Agriculture gates on a Utah e-moto ride

You’ll meet one before you meet a view. Wire, usually. Somebody’s cattle on the other side, and a loop that’s tighter than it looks. The etiquette fits in one sentence. Leave it how you found it. The Division of Wildlife Resources tells hunters the same thing, and it applies to the rest of us, on private land, state land, and federal land. The riding is the longer part: getting the bike through a narrow hole without sitting in the road while you do it.

How you found it

Look at the gate before you touch it. That ten seconds is the whole rule.

Looped, chained, or latched shut: it was shut. Shut it again when you’re through, as tight as you found it. A loose wire gate sags, and a cow leans through a sag.

Tied open, wired open, or dropped flat on the ground: somebody left it that way so the cattle can reach water, or move to the next pasture. Leave it. Closing it because it “seemed wrong” is how a herd gets stuck on the dry side of the fence.

A sign that says to close the gate is the rancher telling you how they want it found. Close it.

The one that makes people argue is a gate across the road, just swinging, nothing holding it. Close that one. A loose gate in the fence line of a county road is how cattle end up in traffic. A pasture gate off in the sage, swinging because the wind took it, you leave it alone. You never saw it shut.

Get out of the road first

The gate is almost never on a straight, open stretch. It’s at the bottom of a draw, or just past where the road bends, because that’s where the fence crossed. You roll up blind.

Pull off somewhere you can see back down the road and up over the rise. Then look again. A ranch truck, a side-by-side, another bike. Your e-moto doesn’t announce itself. They won’t hear you coming, and on a lot of these roads they aren’t expecting anyone stopped in the opening.

If something is coming, let it come. If you’ve already got the gate open, hold it and wave them through. The opening is one vehicle wide. Sorting out who goes first is much easier before you’re both in it.

Same idea with a group. One person handles the gate. Everyone else waits off the road, not in a line in the lane. The last rider through is the one who closes it, and nobody leaves until they’ve watched the loop go back on. The lead rider is already looking at the next hill. That’s how gates get left open.

Look before you swing anything into the lane. A pipe gate moving across the road is a surprise for whoever is coming the other way.

Getting the bike through

Walk a wire gate. The gap is about as wide as your handlebars, the wire is under tension, and riding through while you hold it is how a barb finds a lever or a boot. Take the top loop off while you hold the tension, then the bottom. Walk it open until it stays. A half-open wire gate comes back at you. Ride through, get the bike clear of the opening, and only then go back for the gate. Hook the bottom first. Haul the top one on until the wire sings the way it did when you arrived. If a stick is hanging on the post, that stick is the cheater bar. Use it.

Gloves are worth carrying. You’ll find out which gates are barbed on the second loop.

Park off the wire, on the uphill side if the shoulder slopes. Shut the bike off, or hold the brake. A light bike rolls into the fence the moment you let go of it.

A metal gate you can ride through, once it’s actually open. Swing it all the way around so the wind doesn’t hand it back to your bars. Don’t stand on it, and don’t lean the bike on it. The hinges are the part that fails. When you close it, the latch has to drop and turn. If it only sits in the slot, a cow bumps it open on the way to the creek. That three-minute Wildlife Resources video shows the latch. Worth it the first time you meet one of these.

A single hot wire with a plastic handle is a gate too. Unhook the handle. Leave the wire alone. Hook it back the way you found it.

The cattle guard

No latch, so people treat it like a bridge and arrive too hot. Square up early, roll slow, and look at the far side instead of down at the pipes. Look down and you drift, and a dirt-bike tire fits between those bars if you meet them crooked. Some have a flat strip off to one side, put there for horses and motorcycles. Use the strip. If the pipes are bent, or a gap looks wider than your tire, get off and walk it.

If a truck is coming, wait. The middle of a cattle guard is a bad place to decide who yields. Going around, through the dirt wing, feels clever until the next rain turns your detour into a trench. The cattle find that hole before you get home.

When the cattle are at the gate

They’re often standing right there, because the gate is the interesting part of their fence. Idle up and give them the edge of the road. Let them sort themselves out. A cow with a calf wants you nowhere near the calf. A bull wants the whole road. Take the hint.

Your bike is quiet, which is nice for the neighbors and useless as a warning. A cow around the next bend doesn’t know you’re coming. And once you’ve got the gate open, chasing a herd through it with the throttle is how they end up in the wrong pasture. On open range they’re supposed to be out there, moving between their usual country. Hit one that drifted onto the highway doing that, and Utah Code 41-6a-407 starts from the idea that the rider is the one who has to explain it.

If the gate is locked

A locked gate on a road you believe is public is a problem for the county or the land manager, not for a pair of bolt cutters. Turn around, drop a pin, and tell them. A gate with a no-trespassing sign and no public road through it stays shut. That one isn’t yours.

Cutting the wire because the loop was annoying is how rides get trails closed. The state cared enough to put gates in the OHV course, which is a once-in-a-lifetime thing we keep with the other paperwork on the registration page. Leaving someone else’s gate open is Utah Code 4-26-101. A gate across a county road has its own section, Utah Code 72-7-106: leave it open, ride around it, or padlock it, and that’s a class B misdemeanor. Cutting the fence is Utah Code 41-22-12 on public land and Utah Code 76-6-206.5 on range land.

Day to day, the lesson is the same one you started with. Leave it how you found it. And get yourself out of the road while you do it.