riding the brakes...

[DeniseGoldberg]

...Most of the people out there are fairly inexperienced at road riding, and will take up all of the lanes of traffic in our direction (which I totally do not agree with by the way).

It's good that you don't agree with this; if it were me I'd stop riding with this group or try to change their habits.

Taking up the full driving lane is both illegal and unsafe. The vehicle code in all 50 states says that a bicycle is a legal vehicle, but riding more than 2 abreast is not allowed. I just checked the MassBike site, and (for Massachusetts at least) they state that "You must ride single file unless passing". I've seen other references that riding 2 abreast is allowed. But certainly taking up the whole driving lane with multiple bikers across is not. The MassBike references to the Massachusetts biking laws can be found at www.massbike.org/bikelaw. Links to laws relating to bicycles in all 50 states can be found at http://www.massbike.org/bikelaw/statelaws.htm, and links to laws to Canada provinces + a couple of other countries are at http://www.massbike.org/bikelaw/intl_laws.htm.

I've ridden with groups like you're describing in the past, but only for one ride. I'm not comfortable riding in a mass like you describe (as opposed to one or two across).

I would recommend either not riding with this group, or riding ahead of or behind them so that you are not in this dangerous situation.

--- Denise