how to cross railroad tracks

[Biciclista]

This blogger is a guy that lives near me. His blog is excellent. He's a very very strong rider.


http://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/crossing-tracks-safely/

[7rider]

Funny you should post this.
DH and I just caught on Showtime last night a show called The Ride (http://www.noopportunitywasted.com/theride) - a docu about Phil Keogan from The Amazing Race t.v. show (which we never watch) riding his bike across the country fro MS.
Excellent show - but Phil nearly had his adventure come to an end when he wiped out in the rain crossing RR trax (head down, didn't see them coming).
Rain is bad enough. RR tracks are a potential disaster. Extreme caution is always warranted.

[marni]

I was wondering why the bog writer didn't mention the danger of wet or even slightly damp (fog, mist) tracks and the dangers of falling. I have seen more people go down on tracks and cattle guards that they didn't realize were damp and slick and they were either not exactly perpendicular or were leaning, than I have in any other kinds of common biking accident. Don't know if that is due to the prevalence of rail road tracks and cattle guards around here or just circumstantial but.. wet paint is also equally potentially slick.

marni

[Pedal Wench]

Saw "The Ride" about 5 days after my BF crashed because the guy in front of him in a race didn't properly cross tracks that were damp from fog/mist. The guy started to swing out like he was going to cross perpendicularly, but he went at a totally bad angle, slid out and took BF with him. :mad:

[Owlie]

There are a couple places that I'd rather just get off and walk rather than cross. Tracks, with a single exception, are one of them.

[Crankin]

Yea, I wiped out on horrible tracks as we were leaving lunch with Lisa, a couple of years ago. She even warned me! I don't have a lot of experience with tracks; we don't have a lot of them here and the ones I cross regularly are not raised or scary. If I see tracks that look dangerous, I often unclip and put one foot down and scoot across. The reason is in my next paragraph.
When I went on my bike tour in the Czech Republic, one of the women crashed on wet tracks on the second day. She was in her late sixties. Short story is the docs at the hospital said no, there's no broken hip. She had to hole up in the room until we got to Austria, where they promptly diagnosed a hip fracture. By this time, her stomach was wrecked from the Ibuprofen she was taking. It was really awful.

[indysteel]

My one and only "crash" was due to wet/sleet covered RR tracks. I was with a large group of guys who are, mostly, amateur "racers" and was paying more attention to keeping up with them than crossing the tracks. Down I went. I hit my hip hard, but that was about it. The real challenge was picking myself up after the wind had been knocked out of me fast enough to satisfy the irate motorists who couldn't be bothered to give me a moment.

I'm a lot more careful now but if the tracks are wet (thankfully I don't ride in the rain all that often), I'm liable to get off my bike to cross.

[Biciclista]

Marni, If he didn't mention wet, it's because where we live,we already assume it is wet. but feel free to comment on his blog. he will respond.

[azfiddle]

We don't usually ride in the rain here in Tucson, but on one of the El Tour training rides we did, and the route included crossing trolley tracks near the University of Arizona. A couple of folks went down... fortunately, not me, but I was paying pretty close attention, and knew the tracks were there.

[Desert Tortoise]

I too was warned about the same UofA trolley tracks (during ETT training too) and I crossed them SO carefully. But the times I have been in that area were on early Sunday mornings before lots of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. How do you safely manuever while avoiding traffic?

The blog mentioned "unweigh", what does that mean? Is it kind of like lifting off the saddle slightly and shifting your weight to the back a little?

[marni]

biciclesta,

I just assume that a lot of people don't have to deal with wet or damp rr trackes white lines of cattle guards. I guess it depends on the climate one is uesed to.
around here it is more dry than wet so wet is always a problem.

no insult intened just a comment

marni

[Crankin]

Yes, I always lift my butt up off of the seat, in a half stand thing when I cross the tracks here.
I also don't ride in the rain, unless it starts when I am out there. Or, I am on a tour, as last summer. I had ten years worth of rain in 4 days :eek:.
There's always some other exercise to do. I don't mind running in the rain, as long as it's not too cold.

[murielalex]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to start commuting next week, and have two sets of tracks to cross. I hadn't thought of it before, but I will unclip now.

[shootingstar]

Cattleguards/rails make me hesitate alot more than railroad crossings (at an angle).

[Pedal Wench]

Cattleguards/rails make me hesitate alot more than railroad crossings (at an angle).

We encountered a few out west that I can't decide what's worse - riding over or walking. The rails are spaced so far apart that if you slip (walking in cleats) you're bound to break an ankle, and that spacing also makes riding over them so treacherous because they slow you down - and again, if you have to put your foot down while crossing, there's no way you'll not slip between them. Some have a way to walk across on the edges, but some have fences right up to the edge. I HATE cattle crossings!!!

[Biciclista]

oh you mean REAL cattleguards????? (i was thinking of the painted on ones) none of these exist in the Seattle Metropolitan area (where the blogger lives too)
THAT would be a scary thing to cross for certain.

[Catrin]

oh you mean REAL cattleguards????? (i was thinking of the painted on ones) none of these exist in the Seattle Metropolitan area (where the blogger lives too)
THAT would be a scary thing to cross for certain.

We don't have those here either...but I would walk them for sure! We do have rail crossings where the rails are higher than the road surface, more walking practice. I typically ride country roads by myself (even if it is an organized ride) and I am not going to take the risk.

[eofelis]

In town here we have a road that has a triple set of tracks across it, it's close to the trainyard. I have mindfully crossed them many times with no problems. We also have a lot of cattleguards and I have had no issues with those - I go fast and straight at them. It does not rain too much here, so the tracks and cg are usually dry.

A few years ago when Ride the Rockies rode from Grand Junction to Delta, over the Grand Mesa (Pedal Wench will remember that day!) there was a nasty set of tracks to cross over in Delta. The rails were set deeply into grooves and the edges of the grooves were a sharp steel edge. I went through carefully, noticing that 3 people were changing flats right then. I kept on. Later I noticed that my rear tire was damaged by those sharp edges. The day before, RTR Day 1, over the Colorado National Monument, many people got caught in rain. A friend of mine did go down on wet railroad tracks riding back into town.

I rode Bicycle Tour of Colorado the next week. Some of the routes went over historic narrow gauge railroad tracks, some rails were at a very acute angle to the roadway. They had people there telling riders to slow down, but there were still falls and a few people hooking wheels in the trackway. I got off my bike and walked across a few of those!