Group Riding: How to Ride Safely in a Group
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010It is very important that if you ride in a group, that you understand that you have a responsibility to ride safely! Please do not come to a group ride if you are not going to follow these simple rules. We all want to have fun with cycling, we don’t want to crash or risk injury because of aggressive bicycle riders who don’t follow the rules.
How to ride safely in a group ride:
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When the shoulder is wide enough, two riders can ride side by side comfortably as long as you stay inside the bike lane/shoulder white line.
When the shoulder is too narrow, you ride single file.
Don’t overlap the wheel of the rider in front of you, that is dangerous and can cause a collision if the rider in front makes a sudden move to the side you are overlapping from.
Don’t ride too close to the rear wheel of the rider in front of you (unless you are absolutely certain that you can handle your bike in a sudden stop.)
If you are a slower rider, stay to the right and let others pass you on the left.
If you plan on passing a rider in front of you, make sure you look behind first to avoid interfering with a another rider, car or other traffic…then, state that you are passing ‘on your left’ to the rider you are passing. (It’s normally safer to pass on the left and not on the right side of the rider.) If you don’t say anything when passing, it is possible to collide if that rider moves slightly to their left without knowing you are coming from behind them.
Never come from behind and ram your way through two side by side riders ‘up the middle’ - that is completely dangerous and you are only looking for problems.
Point out obstacles in the road by pointing to them with your hand. You don’t have to shout out every obstacle. A good rider is watching and is alert and will see your hand signal.
Use hand signals when riding so everyone on the road knows what you plan on doing. i.e. Left turn, right turn, stopping.
Warn the riders behind you that you are stopping by putting your hand behind you with your palm facing outward toward the rider. This means you are stopping.
When riding two riders side by side…when you approach a turn, stay within your lane. This means do not cut the person off who is riding next to you. (Visualize a runners track with lanes…the lanes never cross, they are side by side.)
ALL RIDERS SHOULD BE 100% COMPLETELY AWARE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS AT ALL TIMES.
If you think I missed anything, feel free to post a comment below. Also make sure you bookmark this page so you can pass it along to your friends who may be new to bicycling.
