Opinion needed re: group riding

I have a situation that has been bugging me for some time and I need to know if you think I'm over-reacting or not. We have a group ride that meets once a week and it is known for being a pretty fast ride. However it used to be that there were only certain sections that the group went all out and you either hung onto a wheel or got dropped. We would then meet up at the next rally point. Well now we have a guy that will attack off the front at any given time. He blows the group up all over the place. But what really steams me is that he then can't hang with the fastest of the group so he goes to the back on the pretense of checking on "the girls." I get so mad that he blows up the group because I'm now stuck in no-man's-land...too slow for the front and too fast for the back. It really ticks me off! Should I just bite my tongue?

no, of course not. Tell people. you're probably not the only one unhappy about it.

How about you bring sentences 2,3,4, and the second half of 8 up with the group?

That's so obnoxious. I've been in groups where that would happen. I've also been in the same groups where the group would decide to let a couple of people keep going OTF without responding and instead just keeping the ride going as per usual. The third scenario is that a couple of guys will throw in their own sprint point (that no one else knows about), and then the group gets shattered but like the more organized sprint points, there is an immediate regrouping.
I'd hope that this guy would realize that he's not only shattering the group but he himself is blowing up (when he goes to the back). I'd be tempted to give him a talk on group ride etiquette. But then if you've been with this group for a long time and are buddies with a lot of the faster people, maybe you could mention to some of them instead that they just let this guy go because it's ruining the ride for all but the strongest riders. This is the off season after all. If he's out there in no man's land without any challenges enough, maybe he'll get the picture. If not, well, you don't really want him in your group anyway so let him just hang out there 50 yards in front until he blows.

I agree with aicabsolut. That is obnoxious. If you all agree to go back to just sprinting where you did before, and regrouping, let him go off the front all by himself. Either he'll quit jumping or he won't be part of your group.

In any event, it definitely needs to be addressed because your group ride is no longer enjoyable for you and probably not for others, either. Somebody just needs to bring it up.

Agree totally obnoxious.

Nex time he does that, let him go OTF and the group should NOT respond to his attack. Let him disappear. Who cares, he's doing his own thing.

My brother-in-law had a guy like that for a while on his training group. The guy went wayyy out. The group then took a different route as pre-planned thing and never saw him for the rest of the ride. :D

Another etiquitte (sp), big no-no is recovery rides and typically the Friday rides. Don't you dare attack. It is supposed to be a recovery day. easy ride. My brother-in-law and his boy were agressive in more ways than one when it came to ill mannered riders.

And "hanging back with the girls" , if he said that to me after he blew himself up, he'll be lucky that I don't throw something into his front wheel. :mad:

just my 2 cents.

^^^ + Everything Smilingcat says!

(Well, except for the brother-in-law part. I don't have a BIL.)

Funny new guy (rude new guy) needs to have a talking to. And if he sprints off, watch him go. If he wants to ride with the group, then he needs to honor the group's "rules".

I like the idea of taking the next turn too. :D

Have you talked to the other riders in your group, to see how they feel about FNG's riding skills?

The thing is that this isn't a new guy. He has been riding with this group for a couple of years. It's just that now that he is stronger he does this sort of thing. The fast guys and girls in the bunch just can't let him go...I guess it's an ego thing. I know that a couple of others feel the way I do but none of us want to say anything. The guy is pretty condescending to the women riders...acting like he has to protect us, tells us where to ride behind him to get the draft (like we don't know anything), won't ever let the girls pull on the fun sections of the route, etc. Saying something is probably futile because I think this may just be part of his personality and I do think of him as a friend even though some of the things he does/says gets on my last nerve!

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Originally Posted by li10up

The thing is that this isn't a new guy. He has been riding with this group for a couple of years. It's just that now that he is stronger he does this sort of thing. The fast guys and girls in the bunch just can't let him go...I guess it's an ego thing. I know that a couple of others feel the way I do but none of us want to say anything. The guy is pretty condescending to the women riders...acting like he has to protect us, tells us where to ride behind him to get the draft (like we don't know anything), won't ever let the girls pull on the fun sections of the route, etc. Saying something is probably futile because I think this may just be part of his personality and I do think of him as a friend even though some of the things he does/says gets on my last nerve!

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Sounds like the group is ready to split into an A and B ride.
A for the chest-thumping ego-maniacs who want to rip the legs off each other.
And B for the rest of the people who remember the joys of a group ride and its own inherent challenges.
Run that one up the flag pole and see who salutes the idea.

p.s. I find that guys on a group ride fall into one of three categories: (A) they hit on you, (B) they ignore you, or (C) they act like they're your big brother and are out to protect you.

I like the idea of dropping back to the slower group and helping *them* rejoin, if you don't want to do the diplomacy thing yourself. If it's happened more than once and nobody's joined you in "no man's land," have you tried announcing that you're going to drop back to the other group so that the group stays closer together and can regroup more readily, as in the old days? Could be a human or two has only seen you drop off when it was a little too late...

(Edited to un-hijack and make it a new post ;) )

I saw this happening a lot on our club rides this past summer... The way I broke them of the habit on the rides I lead was to let them go up the road, while kept the rest of the pack together. As soon as we came to a convenient crossroads, the pack turned off the planned course and took an alternate route to wherever our destination or turnaround point was going to be. The "bunny rabbits" will get lonesome after awhile, and start looking for the pack to come up behind them... especially if it's an unfamiliar route to them and they start getting those niggling little feelings that they may have missed a turn somewhere.

When they finally caught up to us, they were pretty docile ;-)

Many groups, including mine, have a standing rule that if you run off and leave the group like that, you're no longer part of the ride, and you're on your own. It takes a fairly strong ride leader to hold things together so that everyone has a good time. Many clubs have gone to a "leaderless" ride format to avoid saddling folks with the adminstrative burden of being a ride leader, but this is one example where the ride leader idea pays off.

Maybe I'm letting my ego get in the way. I have had to work my butt off to finally be able to hang with the faster people on this ride only to have someone mess up the dynamics. I don't WANT to go back to the slower group....my goal is to get faster, not slower. There are several other rides that I "babysit" the slower riders (heaven knows I need to return the favor), but this is one ride I want to do for me. Now my friend, the knucklehead, messed it all up!

Umm...another thing...he IS the ride leader. He wasn't before but the other guy had to back out so.....

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Originally Posted by 7rider

Sounds like the group is ready to split into an A and B ride.
A for the chest-thumping ego-maniacs who want to rip the legs off each other.
And B for the rest of the people who remember the joys of a group ride and its own inherent challenges.
Run that one up the flag pole and see who salutes the idea.

p.s. I find that guys on a group ride fall into one of three categories: (A) they hit on you, (B) they ignore you, or (C) they act like they're your big brother and are out to protect you.

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+1
In fact, on one of the Saturday no-drop rides back home, they had to split the "fast" group into 2 groups for reasons like this. Some guys just wanted to hammer all the time. I was home a couple weeks ago, and since it's October, they tried to calm the fast group down and make it one large group again. Of course, about of them went all out as we made it through the last stretch of stoplights. I found myself behind a group who decided to stop pedaling and chat. I saw the hammerheads up the road split into 2 groups. I bridged up to the 2nd group and then (b/c I was flying) decided to keep on going and try to get to the lead group. I wound up in no-man's land, which quickly turned into massive-headwind-land. I was stuck. As I sat up for the 2nd group to catch me, my legs blew and then I couldn't even catch on to that group again. The ride leader meant well in trying to go back to the winter rules of the ride, but it didn't work. I wasn't the only one dropped, either. Far from it. I did wind up catching most of the 2nd group eventually, and all of us finished only about 5min back from the leaders. Seems pretty silly for a no-drop ride. If only there hadn't been a massive, group-splintering surge, we could all have hung together at a normal pace no problem.

When it's just an individual going crazy, in my experience, it's been quite easy for the group to just let him/her go. Sometimes, one person who is a bit stronger will go for a while just to give the other a hard time of it.

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Originally Posted by li10up

Maybe I'm letting my ego get in the way. I have had to work my butt off to finally be able to hang with the faster people on this ride only to have someone mess up the dynamics. I don't WANT to go back to the slower group....my goal is to get faster, not slower. There are several other rides that I "babysit" the slower riders (heaven knows I need to return the favor), but this is one ride I want to do for me. Now my friend, the knucklehead, messed it all up!

Umm...another thing...he IS the ride leader. He wasn't before but the other guy had to back out so.....

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If he's going to ride like that, he shouldn't be the ride leader. Yeah, he should make sweeps at the back, but not because he's blown himself up. He should also work to control the pace at the front so that it is whatever the ride is supposed to be.

If you can't get through to him or the group, then I suggest you try to restructure the ride into an A and B. That doesn't necessarily mean that only the people you want to ride with will do the A group. Hopefully, this time of year there will be some people who don't want to basically go out and race and contest all the sprints every weekend.

Like everyone else, I think that talking to him/the group would be best.

However, being the perpetual smartass, I propose that as soon as he blows up & starts to drop back, "one of the girls" (gigantic eye-roll for that phrase) should counter-attack the bejezus out of him & drop him like a hot spider :D

Oh, Andea, I like that one. Wait til his legs are cooked then cook the rest of him.

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Originally Posted by li10up

Maybe I'm letting my ego get in the way. I have had to work my butt off to finally be able to hang with the faster people on this ride only to have someone mess up the dynamics. I don't WANT to go back to the slower group....my goal is to get faster, not slower. There are several other rides that I "babysit" the slower riders (heaven knows I need to return the favor), but this is one ride I want to do for me. Now my friend, the knucklehead, messed it all up!

Umm...another thing...he IS the ride leader. He wasn't before but the other guy had to back out so.....

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Welp, that's not letting it get in the way... that's you wanting to be a better rider. Might there be somebody else in the slower group that coudl spring up to halfway with you so you could ride together and push to get all the way to being able to drop the whole mess of 'em?

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Originally Posted by Andrea

However, being the perpetual smartass, I propose that as soon as he blows up & starts to drop back, "one of the girls" (gigantic eye-roll for that phrase) should counter-attack the bejezus out of him & drop him like a hot spider :D

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Slight hijack...
I nick-named one of the guys on our group ride "Pop" - not for his paternal qualities - but because he'd forever attack at the base of a hill and then - POP! - run out of gas halfway up, and the rest of us would just cruise on by him! :rolleyes:

The kicker of it it...he turned out to be a really nice guy.

7, that happens to me all the time, because I use the momentum to get me up the next hill. I'm heavy so I can go fast downhill, and I end up passing everyone else, usually. (I try to, so I won't waste any momentum. It annoys me to NO END if I have to brake going downhill!) Try as I might, I can't keep up the speed all the way up, so I end up being passed by everyone else again.

So, maybe old POP is just doing what he can--even though it seems to me he should just sit and spin instead of attacking.

Karen

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

7
So, maybe old POP is just doing what he can--even though it seems to me he should just sit and spin instead of attacking.

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Nah...he's not too big a guy. He was just impatient. And that was last year. He's joined a race team and learned better strategy and techniques. Now, he rides with the faster group and does fine on the hills (much to my dismay). 50% of climbing is learning how to do it well (something I personally haven't yet learned! :rolleyes:).

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Originally Posted by SouthernBelle

Oh, Andea, I like that one. Wait til his legs are cooked then cook the rest of him.

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hehehe... the counter-attack is my all-time favorite race move!

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

7, that happens to me all the time, because I use the momentum to get me up the next hill. I'm heavy so I can go fast downhill, and I end up passing everyone else, usually. (I try to, so I won't waste any momentum. It annoys me to NO END if I have to brake going downhill!) Try as I might, I can't keep up the speed all the way up, so I end up being passed by everyone else again.

So, maybe old POP is just doing what he can--even though it seems to me he should just sit and spin instead of attacking.

Karen

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Those are 2 different scenarios. You are practicing a good method of not getting dropped. Use your momentum where you can, and then stay to the side and drift towards the back on the hills (instead of starting behind and then getting spit waay off the back).

That is totally different from attacking at the base of a climb (regardless of the terrain leading into it) and then blowing up instead of picking a sustainable pace.

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

It annoys me to NO END if I have to brake going downhill!)

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Me too! Seems like the people in the front forget that those behind them on the downhills are in the draft ...they quit pedaling and then those in back have to hit the brakes. If they would keep pedaling then those in back could coast without having to brake...

...so that's a good tip for beginners. If you are in the front, keep pedaling even on the downhills.

I used to ride with a guy who would spin for about 5 revolutions then coast, spin, coast, ....repeat. I finally had to tell him that the price one has to pay for being in front is to have to pedal ALL the time. He just didn't realize what he was doing.

Now my friend the knucklehead is wonderful to draft behind. His cadence is rock steady...If I could just keep him from blowing up the group...

Guess we can't have it all!

Just make a teeny adjustment so his brakes rub, or let just a little air out of his tires. He'll blow up much sooner... y'all can continue your ride.

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Originally Posted by aicabsolut

Those are 2 different scenarios. You are practicing a good method of not getting dropped. Use your momentum where you can, and then stay to the side and drift towards the back on the hills (instead of starting behind and then getting spit waay off the back).

That is totally different from attacking at the base of a climb (regardless of the terrain leading into it) and then blowing up instead of picking a sustainable pace.

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Oh, I see--he's trying to break off when he gets to a hill...not just attacking the hill to get up it!

Yeah, he's not very self-aware, is he?

Karen