How To Ride In A Big Group!

Riding in a group is a very different experience than riding alone. Read the following tips and add your own!

Communicating (yelling!) is very important!!!! (and yelling is kinda fun too haha)
Some people don't have brakes and need time to slow down, some people don't have lights and may not see the potholes, some people have clipless shoes and a little warning for a stop helps them avoid a fall, etc etc

If you hear riders in front of you yell out warnings/directions, IT IS NOW YOUR TURN to yell out the same message. If everybody follows this rule, the message easily travels all the way to the back!

If riders ahead of you are slowing down... yell out SLOWING!!!!!!
If riders ahead of you are stopping, yell out STOPPING!!!
If you see a nasty pothole or debris on the road yell out POTHOLE!!! or BUMPS!!! as you point out the spot with one hand.
If the group is making a left or right, yell out LEFT TURN or RIGHT TURN!
If there's cars coming up behind you on the left, yell out CAR BACK!!! and move to the right.

Ride in a straight line! Be careful not to move left or right unless you make sure nobody is right behind you! When a rider in front of you starts drifting left or right and might cut you off and hit you, yell out "WATCH YOUR LEFT!" (or your right)

Riding alongside Cars
The weekend midnight ridazz rides can range anywhere from 200 to 1000 bicyclists and often times it seems like we are part of a PARADE! What makes it seem like a parade is also the fact that we can easily take up the entire road. When you see cars coming up, GO IN THE RIGHT LANE, don't try to continually keep blocking the entire road. This is what pisses off cops and you never know if the car you're blocking the lane for IS a cop.

Running through Red Lights
If you are the group leader and you're coming up to an intersection that will clearly turn RED before the entire group passes through it and you want to help the group stay together as one, then it is VERY EFFECTIVE if you slow down (just stop pedaling, no braking, thats too abrupt!) as you enter that intersection. I've seen time and time again how this simple act greatly helps the entire group maintain its oneness and helps people at the back of the ride to easily catch up and SAFELY continue to cross with a red light due to the natural "safety in numbers."

Which brings me to my next point...

If you notice you are straggling behind...HUSTLE!!! You are in GREAT DANGER of losing the group because you WILL eventually get stuck at a red light and the group will continue blowing through red-lights and you will not be able to catch up. If there's any tip to helping you stay with the group, it's to stay with the middle or front of the group, not the back!

Corking
When the group runs a red light, car drivers are sometimes very impatient and eager to get going because the light turned green for them even though more bicyclists are still crossing the intersection as one long "snake". This is when you could be a CORKER and CORK the side-traffic by standing right in front of these cars on the sides to prevent them from breaking up the group, cutting us off, or worse, crashing into us! While this is technically illegal, in practice corking maintains the cohesion and safety of the group, especially for the night time and especially for the riders near the back of the group.

ATTN GROUP LEADERS: RIDING IN CARAVAN CHAIN RULE
As the night progresses, the caravan tends to spread out and become a thin long line because everyone is a lot more tired than when they started. When the group is spread out like this, most people from the middle to the back of the group CANNOT see or hear any direction changes made.

As a group leader, if you make any direction change (or if the road forks, or you go down to the river, or u take a secret pathway), you SHOULD slow down purposely and wait until the group regroups and catches up before you make ANOTHER TURN.

If you don't regroup, any successive direction changes made after will pretty much ENSURE that the majority of your group WILL get lost.

If you want the majority of the group to magically get lost or if you're a group leader who simply DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK if your group gets lost, then by all means, make all the successive lefts and rights as quickly as possible without waiting.

Obviously if your group ride is a RACE then the above chain rule obviously doesn't apply.

Random Tip: If you want to get a drivers attention, or make them think twice about driving off... imitate the police-siren sound with your voice really loud. That sound stops drivers in their tracks, they get confused seeing all these bicycles and think, oh wait, there's cops too! Works very well, even for those with their windows rolled up all the way, the sound penetrates and is easily recognizable.