how to cross railroad tracks

[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!