Lay off the smack!

[Pink Kona]

A little tip for all you riders out there - novice or not. Make sure you have your signals - both verbal and non-verbal down with your cycling partners. I went yesterday with a male friend of mine who is a strong Cat 1 mountain biker. Luckily I convinced him to road ride but nonetheless he pulled for most of the ride. We approached a road crossing, he slowed and I was right behind him, looking left and right and smacked straight into him! Instead of seizing the lapse in traffic and breezing through, he fully stopped and didn't say anything. Because I was watching traffic I ran right into him. Whopps! I have a horrendous bruise on my arm where I hit his seat post. Lesson learned - make sure you have your signals down. Lucky for me I only bruised my arm and had no damage to his bike. Dope!

[Adventure Girl]

Mountain bikers generally are different from roadies about signals. I began as a mountain biker. On my first few road rides I was surprised with the signals that the roadies give (pot-holes, debris on the road, biker up, car back, etc.). If your friend primarily rides mountain bikes, road signals may be a new thing for him! Glad to hear you're ok. It could have been MUCH worse!

By the way, I've never heard of "category" classes in mountain biking. I've always thought that Cat 1, Cat 2, etc. were roadie terms. Mountain bike classes in all the races I have done are pro, expert, sport, and beginner.

[Irulan]

I had no idea there were hand signals for anything other than left, right and stop.

~I.

[Veronica]

Did he have a stop sign?

V.

[jobob]

When riding in a group, especially in a paceline, it's a good idea to point out debris (glass, branches in the road) and potholes so the people behind you whose view might be blocked will be aware of them and won't need to swerve at the last moment or run over them.

I tend to prefer it when people use hand signals rather than calling out every freakin' pebble on the road (inside joke to snapdragen, sorry....), but that assumes I'm paying attention and not off in my happy place

[Pink Kona]

Well he is Canadian? Maybe that explains why he never corrected me on calling him a Cat 1. Ha ha! Hopefully he will stop giving me those funny looks. Silly American that I am.

No stop sign in the road - though we were crossing traffic. Plain and simple - I should have been paying better attention to EVERYTHING going on - and not just the traffic.

(My arm is starting to turn a nice shade of dark purple with a tinge of yellow in it. Very nice!)