Steady
Group riding is a marvelous blend of personal achievement (riding your bike pretty quickly) and submission to the will of the group, like a school of fish or maybe a murmuration of starlings, many creatures moving independently, but together. Today my buddy said that a successful group ride occurs when you, the person in front of you, the person behind you and the person beside you all have a good time. That sounds great.
Disclaimer: I am not the King of Group Riding, nor is this meant to be a definitive treatise on the subject. Instead, maybe it’s a primer, something to help you decide if this is something for you. In preparation for each season’s shop rides, I think about this stuff in an effort to keep things safe and fun. I talk about it a little bit each week before the ride, but I haven’t taken the time to write it down. Until now.
Attention, please! The first and the main thing involves keeping your head. You must always pay attention and consider the consequences of your actions. Even when your legs and lungs are seriously unhappy, you’ve gotta maintain sufficient brain power to keep yourself and the folks around you safe. If the ride is going a bit slow and you’re maybe ever so slightly bored, you’ve gotta pay attention. The last few crashes and near crashes I witnessed occurred because of a temporary loss of focus. Sometimes you hurt yourself; sometimes someone else is injured. So let’s take that as the baseline: gotta pay attention — always.
Tell your friends. If you intend to keep the people around you safe and happy, you’ll need to communicate with them, typically with words and motions. It is very good to talk about what’s going on. If the group is pretty large, it’s really good to talk in a loud voice. Sometimes you’ll be moving fast, and the wind noise can make it hard to hear. Speak up!
If (and only if) you’re comfortable taking one hand off the bar, you can and maybe should use your other hand to communicate. It’s great to point out junk in the road, to let people know about your turning intentions, to let ’em know if you’re slowing and/or stopping. There are all kinds of articles on the internet about voice and hand signals, so I’ll not bother to repeat all that stuff here. The main thing: communicate.
Steady, Eddie. On a ride you’ll hear a lot of talking. “I’m slowing down! Right turn! Hole! Stopping!” What you never hear is, “I intend to ride in a straight line at a steady pace for a while.” Why? Because there’s an expectation of steadiness in group riding. Another word for steady: predictable. Often, when a group blows up all over the place, the person at the front prioritized speed over steadiness. It’s a common thing! Many are the times I’ve gone to the front and just freaked out and went too fast. And then I slow down too much. And now our ride is no longer steady. Ugh. It happens to us all, but that doesn’t mean that it’s optimum.
It’s my thought that everything about group riding follows from those three Main Things: Paying attention, Communicating and Riding Steady.
When we ride together, we are ambassadors for the sport/activity/hobby/pastime of cycling. I take this pretty seriously. Some have said too seriously, but those people are wrong. (I kid.)
This ambassadorship, this sense of existing in a Community beyond what we’re doing right now, this respect for other road users, does it go above or below the line of Main Things? In my mind, it’s part of paying attention. It’s awareness of when you’re riding more than two abreast or just riding too far to the left for no good reason. It’s making a complete stop when there’s traffic around. It’s signaling your intention. Yes! It is so fun to ride a bike! Group riding is awesome! But for Pete’s sake, we’re doing it on public roads amongst cars and trucks that weigh considerably more than 100 bikes. In the first place, why bother someone unnecessarily? In the second, why make an enemy of someone piloting a machine with way more than 100 times your energy?
You’ll need to master drafting, riding very close to the folks around you, particularly the person in front of you. Drafting is important because it shields you from the wind and allows you to go faster with less effort. It is the skill that enables you to be a fish in the school instead of a fish in some proximity to the school. Drafting requires trust in the people around you and faith in yourself. To draft (and be drafted) you need to be able to ride (predictably!) at a steady pace and in a straight line. Herky-jerky riding is anathema to drafting and safe group riding.
Good drafting is riding closely behind the person in front of you and giving due consideration to the person riding closely behind you. You want to keep an eye on your front wheel and not let it overlap the rear wheel in front of you. If the person in front of you turns sharply, their rear wheel could hit your front wheel and you then might fall down. Ouch! Like all things group riding, don’t be a spaz. If you find yourself overlapping the wheel in front of you. Back off the speed just a bit, so as to not upset the person drafting you. Allow yourself to smoothly drop back behind the person in front of you, then get back to drafting. Was that so tough? Not it was not.
What happens when you find yourself at the front of the group? First: don’t freak out. You’ll need to expend maybe 20-40% more effort than when you were drafting. Yes! That’s a significant increase, but it’s also way, way less than 100% more effort. I suggest that you pedal a bit harder when you’re on the front, but not so much that you knock yourself out in less than a few minutes. Remember: steady over swift. Also remember that you’re part of a group. If the group was going 20 mph when you were drafting, you probably shouldn’t go over 20 mph when you’re at the front, as intoxicating as it may be.
There’s more*. So. Much. More. Everything else is a mixture of good drafting, paying attention, communicating and riding steady. Group riding is a skill that must be acquired. There is a lot to learn, and on-the-ride training is some of the best there is. You’ll quickly identify the excellent group riders. They may not be the fastest, but they’re super consistent and communicative and steady. Theirs are the wheels you want to follow. You’ll find group leaders who work to keep the group steady and safe. Along the way you’ll participate in a dud ride or two. It happens, and I’ve found that those not as great experiences make me appreciate the feeling of being a fish in the school all the more.
* When I sent this to a couple of friends to proofread, they each suggested an addition. Those additions were great, but there’s always more. If you look around the internet, you can find articles of nearly infinite length on group riding etiquette. As mentioned earlier, this intention of this article is not to cover everything; it’s to cover the basics.
And yet… my friends’ ideas were good, so I included them in this footnote.
At some point a small gap will open up in front of you. Fight the temptation to smash the pedals and close the gap in an instant. You’ll speed up too much, then you’ll have to hit the brakes and the folks behind you must do the same thing and hoo boy. Instead, just pedal a bit harder and smoothly close the gap. Oh! So smooth! I like your style.
What about the situation in which you’re having a hard time holding on to the wheel in front of you? My friend says, “The easiest way to stay on is to stay on.” He’s talking about temporarily turning yourself inside out to stay with the group, and sometimes that’s appropriate. Other times you’re just done. It’s OK. We’ve all been dropped. Remain steady and considerate of the people on your wheel. They’ll want to stay with the group, so let ’em know that you’ve had enough before the person in front of you has opened up a large gap. Assuming the way is clear, the best thing to do is pull off to the left and wave your friends through. You almost cannot over-communicate this to your riding partners.