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Group cycling safety questions


davem

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Interesting scenario:

 

Our Tri group (approx 20 riders) is out cycling yesterday, fairly slowly but strong cyclists so speed up and down is consistent.

 

Road is single lane each direction, solid white line. Smallish shoulder with yellow line.

 

Our group is riding two abreast tight to the left, one in the yellow line, one in the lane. Irony is that the rider in the yellow line is the one breaking the law.

 

Club ride comes past on a flat section, their lead marshal once along side the front of our group, chirps us to ride single file while they overtake. Their group passes two abreast, making the full group now four wide taking the full lane. Not ideal.

 

The comment is polite but seemingly a little irritated.

 

By the time they pass, the tail of their group is now bunched up three to four abreast.

 

As soon as the gradient turns upwards, their group slows dramatically, causing our group to slow.

 

We overtake single file.

 

One of our guys chirps the marshal which was probably uncalled for.

 

My questions:

  1. Is the onus not on the overtaking group to do so when safe and reasonable? Should this be single file?
  2. Should the marshal of the overtaking group not understand the strength of his group, that they would likely be rolled over on the next hill, and thus hold back. This was likely the C or D group. Just because you are faster for a short period does not mean it is the wisest thing to overtake.
  3. If the group wishes to overtake, how can they expect the group ahead to know this and switch to single file?
Through the period of this, we were all exposed to road traffic and did present an illegal and car unfriendly obstacle.

 

Let me know your thoughts so we can all learn form the incident.

 

 

 

 

***** No Cradle Residents were harmed in the writing of this post *****

 

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As social cyclists i'd guess we're just not that organised / anally retentive enuff to handle that situation in any textbook way; so its going to get a bit messy.

 

I wudnt lose sleep over it but if ur concerned then being the overtaken group and being aware you cud hang back and let them go. but really not worth it.

 
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