How do you deal with this?

[don compton]

I lead a lot of rides. My list of riders is a group of experienced riders with all levels of speed. I have learned that you cannot expect that riders of extreme
differences of strengths should be expected to ride together all the time.
On Sunday, our club had a charity ride( not my ride ) and there was a horrible crash. Actually, after the first 15 miles of the 50 mile ride, my wife and I split off and rode home and heard about the crash the next day. While we were on the ride, one of the ride leaders was constantly trying to get the whole group to ride together. BIG MISTAKE! At every intersection, riders would be circling, waiting for the slower riders, bothering traffic. It was a mess. Anyone else had experience with these types of rides? :crap:

[FlashUNC]

I've generally found it depends on the previously agreed upon expectations for the ride. Some clearly established no-drop rides really do allow everyone to ride together, only breaking up on the hills to regroup at the top. For the faster guys, they can schedule it as a rest day, for the slower, its a good workout getting pushed by those faster than them in a group setting.

Others fragment pretty quickly by speed, which is fine too.

Though to be fair to other users of the road, the "we all finish as one" mindset really starts to breakdown if you have more than 10-15 riders.

But yes, to your point, one big gaggle can be a recipe for disaster.

[eddief]

let people ride at their own speed. sometimes having a sweep to stay at the back is more important than the leader at the front. route sheets and scheduled regroups help too. herding cats not so good.

[don compton]

let people ride at their own speed. sometimes having a sweep to stay at the back is more important than the leader at the front. route sheets and scheduled regroups help too. herding cats not so good.
Thanks, great advice.

[rnhood]

Define the expectation or speed range of your ride (eg, 20-22 mph). Recommend that someone else lead the slower and faster groups. Don't sweep your group because they know the expectation (speed average of 20-21 mph, etc). You are experienced and have ridden lots with this particular group so, hold them back when they start pushing it and bring up the tempo when they are slacking off. Your average should be 20-22 mph. Don't roll off after pulling to the rear, instead cut back in after 6 or 8 riders pass. Stay in the front portion in your group where you have the ability to control overall tempo for your group.

Faster riders can go in another group or just pull on ahead. Don't chase them. Slower riders can go with a slower group or be dropped. Don't wait on them. Tell everyone to have a cue sheet because you don't stop for dropped riders. But always stop for a mechanical in your particular group.

Having said this, on a charity ride its a bit more difficult since rider abilities may be somewhat unknown, even to the particular riders On all charity rides I see groups breaking apart and this is commonplace. Sweeping will be your call. Its going to be much tougher to keep people together on this type event though.

[LouDeeter]

I ride what I call a "conversational pace". We use the rides to catch up socially, while getting in some exercise. If my buddies who are on my email list that announces the rides don't want to ride at that pace, then they can take off and do their own thing. Mostly, the better riders use my ride as a warm-up then they take off to add hard miles at the end. If they plan to ride hard the entire ride, they usually don't show up at the start. Personally, I prefer everyone to stay reasonably within sight of one another, in case we have a breakdown or emergency. But I also don't have 15-20 riders to deal with.

[witcombusa]

This is a constant issue. I think you have to define what the group is to do before you roll out. Speed expectations, turn policy, regrouping (or not), dropped riders (or all stay in sight). Having distance and speed options are good....

[veloduffer]

If you have more than 10 riders, the group becomes unwieldy and is best broken into two groups. While it's nice to "ride together", large groups are best when done in a paceline (preferably double). But that means the riders have to know how to ride in a paceline - many don't.

With the large influx of new riders, many don't have good skills - tend to veer/drift, slow down suddenly when climbing out of the saddle, change gears too often, can't follow closely to maintain a paceline, etc.

I tend to keep my space when there are riders whom I don't know. I find that most crashes are on turns - either a rider overcooking the turn or doesn't know how to handle gravel/sand.

[Wilkinson4]

A and B groups. Leaders of both groups and que sheets... On a charity ride I would just say let em ride at their own pace. And what Witcomb says, define if it is a no drop ride or somethign else, etc...

mIKE

[mack]

I (and my mates) loosely organized rides for many-many years, some big enough to garner cue sheets and titles. As I became older it seemed my impromptu training rides began to reach further out, or did the cyclist demographic simply change through those 30+ years....this could be a huge, likely already over-debated, topic...

However, when i stepped up to the role of local velo-club president, the scope of this problem or issue became larger than life. The annual scheduled rides with cue sheets and maps drew larger and more diverse numbers which led to designing three routes for each ride.....well you know where this is going, it snowballed into leadership for each route, a lot of hand holding and frankly very diminished rides for those caring for others.....every day stuff, I guess, but on a recreational scale, generally, guides get paid and call it work!

But for me the fun seemed to go bust....and when I scaled back to training rides, like ones termed 'spring classic training rides', yes we do have a riding off-season in WI, the initial few years they were just that long LSD outings with lots of shared camaraderie, at times snow, ice and muddy soft roads, provided that element of shared challenge that I find great value in. Great pre-season race training rides, then they grew in attendance and turned into 'arenberg forest like' dropfests....new riders and racers, men and women, would show up, join in pre-ride chitchat and then get shelled out the back after ten miles, it was bloody embarrassing! When one of our areas strongest racers was attached when he, alone, punctured early on the 95mile route, I realized my appeals to return the rides back to whence they came were not being heard.

I do not have any answers, the local veloclub is now run by other folks, their approach is actually a little 'whacko', imo, remember the soup nazi?
I've just regressed to riding with my closest friends, alone or with larger groups and organized rides......organized by someone else!

[Karin Kirk]

I think part of the reason group rides can be a contentious topic is that there are so many variants of distances, speeds and styles that are desirable. One person's Weeknight Worlds is another's day-off ride. There is no way to please everyone, and trying to do so will probably please no one.

I think trying to keep a big group all together is swimming upstream. As the OP pointed out its dangerous and probably annoying for all involved.

The idea of clearly defining the ride is a smart one. A given ride won't be right for everyone, but your best chances of having happy folks is to tell them what to expect and then do your best to deliver that.

Our weeknight rides have two leaders. One leader stays at the front as rnhood describes. This is active leadership to create the pacing, energy level and paceline structure that you want. The other leader rolls off the back with dropped riders. That leader can collect individual stragglers back into a group, notch the pace down, change the route if needed, and get everyone home. That is the much harder job, imho.

One thing we do before we leave the parking lot is to pre-arrange a couple of stopping points where everyone regroups. Often at that point people will rearrange themselves into the group they want to be in (for example, two friends who have gotten separated but want to be in the same group) and then we proceed from there. I find that having that stopping point determined ahead of time is key, so that the front group can ride at their own pace until the stopping point rather than trying to wait for slower riders all along.

Leading rides can be thankless, but if you can take the time to work out the kinks and come up with a good arrangement it can also be really fun and rewarding!

[tiretrax]

I sometimes ride with a group on Sunday mornings. The weekend warriors love to hammer it on the way out. Sometimes, I ride with them. Other times, I let them go and catch up at the convenience store at the halfway point. We ride as a group on the way home.

I do not like "no drop" rides because I tend to be at the slow end of the scale and don't want others to feel obliged to wait for me and feel that they didn't get the ride they wanted to get. That applied on a 100k I organized in November. I usually caught them at the rest breaks - they didn't wait a long time for me, but I didn't have to ride beyond what I wanted to either.

[flydhest]

I started the group ride for a DC bike shop. It runs every Sunday. I led it for three years or so. The objective with the shop owners had been to have a ride that began and ended at the shop, that was about teaching and getting people into cycling, and that was safe. The group grew and there were some faster people and slower people. We created a Saturday ride that became the "beginner" ride and the Sunday ride was a bit more. 40 miles, some pacelining, all out attacks on the one longish hill, regroup for coffee, ride back as a group.

It went well, but became a victim of its own success. We started getting 40, then 50, then 60 people out on rides. We had a few times as many as 80. I kept asking for more and more help to keep things manageable IF (and that's the big thing) the plan was to stay inclusive. I kept hearing that the ride was supposed to be the same, but the actual help was not forthcoming.

I stopped leading the ride several years ago. It was just too much work to keep it safe and to keep it as a group ride.

I like group rides. If you're not going to be riding as a group, then you are just a bunch of cyclists our at roughly the same time on roughly the same roads. What's the point of that? I can meet up with people I like for coffee afterward.

[benb]

I don't ride in many groups anymore, it's tough to find a good one. I'd agree anything more then 10 people they better all know how to ride in a proper paceline or there is a good chance I might just turn off in the middle of the ride.

One of the formats I used to love that helped a lot was split the group into an A group and a B group. Send the B group out first and then 5 minutes later, 10 minutes later, etc.. send the A group out. The A group's job is to catch the B group. The ride I participated in that did this was a weeknight one about 30 miles.. IIRC it was a 5 minute separation and most of the B group was mostly Cat 4/5 and the A group was mostly Cat 2/3.. people would move down if they were exhausted, etc.. but with a 5 minute separation the A group would usually catch or just be shy of catching the B group after 30 miles..

Short of some kind of motivation or a really strong authoritative rider (e.x. someone who is a Cat 2 riding with people who don't race so they worship him/her) it seems like nothing is going to get people to work together/ride together safely/consistently/effectively.

[witcombusa]

"Training" rides, mainly for current, ex or wannabe racer types is but one form of GROUP ride.

There are rides for folks who might be new to cycling or simple new to the group thing. This is a completely different animal.

Then there are the charity type rides with cyclists of all discription covering the same course or courses.

Weekly type rides, where you get alot of the same people but with a few newbes thrown in from time to time. These are where I hear a lot of horror stories. The "regulars" don't like the pace being thrown off and the new riders didn't appriciate getting dropped in the first 5 miles and having to find there way back to the cars.

In all cases a clear expectation up front can help everyone get what they are looking for. For many non racing cyclists paceline at any speed may be of zero interest. Some may want a more social ride with less red zone pace.

Lastly, if they are there for a group ride I assume they actually want to ride with the others in the group. So the whole cue sheet or not, drop or not, meet up stops, expected pace, total mileage, tools and pump thing have to be very clearly defined. Then a ride leader capable of keeping to "the plan".

[sg8357]

On the Saturday ride there was a marked route, riders would take off in groups
21+, 17, 15, beginner. If you got dropped, the riders in the next slower
group would catch up with you. Painted routes are popular here, some
intersections look Egyptian hieroglyphics, 4+ route symbols at some turns.

Learn how to ride in a slower group, have a slow group bike.
On guy rides a cherry Schwinn Continental on some rides, nothing like
40lbs of Chicago steel for a good workout and you can hang you with
your slower riding friends.

[Ti Designs]

Why would you expect a group ride to work? Yes, it's a serious question. What would happen if we took a large group of people who had zero education on driving, and we stuck them behind the wheel of a bunch of cars? So what would make you think that bikes are any different? OK, let's say we give this population of new drivers 15 minutes of pointers, does that really make anything much better.

There are two things few people understand, the complexity of what you do but don't give any thought to, and the learning process. To go along with that lack of understanding, there's one thing that most people avoid - real world testing. The real world test in this case is teaching another rider how to ride in a group. If you ever gave that a real try you would find 1) it's frustrating as hell. 2) it takes way more time than you thought. 3) listening is a function of learning, but they are NOT the same. Or 4) you don't have most of the answers 'cause you really don't know how yourself.

Allow me to explain: #1 and #3 are directly related. #3 says you can hear something, but that doesn't mean you learn it. This forum is full of riding suggestions, people read them but I have to question how much actual learning goes on there. There's a process to learning, it's not cut and paste. Now look at what there is for riding education out there - clubs give little seminars or there's some 10 minute talk about riding safety before everybody rolls out. That level of education would fail in anything else, why is it enough for cycling? #1 says it's frustrating, that's because for whatever reason you expect it to be learned that quickly.

Not knowing the subject yourself is nothing to be ashamed of, it's far more common than anyone else would admit. The fact that you've figured out that you have some learning to do means you're not pointing in the right direction.



So here's my suggestion to making group rides safe and fun. Take a small group of new riders and spend a season teaching them the sport. If you're new at this, start with one rider. My coach did that, in the 30 years he coached he created a whole generation of good riders. If you do that, you'll find that the education process works both ways. You'll learn as much about the sport as the people you teach.

This is the same suggestion I've always made to SICI about their fitters. Take one client and make a good cyclist out of them. How can they claim anything if they never do this - this is what I mean by real world testing and how little of it is actually done.

I often use the little league example, parents get their kids into baseball at an early age, there's plenty of coaching. Most kids grow up knowing far more about baseball than your average rider in a group ride knows about riding. There is a real education system behind it. Without that it doesn't work. You don't hear the kids in little league saying "I just do this for fun" when they're leaning how to throw or catch do ya? (parents are really good at not hearing things like that)

[goonster]

riders would be circling, waiting for the slower riders, bothering traffic.
I haaate this. Asshat behavior, if there is any vehicular traffic around.

Waiting riders should make themselves inconspicuous on the shoulder.

[palincss]

Having said this, on a charity ride its a bit more difficult since rider abilities may be somewhat unknown, even to the particular riders On all charity rides I see groups breaking apart and this is commonplace. Sweeping will be your call. Its going to be much tougher to keep people together on this type event though.

Why would you want to keep people together on this type of event?

I've ridden on many organized centuries, but only one charity ride - and it was totally different from any other ride I've ever been on. We had an escort from the NY State Police, roads were closed (police car driving in the "wrong" lane to make sure no traffic was anywhere near us) and at every road crossing the police had the traffic on the cross roads stopped.

So it was imperative we kept together and kept to the schedule, stayed in our assigned places, two by two. Even at that, it didn't work out: these were fundraisers, not cyclists, and there were many crashes, some for no obvious reason (one guy just flopped over sideways right in front of me; another abruptly cut from the right column diagonally across the road, hit the left shoulder, ricocheted back across the road and crashed in the trees on the right shoulder).

So if this isn't a French Audax ride, or there's no compelling necessity to stay together because police are closing every cross road, what reason could there be to insist that people stay together?