[Closed] Road Closed Roulette

On a bike ride I would purposefully travel down those sorts of roads.

Significantly less car traffic.

Unlikely on a bike you won't get past. If you don't you turn round and ride back along the quiet road .

In a vehicle id just go another way.

If I'm cycling then I tend to ignore them. I have had occasion to get off and walk past/around any obstruction. Two instances that come to mind are; installation of a new power line across a road near Inverness and rebuilding a small bridge on Mull after it was washed away in a flood. It probably helps that Access Law would enable me to jump a fence and carry on through a field to get around any problem.

totally normal

walked along hedgerows and tip-toed along planks to get through, even when there are men working i’ve asked if i can squeeze past and they’ve been more than happy to let me through. only been turned round once when they were chopping large bits of tree down

Currently (not biking related this one) - the A590 between J36 on the M6 and Kendal. It's different every time I go over (about twice a week) and the signs on the A65 from Skipton just say "Major disruption on A590 & A6". Yesterday's disruption was the westbound flyover of the junction being shut so you had to go down the M6 to J35 and back to get to a point 50m from where you were. The first you new about it was the line of bollards across the road.

There's definately pleasure to be taken when it comes off, which it usually does. Even more so if a car has followed you...

Does frustrate me this. Would it be too much trouble for an extra line on the sign of ‘pedestrian/cycle access?

Currently (not biking related this one) – the A590 between J36 on the M6 and Kendal. It’s different every time I go over (about twice a week) and the signs on the A65 from Skipton just say “Major disruption on A590 & A6”. Yesterday’s disruption was the westbound flyover of the junction being shut so you had to go down the M6 to J35 and back to get to a point 50m from where you were. The first you new about it was the line of bollards across the road.

Not fun yesterday when I had to get my daughter to Barrow for a driving test on time! No bloody warning at all. Wasn't even any diversion instructions, so I ended up going up the A6 instead.

Heh yes, I always try my luck. Often I just ask the workers if they are there, and they are happy for me to go through.

Once though on a weekend out in the Beacons we needed to take a road to avoid a long detour, and we were tired, it was late, so we decided to risk it. Several miles of pleasant riding had us thinking 'oh this isn't so bad' then we came across a huge canyon in the road where they'd been digging out a culvert that was easily 4m below the road surface. But we'd come too far to give up... We had to scramble down this muddy trench and somehow climb up the other side with our bikes on loose stones and clay. Fun and games 🙂

I did a road ride a few weeks ago over Shap Fell, through Lowther and then threaded through some tiny back lanes to come out at Pooley Bridge.

Except that week, it was just Pooley - the main bridge was being replaced and there was absolutely no way through for anything. Coming in on the tiny back lanes, I'd obviously missed any signage warning of this along the "main" road into PB. Really didn't fancy a 10 mile trek back along the road to Penrith but a look on the maps seemed to suggest some sort of FP a mile or so downstream. Found it eventually with the aid of a friendly farmer who allowed me to ride along it - thankfully it wasn't hub deep in mud or anything, it was mostly rideable on the road bike. Walked over a tiny rickety footbridge and popped out on the main road.

Cost me about 3 miles and 20 mins extra rather than about 25 miles extra on the roads!

Yup, a frequent occurrence in the Chilterns.

I've even done it in the car a few times and got lucky!

I think it's a combination of steep/narrow roads meaning there's frequent rain damage that means they're closed to the lowest common denominator (lorries) and Oxfordshire council must have a huge excess of road closed signs as they go up weeks before the road is actually made impassible "except for access" actually means "except for access to the rest of Oxfordshire" not the next few houses 😁😁

Does frustrate me this. Would it be too much trouble for an extra line on the sign of ‘pedestrian/cycle access?

Quite. Particularly as the posted diversions are often completely unsuitable for bikes, or are unnecessarily long in order to avoid more minor roads.

I now always ignore "Road closed ahead" signs and wait until I find an actual physical barrier or someone working. I've found that a polite "can I get through on a bike" has always yielded a positive response, although one of those was "you're welcome to try". That was one of the few times I ended up diverting.

I now always ignore “Road closed ahead” signs and wait until I find an actual physical barrier or someone working. I’ve found that a polite “can I get through on a bike” has always yielded a positive response, although one of those was “you’re welcome to try”. That was one of the few times I ended up diverting.

This. I've not been caught out yet. The worst case around here is getting off and diverting through an adjacent field.

I always go down them. Worst scenario I can recall encountering was having to push for about 30 yards along a grass verge. Roads are almost always open to bikes and have several times had workmen stop their JCBs to let us past.

The more closed roads the better.

I generally ignore them. You can normally get through, even if it means walking past. The diversions are often terrible. Not thought out for cyclists and will either be many miles detour or big main roads.

Only once had a real issue. They'd closed the road because the bridge had mostly gone. Interesting shuffle along the edge in SPD shoes!

We had had to lift our bikes over a gate with ROAD CLOSED on it, but we still fancied our luck, until we came to the A555 construction site, 6 lanes wide and about 50ft below us. The bridge that used to be there was no more. Twas a fair cop 😀

i worked on job where we were building a bypass around a small town. Part of the works closed a road which was part of a sustrans route, which had road closed signs and notifications on sustrans website etc etc etc. Watching roadies in lycra trying to negotiate a 6m deep excavation and over 1.5 miles of construction site was almost too much fun, Unfortuantly we did have a duty to stop them and turn them around. The sustrans diversion was about 4miles.

I tried my luck a couple of weeks ago, the alternative was a long diversion in a relatively remote area. Spoke to the workie putting up the signage who said the road was closed as someone had flytipped a load of asbestos along the length of the road, literally turfing it out the back of their van!

I started an internal debate as to whether cycling past on a windy day would increase or decrease the risk, but then the guy realised he was getting his closures mixed up and the road would be passable.

You would hope that fly tipped asbestos might command a police presence at least...

There was one not far from mine a while ago which someone had helpfully added a note to the effect that even pedestrians / cyclists / horse riders couldn't get past. This was useful as it was quite a steep hill to ride up only to find you couldn't get through!

I wish they'd do that as a matter of course on roadworks. Closed for motor vehicles. Open to scooters, bikes, pedestrians, horses.

Partly it'd help avoid the roulette issue but partly it may also encourage active travel.

Always take the chance - only once have I not been able to just go through or squeeze past.

The chaps working are often quite accommodating if you ask nicely too.

I've only been turned back from road works once.

A14 roadworks had a lot of "road closed" signs where I gambled and lost.

Deep impassable mudfests.
Unrideable surfaces.
Even been chased down by angry A14 men in hiviz in brightly coloured vans (well how was I supposed to know that it was both closed *and* dangerous?)

But I feel that it's my duty to try them out and see what happens.

"I wish they’d do that as a matter of course on roadworks. Closed for motor vehicles. Open to scooters, bikes, pedestrians, horses"

Near me UKPN have effectively closed off all the minor routes around my small town and there is specific signage saying NO CYCLISTS CAN PASS. This means that since August I have has no safe way to cycle to work except along dangerous main roads - its really pissing me off now. There are about 8 road closures.

“I wish they’d do that as a matter of course on roadworks. Closed for motor vehicles. Open to scooters, bikes, pedestrians, horses”

The reality is that if you fall down a trench or injure yourself in another way neither you nor the Contractor insurance will cover damage if you've ignore the signage, so bear that risk in mind.

I'm currently involved on working on solutions to communicate minor roadworks and re-routing information appropriately to apps and HU"s to provide live status / diversion data.

https://twitter.com/mashing53/status/1060820520407568384?s=21

I technically won at Road Closed roulette last night & enjoyed a really quiet section of abandoned lanes into a local village where the t-junction closure was easily navigated by using pavement round the road barriers.

BUT...

...the Road Closed roulette karma then took away my 'win' by providing me with a 2km climb the other side of the village that was covered in spilled farm slurry all over the lane...!

My wife when I get home: 'Hi! Pwooof, what's that smell...'??!! 😀

I lost big style in Spain once while motorcycling. We came to a Road Closed sign on a road that cut off a considerable distance. Thinking " ah it will be a little set of works we can squeeze past easily " we set off. Ten miles down the road we encountered a 30metre deep trench which stretched a long way! While we were stood staring disconsolately at the hole a local in a ratty van appeared gesturing to us to follow. We then had a hair raising ride up farm lanes and peoples' drives before we popped out in the road we should have met.Amazing how much faster than modern motorcycle an old van can be.

To save time they are changing the Derbyshire county boundary signs to ROAD CLOSED to save time. In the last two years there have been so many landslips/trees bringing down walls/embankments in our immediate area that have simply been shut off rather than repaired that on a bike you would be seriously unlucky to be turned back by people working. The group of villages my parents live in has five roads into them at the moment two of them are shut but several times over the past nine months three have been shut (although they switch the closure between the three remaining roads just to keep life interesting). The second road into where I live has been shut for eighteen months but I don’t think DCC have even got round to visiting yet.

I ignored the 'road closed' signs when cycling into central Oxford. Th police were not happy to see me biking around in an area that had been shut off because of a bomb scare.

It was the best ride I ever had in Oxford though.

To save time they are changing the Derbyshire county boundary signs to ROAD CLOSED to save time. In the last two years there have been so many landslips/trees bringing down walls/embankments in our immediate area that have simply been shut off rather than repaired that on a bike you would be seriously unlucky to be turned back by people working.

Abney is amazing at the moment! For a while, the top section of Longstone Ridge was good although that's now been repaired and reopened.
The road out the back of Eyam - the presumably ironically named New Road - won't ever open to traffic again and as a result it's a great road ride.

But yeah, there's a few around here.

On a related note...
Many years ago, one of the narrow country roads on my commute into work was dropped down to one lane for some reason and the traffic flow was controlled by temporary traffic lights.

The traffic lights were quite a distance apart as the road works rounded a corner and where quite lengthy (probably a couple of hundred metres).

As I rounded a corner just before the lights, I could see they were on green so started riding through.
Unfortunately, the road climbed at that point so I was going pretty slowly and sometime shortly after I went through on green, the lights must have changed as cars suddenly started driving towards me. I bet they all assumed I'd jumped the lights...

Obviously, whoever set up the timing of the traffic lights, didn't anticipate slow cyclists riding through the road works...

Only once I can remember not being able to get through, even on foot. Was leading a group ride and we were half a mile from the cafe stop when the gas board had actually sealed the road and verge to install a big pipeline. 2 mile diversion, most of it uphill.

Had some fun the other week exploring the road between Cromford and Lea, closed after being undermined in the floods last winter. They've left pedestrian/cyclist access, but the number of cars who were having to turn back and go round 🤣

Not sure its a Southern thing  perhaps we have too many mamils but many of the closed roads round here have massive fences spanning the road and buried in the hedge on each side with locked gates opened during the day but manned. Believe me, I was a full on pro-trespasser in my youth but short of trashing some expensive kit there is no way around these. Seems like a new iniative aimed specifically at cyclists especially with the no cyclists signs. If I wasn't commuting I'd take pleasure in circumventing but just don't have the time.

Wind yer selves back to 2012, I'd just come back from a tour of the Alps, landed at Gatwick and knew my way home roughly by heart, right through Richmond... on the day of the Olympic time trial, roads closed for quite a few miles around but I got let through, great I thought nice empty roads, right up until I had to push my bike panniers an all through the crowds watching the racing, never felt so embarrassed ☹️

Win about 8/10 times, worst one was having to walk through a bramble bush then a muddy field to get back on the cycle path.

One of the last losses was near fincham ponds, almost got run over by the workman reversing out of the closed road.

I really think the signs need to clarify if the road is closed to walkers, cyclists, motorcycles and/or cars.

maybe add times too. As after 5pm there is often no work going on.  The road closure near me, has a 12 mile detour.  You would not want to walk that.

I have gambled loads, and always won. But there was a bridge missing once, but the water was only a few inches deep.

Only stopped once - by an open cast mine - the road was obliterated, not closed. Road closures are almost inevitable on a road ride, but if the road does not go you can usually "Parker, take the direct route" the problem via the neighbouring field.