Group etiquette overtaking slower riders

On Sep 15, 10:39*am, Marco wrote:
Fred wrote:
You should find whichever dumbass who was the first person to pass
that guy on the right, and whoop his ass. *If everyone had passed on
the left, you probably wouldn't have crashed. *At least the guy you
ran into tried to do the right thing by holding his line while
everyone swarmed around him.

Don't you mean the dumbass(es) who passed on the left? (BTW, that
would include both an Olympian as well as a current pro) Anyway, the
guy who got hit moved completely out of the lane and there should have
been plenty of room to go by him on the right in the correct lane.
(Caveat: I wasn't on the ride but I think the video makes it pretty
clear.)

Looked to me like the guy who slowed did one correct thing and left
room on both sides. I didn't see him lift a hand up; if he was a
member of the group and got dropped when it wound up, he should have
been well aware there would be riders coming up on him fast and he
should have shot a hand up.
It's OK to pass on both sides; the problem is knowing the location of
the obstacle when you can't see through the people in front of you.

"Credentials" don't matter one bit. Taking care of business is what
counts and beginners can learn what to do, and do it, in short order.

A faster group passed my Sunday ride one morning, when we were getting
back close to town. We caught them a light and a few of us tagged on
for awhile, despite a decidedly unfriendly attitude evinced by a few--
like, no one said anything that I heard to the riders in my group as
they went by, and when I engaged one guy in some jocular conversation
at the light, which he seemed to enjoy, the guy next to him made angry
faces at me (no, he really did, so I of course extended the
conversation until the light turned and the temper tantrum guy didn't
like that one bit, either). Wow. "Serious and rude".

Obviously a spread of abilities (speed) in that group, and the front
guys hammered off the stops (not pacing themselves to make the lights
in the first place), then sat up so it was sprint and brake, sprint
and brake in the back. They swerved around minor "road stuff" that was
ridable and led others over some nasty stuff, including a thick steel
plate covering an excavation , with no warnings, that they could have
avoided (as seen from my vantage point about a third of the way from
the back). After a full daily recommended dose, I sat up (after
carefully checking to the side and rear, of course) and went back to
my cool and smooth ride. "Who needs that ****?" I opined and one of my
cohort noted: "There were at least three Cat I's in there".

Wow, Cat I's riding like bad Cat IV's while leading a group ride. And
the funny thing was, the "unfriendlies" were not the fast guys.
Heavy pecking order horse****, Batman!
--D-y

getting "instruction" on rides....

I rode at lunch 2X weekly for years in a crit simulation ride with 50+
riders on a fairly safe closed course. One of the guys who was there
nearly every time was a cat 4/5 who had a really bad habit of
completely putting his head down and looking straight at the ground
when the going got hard. A number of us gently and not so gently told
this guy, repeatedly, to keep his head up and not endanger himself and
everyone else. Generally, the guy completely ignored us. This went on
for years, with essentially no improvement.

The ride was eventually forced to move to a much more hairy location,
with considerable traffic. I moved away to Phoenix not long after this
shift. A year or so later, I head that there had been an accident
where two guys were dropped, and the following guy went straight into
the back of a parked semi, after the front guy juked it. The guy ended
up paralyzed. Yeah, it was the guy we'd warned so many times.

I tell this story because the lesson I learned was that when you're
giving advice, or when you're on the receiving end of advice, there
has to be actual communication happening. I the case I cited, this guy
wasn't interested in hearing what we had to say, I'm sure he thought
we were nuts and just bugging him. Maybe he thought he was a lot more
experienced and knew what he was doing. Maybe he thought that since
nothing had ever happened before, nothing ever would happen. I'm not
sure what we could have done to have gotten through to him.

Brad Anders

On Sep 15, 12:22*pm, Brad Anders wrote:
getting "instruction" on rides....

I rode at lunch 2X weekly for years in a crit simulation ride with 50+
riders on a fairly safe closed course. One of the guys who was there
nearly every time was a cat 4/5 who had a really bad habit of
completely putting his head down and looking straight at the ground
when the going got hard. A number of us gently and not so gently told
this guy, repeatedly, to keep his head up and not endanger himself and
everyone else. Generally, the guy completely ignored us. This went on
for years, with essentially no improvement.

The ride was eventually forced to move to a much more hairy location,
with considerable traffic. I moved away to Phoenix not long after this
shift. A year or so later, I head that there had been an accident
where two guys were dropped, and the following guy went straight into
the back of a parked semi, after the front guy juked it. The guy ended
up paralyzed. Yeah, it was the guy we'd warned so many times.

I tell this story because the lesson I learned was that when you're
giving advice, or when you're on the receiving end of advice, there
has to be actual communication happening. I the case I cited, this guy
wasn't interested in hearing what we had to say, I'm sure he thought
we were nuts and just bugging him. Maybe he thought he was a lot more
experienced and knew what he was doing. Maybe he thought that since
nothing had ever happened before, nothing ever would happen. I'm not
sure what we could have done to have gotten through to him.

Even though he brought it on himself in a determined way, what a
shame. What a waste.

A guy here in Austin who wasn't one bit prepared to race in a group
did so and crashed, hit his head and died.
I've raced in an extremely limited manner over the last several years;
I'm not in the crowd anymore but I still felt guilty that I and no one
else took this guy out and showed him the ropes. He was just bouncing
all over the place in the pack, from what I was told. He was said to
be a good guy, not one of the obnoxious know-it-alls but he just
didn't know what to do and he was scared.

Hell, someone should have shouted him out of there, or even grabbed
his jersey, whatever. Easy to say in hindsight but it should have
happened anyhow.

But you're right, some people don't want to hear it. It's a lack of
respect for others; also, some people have their brains in their asses
and bad things happen when they sit on a bike seat and the circulation
gets cut off.
--D-y

"Marco" wrote in message
...
Fred wrote:
You should find whichever dumbass who was the first person to pass
that guy on the right, and whoop his ass. If everyone had passed on
the left, you probably wouldn't have crashed. At least the guy you
ran into tried to do the right thing by holding his line while
everyone swarmed around him.

:: Don't you mean the dumbass(es) who passed on the left? (BTW, that
:: would include both an Olympian as well as a current pro)



Dumbass -

I've seen an 'Olympian' chop another rider into incoming traffic during a
training ride sprint with a right to left crosswind.

thanks,

Kurgan. presented by Gringioni.

People in front need to point (up high) and vocalize-- "Riders Up!!!"
and swing wide in a safe manner while calling out "Passing on your
left, please!.

dumbass,

if i hear people yelling "rider up!" and other types of things like
that i know i am riding with freds. most communication among good
riders is non verbal, either signals or simply body language.

that crash happened for two reasons: one is that the one rider sat up,
the other is that sprinting is gay.

we had a long discussion about this a while ago. but when a ride is
too easy all the "sprinter" goons can hang on and will ride like
idiots and chop people left and right to "win" the sprint, so a good
ride needs to have some hills, because it is just too easy for the
goons to sit in on a big group on the flat.

the case where a fast group takes out a slower rider that isn't part
of the group is inexcusable.

weaker riders in the group are usually problems because they either go
to deep and start to lose control or they are afraid to leave a buffer
when they should because they're not confident they can close the gap
when they want to - don't get me wrong, everyone, even pros have their
limit.

the way to deal with slower riders is to leave them on the front when
they get gapped and wait while they die and then sprint around them
and jump across the gap.

On 9/14/2010 1:15 PM, --D-y wrote:
Aside from the aspect of courtesy for the slower riders, there is just
the general issue of safety. Under a nearly identical scenario I was
part of group (~20) that was flying along on a rural road on "trash
pickup" day where an occasional unretrieved wheeled trash bin still
graced the shoulder (or what amounted to a shoulder) in the evening.
At one point the group came upon one of these and the front of the
group easily avoided it (and there may have been some verbal
communication). I was perhaps mid-pack and had no clue what was
coming. I was lucky to merely get the startling "whoosh" as I cleared
the bin bu a foot or so. But I knew exactly what would happen next and
it did - a single loud thud followed by all sorts of nasty sounds of
metal and carbon, bodies and pavement. Three riders were quite badly
hurt, bikes essentially destroyed.

I don't have an answer to the problem aside from noting that smaller
groups are a plus and having a group that where everyone rides
together regularly and knows one another usually makes for better
cohesiveness and communication. Even if they can't be excluded, it can
be helpful to know who the flaky riders and/or the idiosyncrasies of
even the good riders. "Good" in this case meaning well behaved.

There's nothing much better than a good group ride, or much worse than
a bad one. What are good and bad? Not always readily definable, but
you know them when they happen.

Lack of plain communication. The first couple of riders need to
gesture broadly, not just "avoid" and maybe mutter something.
Plain and simple: It's their fault, and the fault of other riders
further back in the group, that there was a crash.

I've seen some real assholes lead group rides, jerks who deliberately
graze obstacles and potholes and think it's funny (just to illustrate
the extreme end of the spectrum here).

Everybody in the group has responsibility for everyone else. Some
think this is a pussy attitude. Can I get a witness?


Abso-freakin'lutely, Reverend!

Steve


There's a ride or two around here known for crashes. Duh. Not as bad
as the Houston Death Ride where they didn't stop for lights or stop
signs. I understand that ride died out.

Other local rides are known for a much, much lower crash-per-mile
ratio. It's not an accidentg. More of an IQ test, IMHO.
There's one that is officially a "recovery ride" on Sunday, that
follows a Saturday ride known to go fairly long (80 miles or so) at a
hard pace for the riding members. The Sunday ride tends to roll out at
conversational pace, make a store stop about halfway through the 50
mile distance, and have "determinations" after a good long warmup.
There are problems keeping both rides organized because some people
just can't get in the boat and row.

When I was younger and fit, I rode a few of the hammer-dude rides.
Some people think they're training on those rides, I guess.
It's really just hammering, often. Fun, maybe, but not smart training
(opinion stated as such), nothing like doing structured intervals or
group sprint repeats.
--D-y


--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001

On Sep 15, 3:28*pm, Amit Ghosh wrote:
People in front need to point (up high) and vocalize-- "Riders Up!!!"
and swing wide in a safe manner while calling out "Passing on your
left, please!.

dumbass,

if i hear people yelling "rider up!" and other types of things like
that i know i am riding with freds. most communication among good
riders is non verbal, either signals or simply body language.

That crash was caused, among other reasons, by poor communication,
apparently including an "olympian" (damn, where was Mercury?).
IOW, your "good riders" had a crash because it's not cool to talk in
the pack? Or have a basic respect for other human beings, even if they
can't ride a bicycle as fast as you can? ("What's that ****ing fred
doing out here in the way?")

Crashing is fredly. Not communicating is fredly.
Yup, we've had some of the Manly Men get sarcastic when we call "car
back" and the like.
The truth is, they are the ones who are fredly. Freds crash.

I'll grant you may have ridden with freds who communicated verbally,
and some who scream (in a fredly way) at the least provocation.
Doesn't change the fact that, as far as I can see, that accident was
very avoidable and it wasn't avoided. Someone could have been crippled
or killed, let alone the financial waste. A great big screw-up,
frankly.

I call it The Red Badge of Courage: "We're cool". If you're out there
crashing, chances are good you're not, even if your ride produces the
local King of Training.

that crash happened for two reasons: one is that the one rider sat up,
the other is that sprinting is gay.

Sat up without raising a hand up high over his head that I could see.
Did apparently ride in a straight line and left room on both sides.
Good there. Others didn't cover for him and they could have, from what
I saw, if they gave a **** about the riders following.

Whether the sprinting is gay or not depends on how fast they can
sprint g. Sprinting outside of racing at whatever level is a test of
abilities other than riding fast-- like being able to keep track of
wheels ahead and behind, and managing a safe conclusion.

we had a long discussion about this a while ago. but when a ride is
too easy all the "sprinter" goons can hang on and will ride like
idiots and chop people left and right to "win" the sprint, so a good
ride needs to have some hills, because it is just too easy for the
goons to sit in on a big group on the flat.

Goons are goons. Hills are one way to deal with them. We kicked one
bad hombre out; sent him a letter and everything.
I've never taken anyone down, however sorely tempted, but I sure as
hell have given a dose of their own medicine (a closer chop) and
"talked it over" afterwards. Whatever it takes...

the case where a fast group takes out a slower rider that isn't part
of the group is inexcusable.

Even given that **** happens, yes, it is inexcusable.

weaker riders in the group are usually problems because they either go
to deep and start to lose control or they are afraid to leave a buffer
when they should because they're not confident they can close the gap
when they want to - don't get me wrong, everyone, even pros have their
limit.

On group rides, "training rides", you help the newbies along and teach
them. Most important is how to sit comfortably on a wheel and take
care of business while occupying your place in the group. Some people
are just amazingly good at that and some people are clueless, forever.
Some of them just never had the luck to have someone bring them up
short, if necessary, and start reading The Book to them.

the way to deal with slower riders is to leave them on the front when
they get gapped and wait while they die and then sprint around them
and jump across the gap.

Well, I know what you meant to say, i think, and that's one way.
Another is to teach them how to ride a wheel safely and get them to be
good, confident group riders who know very well how to take a place in
a group, including at the back, and TCB while they're in there,
including not riding at the front when they're not strong enough to
last up there, and might not know where the ride is going, either.

That's another great crash opportunity, having the guys at the front
miss a turn and having a mix of others in the first several rows who
don't know the route, either.

(a chapter in The Book that has been written many, many times): "If
You Don't Know Where We're Going, What Are You Doing On the Front?")
(funny as long as no one gets hurt or ruins a bicycle for no good
reason)

Better to wait for the dropped at some turn of the road or whatever
after they get sawed off, IOW to bring them along instead of putting
the hurt on them on purpose just because you can.

Like my teachers told me, early on: this is not altruistic ("we don't
want you to take us out").

I've committed most or all of the sins; one day, after a particularly
gory human sacrifice, "I decided not to do it that way any more".

That's a David Meyer-Oakes reference that I'll explain later. Nighty-
night!
--D-y

"Steve Freides" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
We're seeing an increase in animosity between cyclists and
motorists/residents in our area, and now, faster cyclists vs slower.
Something that recently came up is that, when a very large
fast-moving pack overtakes a slower rider, and the lead part of the
pack does a great job of giving the slower folk room, but by the time
the rear of the group comes around, the message (hand signals, "rider
up", whatever) has been lost, and the slower folk sometimes get
clipped or feel like they're being run off the road.

I'd guess that a pack of 25 riders or less doesn't have this issue;
it's the really large groups where this is more likely to happen. Any
ride leaders out there with solutions to this (other than the
r.b.r-standard that slower folk should get off the friggin road)?

Thanks-

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

Ride at the front. The group will come together at traffic lights.
After each stop, put the hammer down and let the pace force the big
group into dividing.

If you're not fast enough to be in the front group, then let a gap
open up in front of you - horrors! - and ride at the front of your
group, at least until there's enough daylight between your group and
the next, or until your group is small enough that you don't feel like
you have to be in the front to be safe.

I used to do both of these in the same ride, where the pace was
typically easy for the first half and then got faster - I'd ride near
the front at the beginning, then just look for a goup of slower rides
with which to finish the ride once the hammerheads started competing
for town signs and/or the terrain got hilly.

-S-

I used to lead quite a few rides when I was younger... much younger. On
a significant climb, I could ride the front, drift back to check on the
riders at the tail end, and then get back to the front again. Or at
least I have dim memories of doing that. I even remember teaching a few
young guys how to climb 25 years ago, and within just a couple years
there was no chance I could hold their wheels. Now, the
Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride is technically "my" ride, but I can no
longer police it from a position of strength. The only time it becomes a
problem is when a guy shows up who doesn't know what it means to stay to
the right when there are cars stacking up behind. It would be so much
easier to deal with if I could simply ride past him and tell him to move
the heck over, but sometimes you get these guys who think that, because
they're strong, that somehow means they own the road. I don't get that.

I really wish there were more young kids coming up. It's a crazy world
these days, when Masters categories fill up months in advance and the
juniors get maybe 30 (in the mid-70s, the junior fields were often the
largest). I remember being annoyed at the older guys, who couldn't climb
like I could, so they seemed to want to make up for it by giving free
(and not-asked-for) advice. Why should we listen to them? The only thing
they could do was outsprint us. And as far as they likely knew, I didn't
listen to them. But actually, I did. I absorbed just about every single
word.

It pains me that the "road bike" market is a 35+ demographic, with the
younger guys into fixies or mountain bikes. It's probably because, back
in the day, your road bike was your escape. You didn't have a car, so it
was by bike that you got around, and dang, you really got around. These
days, kids either have cars of their own or parents who drive them
everywhere.

What am I saying, what's my point? Maybe that we're getting to people
too late. The 37 year old is probably set in his ways and not there to
take advice from anybody, but rather to exercise his own control over
something. It takes a more charismatic person than I to enforce the sort
of order that's needed in a large group ride.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

On Sep 16, 12:15*am, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:
"Steve Freides" wrote in message

...





Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
We're seeing an increase in animosity between cyclists and
motorists/residents in our area, and now, faster cyclists vs slower.
Something that recently came up is that, when a very large
fast-moving pack overtakes a slower rider, and the lead part of the
pack does a great job of giving the slower folk room, but by the time
the rear of the group comes around, the message (hand signals, "rider
up", whatever) has been lost, and the slower folk sometimes get
clipped or feel like they're being run off the road.

I'd guess that a pack of 25 riders or less doesn't have this issue;
it's the really large groups where this is more likely to happen. Any
ride leaders out there with solutions to this (other than the
r.b.r-standard that slower folk should get off the friggin road)?

Thanks-

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

Ride at the front. *The group will come together at traffic lights.
After each stop, put the hammer down and let the pace force the big
group into dividing.

If you're not fast enough to be in the front group, then let a gap
open up in front of you - horrors! - and ride at the front of your
group, at least until there's enough daylight between your group and
the next, or until your group is small enough that you don't feel like
you have to be in the front to be safe.

I used to do both of these in the same ride, where the pace was
typically easy for the first half and then got faster - I'd ride near
the front at the beginning, then just look for a goup of slower rides
with which to finish the ride once the hammerheads started competing
for town signs and/or the terrain got hilly.

-S-

I used to lead quite a few rides when I was younger... much younger. On
a significant climb, I could ride the front, drift back to check on the
riders at the tail end, and then get back to the front again. Or at
least I have dim memories of doing that. I even remember teaching a few
young guys how to climb 25 years ago, and within just a couple years
there was no chance I could hold their wheels. Now, the
Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride is technically "my" ride, but I can no
longer police it from a position of strength. The only time it becomes a
problem is when a guy shows up who doesn't know what it means to stay to
the right when there are cars stacking up behind. It would be so much
easier to deal with if I could simply ride past him and tell him to move
the heck over, but sometimes you get these guys who think that, because
they're strong, that somehow means they own the road. I don't get that.

I really wish there were more young kids coming up. It's a crazy world
these days, when Masters categories fill up months in advance and the
juniors get maybe 30 (in the mid-70s, the junior fields were often the
largest). I remember being annoyed at the older guys, who couldn't climb
like I could, so they seemed to want to make up for it by giving free
(and not-asked-for) advice. Why should we listen to them? The only thing
they could do was outsprint us. And as far as they likely knew, I didn't
listen to them. But actually, I did. I absorbed just about every single
word.

It pains me that the "road bike" market is a 35+ demographic, with the
younger guys into fixies or mountain bikes. It's probably because, back
in the day, your road bike was your escape. You didn't have a car, so it
was by bike that you got around, and dang, you really got around. These
days, kids either have cars of their own or parents who drive them
everywhere.

What am I saying, what's my point? Maybe that we're getting to people
too late. The 37 year old is probably set in his ways and not there to
take advice from anybody, but rather to exercise his own control over
something. It takes a more charismatic person than I to enforce the sort
of order that's needed in a large group ride.

It's kinda funny, the attitudes you see. When I started riding with
the racer-dudes, I did so because they tagged along (ahem) on a
"civilian" group ride and showed me, in a nice way, they knew a whole
lot more about riding bicycles than I did, although I had been riding
"seriously" for some years. It wasn't long before that first race day
came along and I entered a Citizens' event, and went on from there.
Those three guys took the time to train about 7 or 8 guys who popped
out of the woodwork and formed a team, with frequent training rides
where one sat at the front, one in the middle, one at the rear of our
little beginner group and told us what to do/how to do it in detail.

Never a crash on those rides. People went off in smaller groups by
themselves, and crashed. No discipline being applied, don't you know!

However the usual deal is: speed (power), and intimidation: as you
alluded to, those are the necessary weapons. "Charisma" is just window
dressing g.

I can't take any credit because the "passing of the torch" is being
done by others in my club, but over the last year or three we've had
two Juniors come along who have listened and learned. They have motors
and have posted excellent racing results, fine and dandy, all well and
good, but they've also turned into wheels you can trust and they also
get in the boat and row better than some of the old hands, when it
comes to "ride management" (aka self-discipline).

Meaning, for the Sunday ride as currently constituted, a steady, easy
roll out of town, perhaps a Determination after a nice long warm-up
(and maybe not!), a store stop, and maybe some more controlled
jousting, with regroupings, before another steady roll back home,
50-60 miles total.

It doesn't always go smoothly, but most often it does-- just saying it
has happened g.

These youngsters, I think of them as 35-year-olds in 15-year-old's
bodies. A lot more fun to ride with than their, um, counterparts.
--D-y

On 9/16/2010 11:23 AM, --D-y wrote:



It's kinda funny, the attitudes you see. When I started riding with
the racer-dudes, I did so because they tagged along (ahem) on a
"civilian" group ride and showed me, in a nice way, they knew a whole
lot more about riding bicycles than I did, although I had been riding
"seriously" for some years. It wasn't long before that first race day
came along and I entered a Citizens' event, and went on from there.
Those three guys took the time to train about 7 or 8 guys who popped
out of the woodwork and formed a team, with frequent training rides
where one sat at the front, one in the middle, one at the rear of our
little beginner group and told us what to do/how to do it in detail.

Never a crash on those rides. People went off in smaller groups by
themselves, and crashed. No discipline being applied, don't you know!

However the usual deal is: speed (power), and intimidation: as you
alluded to, those are the necessary weapons. "Charisma" is just window
dressingg.


This has been an interesting thread and brings back a lot of fond memories.

In the Early 80's we, about 10 riders, started a S. Cal Club called
Coast Velo - though I seem to recall that it was a reincarnation of an
earlier club. But one of the members, the only one with actual race
experience took us under his wing and generally schooled us in the
subtle and not subtle niceties of riding in a group. As we progressed it
was drilled into us that during the early season evenness was favored
over speed. At the time I used to think that it was because some members
weren't as competent at hills. But later reeducation proved otherwise g

The club grew in size and it wasn't uncommon for there to be 50+ riders
on our Saturday Morning Rides. And the quality of riders got better too.
So much so that I can honestly say that there weren't a lot of races
that were harder than these Sat Morning rides. A good mix of Cat II's
and III's and a few very stout Juniors made up this core group.

Greg Oravetz was one of these riders - and was a junior. In fact I can
remember by wife taking him to his first race as a Junior. Acton if
memory serves - and he lapped the field.

Along with the the weekend rides, we had a Tues/Thus nite Crit Practice
session that took place in an Industrial Park, around a loop that was
largely deserted by 6PM except for a Health Club lol and eventually
we picked up a number of additional riders from that source. This was
not a closed loop really. But the pace was very fast and I don't recall
there ever being any real problems or many crashes. There were some
interesting moments because of an errant car perhaps, but those were of
no real consequence.

Since everyone pretty much knew everyone the group was policed very well
and I don't ever recall any real problems such as those mentioned by
Mike. The average age was probably mid 20's or so. But a lot of the
older cadre were the ones that kept things running smoothly.

Regards

Bill

--

William R. Mattil

http://www.celestial-images.com