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Ages 11-16 · Road Badge · Section 8

The dog, and two manuals that disagree

Say what the two sources disagree about and why, and run the cycling answer: voice, stop, machine between you.

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Step 1 of 10

1Watch

Out of the gate

Film

Out of the gate

A quiet residential street; a rider is passing a house when a medium-sized dog comes out from behind a gate at a run, barking, angling to cut across the front wheel; the frame freezes with the dog about three metres out and the rider's hands still on the bars.

16 seconds

This one is worth stopping on, because two respected manuals would tell that rider to do opposite things in the next second, and neither of them is being careless.

2The idea

What each source actually says

The motorcycle manual: downshift and approach the animal slowly, and as you approach it, accelerate away and leave the animal behind.

The cycling handbook: do not try to outrun the dog unless you are a very strong rider, and do not try anything beyond your bike-handling skills. Its own suggestions are a loud firm voice, just stop — the dog may stop too, letting you walk or ride slowly away — and get off quickly, using the bike as a barrier if the dog attacks.

3The idea

Why they disagree, which is not a mistake by either of them

A motorcycle can outrun a dog and a bicycle usually cannot. Each manual is right about its own machine. That is the whole disagreement, and once you see it you can see why nobody has to be wrong.

An e-bike sits exactly in the gap, and nobody has resolved it. It is faster than a bicycle and slower than a motorcycle, and we could not find a source that has done the work for our machine. So this course tells you which side it is teaching, and why, rather than pretending the sources agree.

4Look

Two manuals, one page each

Two book pages photographed side by side with one line highlighted on each: accelerate away and leave the animal behind on the motorcycle page, and do not try to outrun the dog on the cycling page.
Two manuals

Both of those are real, current, and written by people who know what they are doing. Being able to hold two sources that disagree and still act is a skill in itself, and it is not only about dogs.

5The idea

Which one this course teaches, and the reason

The cycling one. A teenager trying to outrun a dog on an assisted machine is a teenager accelerating hard while looking sideways at an animal, on a street, with one hand doing two jobs. That is a way to crash without the dog ever touching you.

And three of the handbook’s items need no equipment and no skill at all, which is why they are the ones to have.
A loud, firm voice.
Just stop. The dog often stops too.
Get off, and put the machine between you and it.
Some of the handbook’s other suggestions involve sprays and whistles. Whether those are lawful for somebody your age varies and we have not verified it, so this course does not tell you to carry anything.

6Decide

A dog comes off a driveway at you, barking, about three metres away.

Yes, and it is the answer the cycling handbook gives in its own words. Stopping often stops the dog. A firm voice does a surprising amount of the work. And the machine is a wide metal barrier that you happen to be holding, which is the most useful thing about it in that moment.
Both of those need something you do not have. Outrunning it needs a machine faster than a dog and full attention forward, and you would be looking sideways. Kicking needs one foot off a pedal and your weight on a machine that is now steering itself, three metres from an animal — that is a fall, with or without the dog.

Pick one to carry on.

7Say it

The voice, and it has to be the loud one

Say it out loud, low and hard, not high and quick

“No. Bad dog. Go home.”

Those are the handbook’s own words, and the tone matters more than the words do. Practise it now in a room, because a voice you have never used is not a voice that arrives in three metres, and most people’s first attempt comes out far too high and far too quiet.

8Find them

Which of these are in the cycling handbook's own list?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

9Build it

Sort the two manuals

Interactive

Whose advice is this

Ten instructions arrive one at a time, drawn from the motorcycle manual, the cycling handbook and a couple of things people say that are in neither. Sort each into motorcycle, cycling or nobody said this. The card then shows which machine the instruction was written for and whether it survives the trip onto an e-bike.

The four cards that end up in nobody said this are the interesting ones. All four are things riders repeat confidently, and none of them are written down anywhere we could find.

10Do it

Before you leave this page

Two minutes, standing still. With an adult, put a marker on the ground for the dog, get off the machine and set it between you and the marker the way you would actually hold it, and say no, bad dog, go home in the real voice. Do it three times. Then walk the route you ride most and mark on a map where the dogs on it actually are, because the ones that come out are almost always the same ones.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Do not try to outrun it. Firm voice, stop, and put the machine between you and the dog.

Next lesson: Gravel, grates, rails, and the last skill in the course

Section 8 · When It Goes Wrong

8.1Why this is the last badge and not the first8.2The quick stop, and the pedals that are not where you think8.3Two different ways round a thing8.4You get one of them, not both8.5The dog, and two manuals that disagree8.6Gravel, grates, rails, and the last skill in the course★Section check

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