Group-ride etiquette: a lost art

When I started riding…

(I sound like an old man already, talking about walking to school uphill both ways in the snow. But it really was like that!)

Honestly though, when I started riding, things were different. In those days, there was a real club presence in cycling, which was much more developed than today. When you went for a ride with the club, things were organized and you had a good idea of where your place was within the ride. There were leaders on the ride and you respected their knowledge and wisdom.

I first started riding with the QCBC group. They showed me how to ride in an echelon. We would break the ride up into groups, each group doing an echelon as we rode northwards out of the city. It was very cool, like a spring classic almost. They also showed me that the safety of all the riders around me was my responsibility. The riders behind were relying on me to behave in a predictable manner, so I must point out the potholes and hold my place in the line so that everyone could ride smoothly.

Two recent incidents in Toronto’s Donut Ride have led me to write this blog post. The first incident happened two weekends ago (as the story goes because I wasn’t there). A woman was riding erratically in the group, swerving and not holding her line. Several riders yelled at her, of course. While her erratic riding was bad enough, what followed was almost worse. As the group rode along, one of the guys I first started riding with and who has been on the Donut ride for years approached her to explain her error and why she was being yelled at. This guy is mild mannered, calm and very friendly. She swore at him. Perhaps in the heat of the moment this was acceptable. At the mid-ride coffee stop, he explained to her again what she had done wrong. When he asked if she understood, she said that yes, she understood that he was a—enter swear word again.

The sport has a growing problem as its popularity increases. People are strong enough to come out on rides, but they have no idea what they are doing. Group riding is an art; there are rules and etiquette involved to ensure the ride’s safety. We now have riders coming into the sport who don’t think they should be told how to ride, and don’t want to listen to the riders who have the experience to help them.

The second incident happened this past weekend. The group stopped at a light. When we all started rolling again, one rider toward the front had stopped on the outside of the group to answer his phone.  He was stationary as I rolled by. Right away, I thought “someone is going to run in to him.” The problem was that there were still another 50 riders to get by safely. As the group was starting up from a stop, many riders had their heads down as they clipped into their pedals. The riders were passing faster and faster as the rear end of the group got going. Needless to say, someone ran in to the stopped rider and three riders ended up on the ground. Not good. There were broken bars, bent wheels and one banged head. The problem was that no one is expecting a stopped rider once the group starts rolling.

We are all responsible for one another’s safety and doing something out of the norm will usually result in an accident. I can understand the need to answer the phone, but the priority when you are on a group ride is the safety of the riders around you. You must abide by the rules and etiquette of group rides. I also see lots of riders with ear buds in their ears, iPhones pumping tunes as they ride along. That is completely inappropriate as well. You need to be able to interact with those around you, and having music blasting in your ears doesn’t allow that.

I hope this post didn’t come off as a rant. But I did want to point out that this sport is not as simple as lacing on your shoes and hopping on your bike. There is a great deal of tradition and etiquette behind the manner in which rides are conducted. And riders need to be open to learning how things should be done. We perhaps also suffer from a lack of leadership as no one wants to open themselves up to liability by “organizing” a ride. Still, we should all consider one another’s safety our priority and think about the rider next to us before we act foolishly on a ride.