You can call this yet more training!

I have to cross railroad tracks to get to my preferred biking path, which of course makes me very aware of trains. Not to mention that I live one block from the tracks, and hear them blasting their horns at any hour of the day or night. I can\’t not be aware of them!

Widely given advice about riding a bicycle across tracks is, cross them as close to perpendicular as possible.  The narrower your bicycle\’s tires are, the more important that is. You don\’t want to have your front tire slip down into the \”slot\” along the rail. Remember what happens if anything stops your front wheel while you\’re riding. POW! You\’re down before you know what\’s happening.

Be especially careful when it\’s wet, and the rails are likely to be slippery.

Naturally there\’s the train factor itself to be taken into account. It\’s actually hard not to notice an approaching train. Those horns are very loud (and some of them have an obnoxious timbre as well), and the engineer starts blowing it a block or more short of the crossing. Add to that the noise of the locomotive itself. Darkness doesn\’t hide a train; it has a bright headlight.

The bottom line: just take sensible precautions. Look both ways before crossing. If you don\’t feel confident riding across tracks, there\’s nothing wrong with walking your bike across them. In fact, there\’s a crossing I use frequently where the \”slots\” alongside the rails have long since become chasms! I nearly always walk my bike across that one.

There\’s always yet more training. It never ends, does it?