. He then goes on a tangent about how I am supposed to wait in traffic, blah blah blah ... kept my cool and laughed and carried on while I am waiting to turn right into traffic he pushes in next to me and starts going mental. Then he tries to cut me off as I turn and tail gates me ... managed to get away again through slow traffic after letting him know my mindset.

What is my rant about, people ... people are the issue.