Originally Posted by
twocicle
Yes, I was curious about the intended instruction.
One of the primary rules to forming a paceline is ALWAYS ROTATE INTO THE WIND. I'd like to hammer that home to any rec riders here that are not sure.
Thing is, not rotating into the wind will cause all kinds of carnage. Reason being that when an echelon is formed (bikes staggered to the lee) it is accepted practise to have wheel overlap. The stronger the side wind the more overlap. Then when rotation occurs into the wind all is fine. However rotation to the lee will take out the wheel of overlapped riders behind. Admonishing people for wheel overlap is ridiculous because it is a necessity to efficient drafting (slipstreaming in Euro speak).
If anyone insists on not following the above even after a lesson in proper technique, it is in your best interest not to ride in a paceline with them. I am not going to argue the above, it is fact. You do not belong riding in a group of bikes if you can't follow obvious and well established rules.
A double paceline is a different beast and an exception to the single paceline rule. It is something that is hard to teach even Cat 3 racers let alone rec riders. In this case, getting the lee rider safely off the front can be tricky in a heavy crosswind.
Then there are the clowns that simply sit up and stop pedalling without notice. Yikes.
Pacelines with riders that won't take instruction is the worst. As a single rider there have been quite a few times when I formed a group of friends and asked other people not to join as we rode by. I once made the error of doing that to Ron Keifel without looking to see who it was, from which he made a funny comment causing me to look and laugh at the mistake
It is not done out of snobbery or ego or such, simply a matter of safety and sanity.
As for aero bars (on topic) in either single or tandem group riding the only "safe" place for their use is on the front or on your own, thanks.
A couple of comments: First of course is that I don't know why someone is trying to lay down the law about pacelining on a tandem forum. I was once with enough compatible tandems to form a paceline. We'll be going to our first tandem rally this year at the NWTR if they ever open registration. We'll see how this issue is handled on their group rides.
Closed course racer behavior is not applicable to rec riders on the public roads. I don't know where you ride, but around here forming echelons is really, really contraindicated. Good way to get a whole lot of car drivers POed at you and cause an accident. Besides, it's illegal to ride more than 2 abreast, which wouldn't make much of an echelon.
We'll frequently have 10 or more riders in one paceline, single or double. We'd like to have them a little smaller, but people have this longing for a good wheel. On the roads on which we ride, it's uncommon to proceed for more than a mile or two with the wind in the same direction. Occasionally we'll be on a lonesome road and form small echelons of 3-4 bikes, but we won't paceline then. It's simply too dangerous to assume that everyone that happens to have found their way into one's group is going to move in a predictable and correct fashion in that situation. You come off the front of an echelon with wind to the left and you'll be hanging off the back of the last guy's wheel, working just as hard as you were before, except you're not helping anyone any more. Ordinary pacelining is fine - people understand that.
Running a double line, I don't remember ever being in a crosswind since we'd be going fast enough to pull the wind ahead. We don't double up unless we're going fast, 25 or better. So I don't understand your comment about the lee rider. Maybe it just doesn't blow that hard around here, since there's not much flat out in the open.
I've already stated our well established rules. Those who don't hold to them, don't ride with us if they don't respond to a few well-chosen words. I don't see how you'd ever move right anyway, since you'd have to ride in the ditch to do that. We don't ride in the middle of the road. That's illegal, too. We ride as far to the right as practical and never pass on the right.
Our job as recreational ride leaders is to make sure that everyone has fun and gets back uninjured. I've been riding safely with this group, now up to about 120 people, every Sunday since 1996. IIRC, we've had two bike/bike accidents and one car/bike accident, fatal, when a car turned left into the middle of our paceline on a straight, dry, clear road, no intersections, broad daylight.
Guess I'm a noob. Only been riding 60 years. But I'm a live noob who still leads safe rides.