I was thinking about this thread the other day during a big club ride. Reading a cue sheet is much harder while riding in close proximity to others -- you can't afford to look down to see what the next cue is when you have to keep a close eye on the wheel in front of you. I really don't know how you do this in a paceline. I guess you have to rely on the lead rider to know when and where to turn, but if people are taking short pulls, the lead rider is changing often, right?

I don't ride in organized pacelines, but fairly often will ride at the back of a group of riders. Some of the faster folks who are at usually the front either don't look at the cue sheet or just have a bad sense of direction, and they often miss turns, and then folks who are blindly following them will also miss the turn. Missing a turn is certainly preferable to touching wheels and crashing, but it sucks when I'm off the back and have to burn a lot of matches trying to catch up with the errant fast riders while screaming "Come back! You missed the turn!" (And yes after screaming "Come back!" several times I will add "Shane!!!" but no one ever gets it. I guess they're not Alan Ladd fans...)