Nightmare drive

[Bicycler]

If you're going up a sustained, steep hill on a bike, you're at less than walking pace..)

I feel you're overestimating walking pace up a steep hill pushing a bike.

If you think this is a 'cars versus bikes' issue, you're paranoid. (It's a 'slower vehicles versus faster vehicles' issue.)

If it was a steam roller, a horse and cart or a car it would be unreasonable for them to stop where they could not restart just to allow overtaking. Why treat cyclists differently?

[[XAP]Bob]

If you're going up a sustained, steep hill on a bike, you're at less than walking pace.

If you don't then let faster vehicles pass wherever possible, you're rude and ignorant.

If you think this is a 'cars versus bikes' issue, you're paranoid. (It's a 'slower vehicles versus faster vehicles' issue.)

Wherever possible - so you see a car coming up the previous switchback and you throw yourself off the cliff so as not to impede them?

No - when SAFE is is the appropriate condition..

Be considerate. Be careful of and considerate towards all types of road users, especially those requiring extra care. You should ... not allow yourself to become agitated or involved if someone is behaving badly on the road. This will only make the situation worse. Pull over, calm down and, when you feel relaxed, continue your journey.

Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so. You should:
--8<--
stay in your lane if traffic is moving slowly in queues. If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left
give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car.

Single-track roads. These are only wide enough for one vehicle. They may have special passing places. If you see a vehicle coming towards you, or the driver behind wants to overtake, pull into a passing place on your left, or wait opposite a passing place on your right. Give way to vehicles coming uphill whenever you can. If necessary, reverse until you reach a passing place to let the other vehicle pass. Slow down when passing pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders.

Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.

I'd suggest that two vehicles is not a long queue of traffic.

Safety should be the paramount factor in all actions on the road

[karlt]

If you're going up a sustained, steep hill on a bike, you're at less than walking pace.

You must walk fast. I'm no hill climber, but even around here in NE Derbyshire on the steepest hills don't see the speed according to Strava drop below 5MPH for more than a few seconds. Walking pace is commonly quoted at 3mph, 4 if you're fast. Pushing a bike up a steep hill would be slower.

[Mark1978]

The hardest climb I've ever done, indeed was Buttertubs climb from Hawes a couple of weeks ago. From the bottom to the top I averaged 6.8mph. My normal walking pace on the flat is about 3.5 mph, so roughly double.

[DevonDamo]

I'm good to you pedants aren't I?

I could have spent hours composing a dull, but scrupulously accurate, missive to make my point. But then you'd have been forced to deal with the underlying issue, i.e. is it being ignorant to hold someone up for 5 minutes because you're not prepared to take ten seconds out of your busy schedule to let them pass?

Instead, you've wisely chosen to debate what speed you can achieve up a hill, what constitutes walking pace, whether steam-rollers and horse-and-carts can safely pull away from a hill-start and whether 'pulling over wherever possible' includes cycling off the side of a cliff.

I don't blame you.

[mjr]

the underlying issue, i.e. is it being ignorant to hold someone up for 5 minutes because you're not prepared to take ten seconds out of your busy schedule to let them pass?

If it would only take ten seconds and you hold them up for 5 minutes, then yes... but if that's what you wanted to ask, then that's what you should have written, instead of all that junk about "walking pace" and "wherever possible".

However, nothing indicates that 10s/5min was the case in the Original Post, plus the author of that was clearly complaining about how much money it had cost them when they fell below the standard required to pass a driving test

[DevonDamo]

mjr - from the limited horizons of your world of fine detail, you won't have spotted it, but me and you have actually reached agreement. Delaying someone for a very long period of time, because you're not prepared to be delayed for a very small amount of your time, is ignorant.

I'll leave you to do the forensic discussions on whether my 10 second/5 minute guesstimate was accurate, but regardless of your findings, I think we're singing from the same hymn-sheet.

[Postboxer]

Doesn't this boil down to whether the cyclists would be able to set off again if they did stop, if they could, then maybe they should have stopped, if they couldn't, maybe they held up the OP for a shorter time than the time the cyclists would lose if they had to push their bikes to the top, or roll back down to somewhere they could set off/turn around.

Is it acceptable to cycle up a long climb holding people up behind you just because you're unable to set off again if you stop?

[Vorpal]

Is it acceptable to cycle up a long climb holding people up behind you just because you're unable to set off again if you stop?

I'd say it depends... how long is long? A couple of miles? A couple of cars? Probably okay. 20 miles? 20 cars? Probably not. But also, if the climb is really long, it's likely that there will be some flatter places where a cyclist can get going again. How far will the cyclist have to walk and how long will it take?

I'll happily say that it's worth inconveniencing a few drivers for even 10 minutes to save the cyclist a half hour of pushing a loaded touring bike. And I'd say that even if I was one of the drivers.

[[XAP]Bob]

I'd even offer them the tow rope

[mjr]

mjr - from the limited horizons of your world of fine detail, you won't have spotted it, but me and you have actually reached agreement. Delaying someone for a very long period of time, because you're not prepared to be delayed for a very small amount of your time, is ignorant.

Basically, I agree. On the flip side, this is why I curse the ignorant motorists on one stretch who make me fear for my life if I ride at 18mph on their smooth 40mph-limit road instead of 12mph on the lumpy shared use path next to it. They're effectively delaying me because they're not prepared to stand any delay on their way to the traffic light complex at the end of the road (which cycles can bypass). I think there's far more cases of that than of bikes delaying cars on narrow roads.

[Bicycler]

mjr - from the limited horizons of your world of fine detail, you won't have spotted it, but me and you have actually reached agreement. Delaying someone for a very long period of time, because you're not prepared to be delayed for a very small amount of your time, is ignorant.

I think we're singing from the same hymn-sheet.

I don't think any of us have questioned that at any point so in effect, yes, we all agree on that. What we don't agree on (and no doubt this will be dismissed as pedantry) is what constitutes "a very long time" or whether people don't stop just "because you're not prepared to be delayed for a very small amount of your time". To me there is a very real difference between someone choosing to hold a great many people behind for several miles because they can and somebody who chooses to continue for a couple of minutes to the top of hill rather than stop on the steep bit where they cannot re-start.

Doesn't this boil down to whether the cyclists would be able to set off again if they did stop, if they could, then maybe they should have stopped, if they couldn't, maybe they held up the OP for a shorter time than the time the cyclists would lose if they had to push their bikes to the top, or roll back down to somewhere they could set off/turn around.

Is it acceptable to cycle up a long climb holding people up behind you just because you're unable to set off again if you stop?

Obviously I was being pedantic when I mentioned other vehicles who may have similar problems restarting

In all seriousness, I think we need to look at how we would treat other vehicles in the same situation. It probably isn't an issue for modern motor vehicles but it was in the past and no-one would have expected a driver to put himself into difficulty half way up a hill for the short term convenience of others. Again, I mentioned cart carts and steamrollers as also being slow moving vehicles which have problems with hills, I suspect the operators of these would not be expected to be stranded up hills either. In fact I struggle to think of any vehicle other than a modern motor vehicle for which stopping on a steep incline is anything other than a great inconvenience. Looked at in this way, when we claim to be merely applying the same rules to cyclists as to all other vehicles, we really mean modern motor vehicles. Motorists have developed a set of rules to suit the capabilities of their own vehicles and these rules are being imposed upon us as if they are some natural code of manners that only the selfish disobey

[rfryer]

I think that in arguing about whether it's acceptable for a cyclist to hold up a motorist, we're rather missing the point.

I've ridden the Bealach na Ba several times, and there are lots of passing places. I've always been able to let traffic past at the first passing place I came to, and only once did that involve me coming to a halt.

I've also driven over numerous times, and been happy to wait for sensible points to overtake cyclists, and always offered encouragement.

In my view, there is no need, on this road, to block traffic from overtaking for an extended period of time. A glance back at a following vehicle as I reach a passing place is sufficient for the driver to have confidence that I am aware of their presence, and pass easily.

In the OP's case, it would have been courteous for the cyclists to spread out, and to have signalled to following motorists that they were ready to be passed. As a motorist, I would have been inclined to use the horn to signal my presence, as the cyclists seemed unaware.

However, it is also entirely possible that the OP was failing to pick up on the cues to overtake, and was expecting the cyclists to stop for him. In which case, I'd out the blame squarely at his door.

[thirdcrank]

We've only one account of what happened here and an angry one at that, and it doesn't look as though the OP has any intention of coming back.

One thing that nobody seems to have mentioned - and if I've missed it, sorry - is the effect of being in any group on the behaviour of its individual members. This can work in different ways: a formally organised group may follow an agreed procedure or take instructions from a leader, but people in less organised groups can behave badly to others, in a way they would not act if alone. I'm talking about groups generally here, not only cyclists, by any means. I can think of several times when I've been driving and a group of riders has deliberately been blocking a road to prevent anybody passing and it's been nothing more than showing off to each other. Obviously, I don't know what's happened here but it's one possibility of several. I'd be quick to add that sitting behind a steering wheel can also make many people behave badly in ways that they would not normally do, eg convincing of them of their superiority over others such as cyclists, so that's another possibility.

One thing that seems obvious to me is that there's no real reason for this road to be open to general motor traffic. I have driven up it, returning from a holiday in Wales and doing a bit of a recce for a bike tour that never materialised. (A red kite almost perched on the bonnet as we reached the top, without seeing any cyclists.) There are other, better roads giving motor access and this one could be restricted to local farm traffic etc., leaving it safer for cyclists and walkers. That's never going to happen.

[Bicycler]

I don't think you went through West Scotland on the way from Wales to Yorkshire. Maybe you are thinking of somewhere else?