A bit of a rant

[PscyclePath]

I agree with 7rider. Spreading out also means the driver has to be held up multiple times and make multiple passes, and gets progressively more frustrated with each one.

It's even more annoying for a cyclist to pull off than it is for a driver to do it... but just as a polite cager will pull off to allow a moto to pass on a road with short sight lines, polite cyclists should pull off when a cage is stuck behind us for a long time. Heck, it's the law in some states that you have to pull off if you're traveling below the speed limit in any vehicle and there are more than five cars behind you.

And as much as it annoys me (and as little as I'm likely to do it in real life except as a passive-aggressive type of road rage complete with exaggerated mime of frustration), I think that includes times when the cager HAS plenty of safe passing opportunities but refuses to take them. I live in terror of being rear-ended (no matter what type of vehicle I'm in or on), because it's the one type of wreck that I have the least control over - and when someone's tailgating me for long stretches and refusing to pass, if I'm by myself, I will do that just to get them out from behind me.

The rule we teach in this case is to "leave room for cars." The idea is to have a number of clusters of 12 to 20 riders, separated by a couple hundred yards of road space. Yes, drivers have to make multiple passes, but it's a lot easier for them, and safer, than trying to pass something like the peleton of the Tour de France... very much like trying to pass a freight train on a narrow 2-land road.

It's also better to keep the groups together, in a pack, rather than having single riders or little groups of two and three scattered up and down the roadway 10 or 20 yards apart, leaving no real safe space to try and pass. That's what gets drivers jacked up more than anything other than filling the whole roadway like a swarm of bees. The advantage that we riders get from that is that the larger groups are more visible to others than the single riders putting along.

Riding no more than double file is the law in most states. Arkansas is one of those that doesn't address riding abreast, thus single file is technically the law here. You can generally get by with riding 2 abreast, though.

I've taught the LAB Group Riding Skills clinic for about three years now, and it's amazing how 30 to 50-year-old cyclists have trouble with simple arithmetic and counting... as witnessed by how many times I've had to pull the class over to the side of the road for a quick Teachable Moment that starts with the question, "Okay guys... Some one please tell me, how many is Two?"

;->

Tom
LCI-1853M

[OakLeaf]

The idea is to have a number of clusters of 12 to 20 riders, separated by a couple hundred yards of road space.

Okay, I think that's the part that got elided originally.

I almost NEVER ride in a group of more than 15. The strategy of "multiple clumps" makes sense for big organized tours like RAGBRAI or TOSRV, or for these ginormous club rides they have in some places. Not so much in our more rural club rides or flash mobs.

I think what I and the others were picturing from the original post was "two riders," [pass] "three riders," [wait for another passing opportunity] "two riders," [pass again] and so forth.

I TOTALLY agree that 3,500 riders in a line 40 miles long, like they get on TOSRV, makes no one happy.


ETA: whoops, I re-read Mr.S's post, and he did say one or two riders together. I stand by what I said, don't think that's safe or wise.

[PscyclePath]

Okay, I think that's the part that got elided originally.

I almost NEVER ride in a group of more than 15. The strategy of "multiple clumps" makes sense for big organized tours like RAGBRAI or TOSRV, or for these ginormous club rides they have in some places. Not so much in our more rural club rides or flash mobs.

I think what I and the others were picturing from the original post was "two riders," [pass] "three riders," [wait for another passing opportunity] "two riders," [pass again] and so forth.

I TOTALLY agree that 3,500 riders in a line 40 miles long, like they get on TOSRV, makes no one happy.

Yep... we're on the same page now. My local club seems to have the same attitude, where a "group ride" is out little pack of a dozen or two folks out along the same three or four mile stretch of road, devil take the hindmost ;-)

Sometimes makes me wonder why they're called "group rides"...