rydabent

To ride very close in tight formation or pace line, you need almost 100% concentration. So where is the fun in the ride? You might as well be home in the basement on the rollers.

AlmostTrick

Because risk can be fun. Oh, and that extra 1 or 2 MPH thing too. These things can be very important.

caloso

Focus on protecting your front wheel and let the rider behind focus on protecting his. If the rider behind touches your back wheel, he's the one who'll go down, not you.



NCNCA (the NorCal racing ass'n) puts on a series of Early Bird Clinics every January for people interested in racing. The mentors spend a fair amount of time on riding safely as peleton, especially cornering. The teams I'm involved with also do a number of clinics, focused on women and juniors racers. With our juniors especially, we spent hours during winter rides on riding as a group.



As you get more experienced, it becomes second nature, like anything else. And the fun is riding with your friends. The rides I do generally start with a neutral rollout where there's plenty of chitchat and catching up. Then it hits the spot where the imaginary flag drops and the ride gets hard so there's less talk. You can push yourself or sit in or try things out you might want to use in a race. After the final sprint, it goes neutral again back into town and then more chitchat. I love it, and try to make at least one of the local rides a week. There's a bunch of guys I enjoy spending time with even though half of them I wouldn't even recognize out of bike kit.

Carbonfiberboy 

Fun??? Group rides are an absolute blast. Enormous fun. "The most fun you can have with your clothes on" is our group's motto.

But please, stay in your basement. Bents don't mix well with diamond frames: they can't see what's going on, can't accelerate, can't draft, can't stay with the pack on climbs, etc. There are a very few fast 'bent riders, but I've never seen a group of 'bents riding together. We once had a 'bent come out and try to ride with us, but he wouldn't obey the group rules so bye-bye.

Bandera

Mentoring new riders and developing the specialized skills and etiquette required in Cycling has been part of the Cycle Club ethos for well over a century.
Here's how USA Cycling, our sport's national governing body, structures a very good program:

"Beginning Racer Program Structure

The BRP is broken down into five separate clinics, with each clinic holding a unique and progressive curriculum.
Each clinic is comprised of three components; 1) on-bike instructional clinic; 2) mentored race; and 3) race debrief.

The five components of the curriculum are:
1.Basic Pack Skills - Protecting Your Front Wheel
2.Cornering – Choosing and Holding Your Line
3.Pack Awareness & Skills
4.Sprinting Basics
5.Bringing it All Together"

https://www.usacycling.org/beginner-racer-program.htm

Participating in your local club's program and putting in the seat time develops the calm, confident bike handling skills necessary for riding at pace in a peloton.
There is no real substitute for developing skills 1-5 on your own or on a casual group ride of uncertain quality and experience.

-Bandera

Dudelsack 

You know you're poking a rabid dog with a burning stick, don't you?

But you're right. If I ride in a paceline, it's always in the back for the reasons you outline.

OTOH, I've been in some great group rides on my bent where the pace was a bit more relaxed.

MinnMan

You call those "clothes"?

big john

I guess you've never read 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'?

I do about 100 group rides per year, sometimes pushing very hard, sometimes not. If I want to stay with a fast group, I need to get at least some benefit from the draft.
Sometimes, if I feel like King Kong, I go to the front and make them work.

BlazingPedals

"How tight is tight?" varies with your skill level. My club tends to ride in double lines unless the wind is really obnoxious. We keep about 2 feet between lines and a foot or so between wheels. I've ridden with one club where the riders keep inches and don't think twice about it - they've visiting the whole time. But they've all ridden together for years, they all follow the rules.

AlmostTrick

How much help are these "Rules" I keep reading about when a squirrel jumps out into the line, and riders are mere inches apart?

MinnMan

More unwelcome snark.

Don't ride in groups if you don't want to.

Every pedestrian and motorist is taking a risk of a low probability catastrophe.

Choose the risks in your life as you see fit.

Judge not, ye that not be judged.

badger1

+1

I do not ride in groups; I ride solo -- always have, likely always will. Personal preference.

That said, I cannot for the life of me understand some of the trolls on this and many other cycling subjects. As so many have pointed out, group riding is a natural variant of both recreational and competitive road cycling; it derives from the latter. It is unquestionably faster, and -- for those who enjoy it and have the skills -- fun. It is also arguably safer, on the open road, than riding solo.

As far as I can see, most of the posts in opposition consist of attempts at humour and/or sarcasm thinly disguising a not-unusual form of puritanism: 'I can't, don't, or don't want to engage in group rides; therefore, no one should engage in group rides.'

The end.

ZmanKC

It really works. When I was much, much younger, bulletproof, and invisible I did this behind a semi on my 3-speed 120cc motorcycle. That bike could barely hit 50 mph on its own but drafting the truck allowed me to cruise along at 60-65 mph.

Ah, the stupidity of youth.

AlmostTrick

True, everyone subjects themselves to some level of risk. Discussing and analyzing these risks is one of the things many like to do here on BF. Oh, and try to have a little fun.

Many posters here are extolling the benefits and joys of tight pace line riding. Good for them I say! I’m certainly not judging or attempting to stop them.

But this doesn’t mean anyone who questions the practice has to STFU… especially when they are doing it within forum guidelines.

Maybe some are being a bit over sensitive? IDK

I apologize if you feel I tossed a stick in your pace line!

gregf83 

It depends on your mental capacity. For some riding in tight formation or walking requires 100% of their mental capacity. For others it might be 5%. Like anything, the more you do it the more the subconscious part of your brain takes over leaving more of your conscious brain for chatting with your friends.

Do you ever think about how complicated the process of walking is? There's a reason it takes a year or so for newborns to learn to walk.

Give it a try sometime and you might enjoy it!

gregf83 

Better a squirrel than a dog. Another advantage of riding in a group comes when you're being chased by a dog. You don't have to be fast just not the slowest.

BlazingPedals

Nope, OTOH though, the attitude that "I wouldn't want to do it, therefore everyone who does is crazy" doesn't belong here, either.

caloso

The biggest rule is to hold your line.

MinnMan

I'm sorry, this is BS. Nobody here in "extolling the benefits" is telling people to ride in pace lines if they don't want to. They are defending the practice from the OP and others who are criticizing their judgement.

No problem with the ones who say, "it's not for me". But the ones who are "questioning the practice" are in fact questioning the practice of others = judgement.

You don't have to STFU, but then you should not be surprised if we tell you that we don't like what you write.

And "have a little sense of humor, you are being overly sensitive" is a common defense of people who make racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. comments also. Are you sure that's the way you want to justify your comments?

OldTryGuy

Paceline riding is like many other things in life. Good for some, bad for others. I enjoy the taste of coffee ice cream but can not tolerate drinking coffee.
I have never INHALED, except at a Chicago concert in 1972(couldn't avoid it if one desired to continue to live so I left) but I am thinking about it because of the pain from my cancer surgery.

Paceline riding does not have to be 25+mph to realize the benefits. Paceline riding does not have to require 100% concentration when riding with family (the people who you know and who know you).

When things are flowing just right, it is magic at 25 or 26 or 27 or 32mph or whatever. 64yo so can't do much more.

Carbonfiberboy 

When one drives one's car, the rule is to not go below a 3 second gap. IOW, your auto should require 3 seconds to cover the distance between your bumper and that of the auto which you are following. In cycling, a good rule is 1 foot for every 10 mph to be in a good spot for drafting. At ~35 mph, I can start to feel the draft ~30' back. Cyclists don't have to be just inches apart.

OldTryGuy

For a less talented rider like myself, 3" as apposed to 1' does indeed make a difference.

AlmostTrick

True story!

I'm not telling anyone who rides pace lines that they shouldn't, and am not surprised in the least at the response to my posts. Is it judgement? Sure, a little... so what? You're "judging" my posts right now! It's what we humans do.

Look, this is obviously a hot topic. Not unlike helmets, where it is quite common to find posters closed to hearing an opinion, or facts, that oppose their own. Pace On!

gregf83 

+1. You quickly learn which riders you can trust and ride within inches of their wheel without having to worry about them doing something 'squirrely'. Others might need a foot of two in order to relax.

I've always found faster riding at the end of a long ride to be enjoyable as the weaker riders have been dropped and the riders left tend to be more experienced and smooth.

OldTryGuy

To watch those select few pull away at the end in a sprint is NOT in fact an indication of defeat for myself, but a sign of VICTORY. Doesn't get much better than that when one is so overwhelmingly underpowered.