Post by robreddy on Jul 6, 2011 13:57:45 GMT -5
I put this up about a year ago - but it seems timely as ever to re-post. As the summer is in full swing and more and more group rides are occurring its more important than ever to know HOW to ride in a group.....
Would appreciate thoughts and comments from everyone, particularly those that have lots of experience in the pelaton.......
Group ridding – Few words about Etiquette
Without a doubt group ridding is one of the best ways to become a better cyclist. And the following is not intended to dissuade anyone from joining a group – however there is a LOT of etiquette to group ridding – and triathletes are notorious for NOT knowing or following such protocol. And as triathletes we often times gripe about rodies being elitist or arrogant. Sometimes this is true, but often we bring on these attitudes by our own lack of ‘knowing and following the rules of the (bike) road.
So just a few thought for when you are ridding in groups……
1. Know what type of ride you are getting into. Is this a tri or road ride. Is this casual or hammer fest. What type of skills should you have for a given ride. Are you going to be expected to pull and ride pace line or can you draft the whole time. Find out from the ride leader what will be going on on a given ride. There usually is some sort of organization to a ride with clear and defined goals of the ride.
2. Call things out. Car left, stopping, hole – what ever it might be. A group ride is not a time to be bashful If you don’t want to strike up a conversation – fine no prob – but not letting the people in front of you know a car is coming up from behind can be dangerous. And be LOUD – it does no good to whisper “car left” as you are coming into a turn at 22 mph.
3. Seed your self correctly – there are two things to consider here – most importantly in regards to SPEED. If the Ride Group says it is for people that can go 20-23 what that means is you can ride easily ride 20 mph and are able to HOLD FOR A CONSISTENT AMOUNT OF TIME 23 mph. This does not mean you can sit in the pack and draft 21 mph. FAR too many people think they can ride faster than they really can, thus putting them selves into groups that are above their ride level. If you cannot sustain the top end of the group ride speed for an extended period of time ALL ON YOUR OWN – DON’T join that group. The second thing to consider is even if you can maintain the group ride speed – can you do that for the entire duration of the ride. If the ride speed is going to be 23-26 for 50+ miles, and you can only hold that speed for 20 miles, – DON’T join that group. Rule of thumb – you should be able to hold ride speed for at least 60%+ of the ride duration or you should not be in that group.
4. Jumping into and out of a ride – and getting your self home. Some times we are out and a group comes by that we may want to join in on. That is natural – but if you do jump on the back of a rolling group – PLEASE ask if it is OK with the group. And if they say no – its nothing personal, just peel out. Like wise, if you are in a group and for whatever reason need to drop off, let someone know. There is nothing worse for a ride leader than to all of a sudden realize a person has dropped out of their group 35 miles from home. What happened, did they flat, get lost, get hurt?
Leaving a ride leader to hang is just not fair, not to mention you will be disrupting the natural flow of the ride as people try to figure out where you went. Finally – if you go on a ride you better know how to get your self home. Again if you are having a bad day it is not fair to the rest of the group (all who are there for their own workouts, not yours) to have to completely change the ride because you don’t know your way home.
5. Having the proper things with you on a ride. You should always have tools, tube and air with you on a ride to fix minor mechanical things or a flat. You can’t always be bumming stuff off others. And know how to fix a flat – quickly is BETTER. If you don’t know how, ask for help BUT watch what is being done – this is a learning moment for you so the next time you can fix your own flat. The other thing to consider is nutrition – particularly on long rides – make sure you have enough food and water AND $$$$$$$$. Don’t show up for the 100 miler with one water bottle, a pack of gu and a buck!! Cuz when you bonk hard at mile 70 it is no one’s responsibility to haul you home nor give you their food which is supposed to get them through the last 30 miles.
6. Ridding skills – its not all about speed. There are all sorts of skills associated with ridding like climbing, turning, pace line (I’ll mention this separately), bike handling, jumping and so on. Again know where your skill set lies, and try not to get in over your head. Use less serious rides to work on these skills or when you are on your own. It is not appropriate to try and learn a new skill on an Epic Friday or Wed night hammer fest.
7. The bigger the group the more you need to be on your “A” game. If the group is small there is more room for error and development. However if you are joining in with a group of 10+ people – you better be very sure your ability and skill level matches up well with the group. Simply put, the bigger the group the more potential for a crash – and more often than not people OVER seed themselves in large group rides. If your ability is just on the fringe of the group’s stated ride distance and speed – DON’T join in, move down to the next lower group.
Finally I wanted to talk a bit about pace lines – this couple be a topic for a whole nother post – so I’ll try to be brief.
The general idea of a pace line is that the group will ride single (or in some cases double) file at very close distance to one another so a draft is formed. Closeness is within a few inches to a couple feet but no more. The leader of the line is said to be “pulling or taking a pull”. When you are pulling you stay at the front of the line for a given amount of time and are expected to maintain a certain speed. The time for the pull is determined by the group leader, and may be as short as :05 sec or as long as 10 min. Don’t pull longer or shorter as it screws the workout up. Also – when you are second in line moving up to take your pull, you should be maintaining speed or accelerating slowly (however you will be working harder as you are moving out of the draft which most think provides a 30% reeducation in effort – that’s why people LOVE to draft – it makes ridding fast easy). Unless the ride is one where attacks or break aways are part of the ride – you should not be accelerating your speed above the ride range and conversely you should not be slowing down when you are pulling. Take your pull and then smoothly slide to the right/left as appropriate. Your slide out should be definitive so the person behind you knows you are peeling out. Its not a bad idea to signal that you are sliding out (point out or bump your hand to your hip to the side you are moving to). For constantly revolving pace lines or very short pull lines, you should be starting your peel out just after the person who peeled out in front of you falls behind your peripheral view. Once you peel out you GRADUALLY fall back along the pace line – general rule of thumb is to only slow by ½ to 1 mph. As you come to the end of the pace line it is the responsibility of the last person to say “LAST”. When you hear this begin to accelerate and slide in behind that person. The rotation then continues.
A few things to remember when doing pace line work.
Pace line work on a tri bike is VERY sketchy as handling with a tri bike is not so great. In general you SHOULD NOT ride a tri bike at a pace line ride, rather take your rode bike (and yes I violate this rule all the time – I’m a VERY bad example – but I also have nearly 20 years experience on a tri bike – still I know my handling skills are far less on a tri bike and I acknowledge I’m the weak link on these type of rides and thus am very cautious – in the event you do ride a tri bike in a pace line workout, DO NOT ride down on the aero bars – you MUST ride up on the hoods).
When ridding pace line avoid slamming on your breaks – unless there is an emergency you should coast to slow down or lightly tap your breaks. Remember there are a bunch of people behind you, and when you slow they will be coming up you’re a ss. If there is a need to slow dramatically or stop – please signal or yell out ‘slowing/stopping’
When you peel off and fall back – you still must maintain speed. In effect people are now drafting/ridding a second pace line as they fall back. A dramatic slow down causes problems of bunching and crowding.
Again a comment about ride speed. If a pace line ride is 23-27 mph – what that means is you can easily pull the pace line at 23 and can maintain a pull WITHOUT being gassed at 27. Being able to ride 23-27 in the draft is not the same thing. If, when it is your turn to pull, you have to work so hard to "pull through" that after your pull you are exhausted, or need to slow down more than 1 mph while falling back, – you are in the WRONG group. Again don’t over estimate your ability – most likely as the ride progresses the group will want to consistently push the top end of the speed range, some will want to go above it. It is far better to ride one group down and push that group rather than struggle to hang on to a faster group. Again this is not just your work out but also a bunch of other people’s.
If the pace line is breaking apart and you want to fill in a gap rather than fall all the way back – please make sure you signal that you are moving in. Someone may be sprinting from behind to close that gap. Also – if the pace line is bunching then gapping, bunching then gapping (an accordion effect) – this is a clear sign that the ride speed abilities of the group are too great. It is your job to figure out if you are causing the problem or not and if so – bail out of the ride.
One final thought – no matter what type of ride you are on – you better be ready to pull. Unless the top rider says “hey I’m fine pulling this train all day” you have a responsibility to take a turn and put in some work. Remember you are not Lance and the rest of the group is not your domestique. And even if the ride leader says they are willing to do the pulling – this almost never means 100% of the time. So if you want to take a lead, do it but communicate with the ride leader – in this case passing on the right is generally fine. Also if the ride leader clearly wants a break and is pulling off to the side DON’T move to the side with them and stay in their draft!!! A sign that someone wants to pull back means you gotta let them fall back. Don’t rear block them and make sure you step on up and take your turn at the front.
OK that was a lot of info. I know there are a number of other very accomplished riders out there – so PLEASE add more to this thread. As triathletes we REALLY need to learn to be good group riders!!
Would appreciate thoughts and comments from everyone, particularly those that have lots of experience in the pelaton.......
Group ridding – Few words about Etiquette
Without a doubt group ridding is one of the best ways to become a better cyclist. And the following is not intended to dissuade anyone from joining a group – however there is a LOT of etiquette to group ridding – and triathletes are notorious for NOT knowing or following such protocol. And as triathletes we often times gripe about rodies being elitist or arrogant. Sometimes this is true, but often we bring on these attitudes by our own lack of ‘knowing and following the rules of the (bike) road.
So just a few thought for when you are ridding in groups……
1. Know what type of ride you are getting into. Is this a tri or road ride. Is this casual or hammer fest. What type of skills should you have for a given ride. Are you going to be expected to pull and ride pace line or can you draft the whole time. Find out from the ride leader what will be going on on a given ride. There usually is some sort of organization to a ride with clear and defined goals of the ride.
2. Call things out. Car left, stopping, hole – what ever it might be. A group ride is not a time to be bashful If you don’t want to strike up a conversation – fine no prob – but not letting the people in front of you know a car is coming up from behind can be dangerous. And be LOUD – it does no good to whisper “car left” as you are coming into a turn at 22 mph.
3. Seed your self correctly – there are two things to consider here – most importantly in regards to SPEED. If the Ride Group says it is for people that can go 20-23 what that means is you can ride easily ride 20 mph and are able to HOLD FOR A CONSISTENT AMOUNT OF TIME 23 mph. This does not mean you can sit in the pack and draft 21 mph. FAR too many people think they can ride faster than they really can, thus putting them selves into groups that are above their ride level. If you cannot sustain the top end of the group ride speed for an extended period of time ALL ON YOUR OWN – DON’T join that group. The second thing to consider is even if you can maintain the group ride speed – can you do that for the entire duration of the ride. If the ride speed is going to be 23-26 for 50+ miles, and you can only hold that speed for 20 miles, – DON’T join that group. Rule of thumb – you should be able to hold ride speed for at least 60%+ of the ride duration or you should not be in that group.
4. Jumping into and out of a ride – and getting your self home. Some times we are out and a group comes by that we may want to join in on. That is natural – but if you do jump on the back of a rolling group – PLEASE ask if it is OK with the group. And if they say no – its nothing personal, just peel out. Like wise, if you are in a group and for whatever reason need to drop off, let someone know. There is nothing worse for a ride leader than to all of a sudden realize a person has dropped out of their group 35 miles from home. What happened, did they flat, get lost, get hurt?
Leaving a ride leader to hang is just not fair, not to mention you will be disrupting the natural flow of the ride as people try to figure out where you went. Finally – if you go on a ride you better know how to get your self home. Again if you are having a bad day it is not fair to the rest of the group (all who are there for their own workouts, not yours) to have to completely change the ride because you don’t know your way home.5. Having the proper things with you on a ride. You should always have tools, tube and air with you on a ride to fix minor mechanical things or a flat. You can’t always be bumming stuff off others. And know how to fix a flat – quickly is BETTER. If you don’t know how, ask for help BUT watch what is being done – this is a learning moment for you so the next time you can fix your own flat. The other thing to consider is nutrition – particularly on long rides – make sure you have enough food and water AND $$$$$$$$. Don’t show up for the 100 miler with one water bottle, a pack of gu and a buck!! Cuz when you bonk hard at mile 70 it is no one’s responsibility to haul you home nor give you their food which is supposed to get them through the last 30 miles.
6. Ridding skills – its not all about speed. There are all sorts of skills associated with ridding like climbing, turning, pace line (I’ll mention this separately), bike handling, jumping and so on. Again know where your skill set lies, and try not to get in over your head. Use less serious rides to work on these skills or when you are on your own. It is not appropriate to try and learn a new skill on an Epic Friday or Wed night hammer fest.
7. The bigger the group the more you need to be on your “A” game. If the group is small there is more room for error and development. However if you are joining in with a group of 10+ people – you better be very sure your ability and skill level matches up well with the group. Simply put, the bigger the group the more potential for a crash – and more often than not people OVER seed themselves in large group rides. If your ability is just on the fringe of the group’s stated ride distance and speed – DON’T join in, move down to the next lower group.
Finally I wanted to talk a bit about pace lines – this couple be a topic for a whole nother post – so I’ll try to be brief.
The general idea of a pace line is that the group will ride single (or in some cases double) file at very close distance to one another so a draft is formed. Closeness is within a few inches to a couple feet but no more. The leader of the line is said to be “pulling or taking a pull”. When you are pulling you stay at the front of the line for a given amount of time and are expected to maintain a certain speed. The time for the pull is determined by the group leader, and may be as short as :05 sec or as long as 10 min. Don’t pull longer or shorter as it screws the workout up. Also – when you are second in line moving up to take your pull, you should be maintaining speed or accelerating slowly (however you will be working harder as you are moving out of the draft which most think provides a 30% reeducation in effort – that’s why people LOVE to draft – it makes ridding fast easy). Unless the ride is one where attacks or break aways are part of the ride – you should not be accelerating your speed above the ride range and conversely you should not be slowing down when you are pulling. Take your pull and then smoothly slide to the right/left as appropriate. Your slide out should be definitive so the person behind you knows you are peeling out. Its not a bad idea to signal that you are sliding out (point out or bump your hand to your hip to the side you are moving to). For constantly revolving pace lines or very short pull lines, you should be starting your peel out just after the person who peeled out in front of you falls behind your peripheral view. Once you peel out you GRADUALLY fall back along the pace line – general rule of thumb is to only slow by ½ to 1 mph. As you come to the end of the pace line it is the responsibility of the last person to say “LAST”. When you hear this begin to accelerate and slide in behind that person. The rotation then continues.
A few things to remember when doing pace line work.
Pace line work on a tri bike is VERY sketchy as handling with a tri bike is not so great. In general you SHOULD NOT ride a tri bike at a pace line ride, rather take your rode bike (and yes I violate this rule all the time – I’m a VERY bad example – but I also have nearly 20 years experience on a tri bike – still I know my handling skills are far less on a tri bike and I acknowledge I’m the weak link on these type of rides and thus am very cautious – in the event you do ride a tri bike in a pace line workout, DO NOT ride down on the aero bars – you MUST ride up on the hoods).
When ridding pace line avoid slamming on your breaks – unless there is an emergency you should coast to slow down or lightly tap your breaks. Remember there are a bunch of people behind you, and when you slow they will be coming up you’re a ss. If there is a need to slow dramatically or stop – please signal or yell out ‘slowing/stopping’
When you peel off and fall back – you still must maintain speed. In effect people are now drafting/ridding a second pace line as they fall back. A dramatic slow down causes problems of bunching and crowding.
Again a comment about ride speed. If a pace line ride is 23-27 mph – what that means is you can easily pull the pace line at 23 and can maintain a pull WITHOUT being gassed at 27. Being able to ride 23-27 in the draft is not the same thing. If, when it is your turn to pull, you have to work so hard to "pull through" that after your pull you are exhausted, or need to slow down more than 1 mph while falling back, – you are in the WRONG group. Again don’t over estimate your ability – most likely as the ride progresses the group will want to consistently push the top end of the speed range, some will want to go above it. It is far better to ride one group down and push that group rather than struggle to hang on to a faster group. Again this is not just your work out but also a bunch of other people’s.
If the pace line is breaking apart and you want to fill in a gap rather than fall all the way back – please make sure you signal that you are moving in. Someone may be sprinting from behind to close that gap. Also – if the pace line is bunching then gapping, bunching then gapping (an accordion effect) – this is a clear sign that the ride speed abilities of the group are too great. It is your job to figure out if you are causing the problem or not and if so – bail out of the ride.
One final thought – no matter what type of ride you are on – you better be ready to pull. Unless the top rider says “hey I’m fine pulling this train all day” you have a responsibility to take a turn and put in some work. Remember you are not Lance and the rest of the group is not your domestique. And even if the ride leader says they are willing to do the pulling – this almost never means 100% of the time. So if you want to take a lead, do it but communicate with the ride leader – in this case passing on the right is generally fine. Also if the ride leader clearly wants a break and is pulling off to the side DON’T move to the side with them and stay in their draft!!! A sign that someone wants to pull back means you gotta let them fall back. Don’t rear block them and make sure you step on up and take your turn at the front.
OK that was a lot of info. I know there are a number of other very accomplished riders out there – so PLEASE add more to this thread. As triathletes we REALLY need to learn to be good group riders!!