Zorak

How are the club rides in your areas conducted? I joined a local cycling club that has organized weekly road rides. There are usually three groups of riders. Those who race, an intermediate group, and a beginners group.

Although I'm working on becoming a faster rider I don't feel confident about riding with the race group yet. 90% of them are members of other local racing teams. There is no organized training occuring and each ride is an all-out race with about a dozen people being dropped without mercy on every ride.

I've been riding with the intermediate level group but I'm starting to question what I'm really getting out of it. The group usually has about 25 to 35 riders. There is a ride leader who sets the pace and leads us on the route. There are other club leaders, usually board members or various officers who help"shepard" the group on each ride.

The ride is conducted in a way that reminds me of a grade-school field trip. Everyone lines up and follows the group leader. He sets the pace which is usually about 15 Mph and leads the way even though the route never changes. We are told to ride two abrest and keep a tight formation behind the group leader.

When descending steep hills we are yelled at by the group shepards if we don't stay behind the leader. We are yelled at if we pass the leader while climbing as well (the regular group leader is not a strong climber). Because of this we are forced to ride our brakes down each hill and have to restrain ourselves while climbing. We rarely ever do a paceline and sprinting is discouraged. Also if someone ventures too close to the yellow line or falls out of formation they recieve a short lecture.

This doesn't make sense to me. I've tried to talk to them about the way it is conducted. I've tried to suggest that they try to make it into an actual training ride. However, it seems that a lot of them are content with riding at a moderate pace while being "sheparded". One of my friends suggested starting another group that would concentrate on some organized training but was discouraged by one of the club leaders. The only thing I can figure out is that the ride is just a weekly social event.

Is this typical for a club ride?

Bikesick

Doesn't sound like much fun to me man! And it's definitely not normal. I'd find another group. ...or maybe you can pull off a few friends and do your own little group rides. Otherwise yer stuck with the bike Nazis! ...Yikes!!!

roadfix

No one claims ownership of this 30+ year strong, 100+ rider, multi-club, very fast paced, no mercy, Saturday morning training ride that I regularly ride in, here in Pasadena, CA. I don't belong to any club. If you're a nobody, like myself, the pack will not stop and wait for you to fix your flat. I'm usually among the third of us who drop out of the pack by the halfway point, and I get a great workout because I'm on a fixed gear. We usually end up in one of several smaller packs and straggle to the end of the ride. No one hassles you and everyone keeps to him/herself. You can ride a fixed gear or even a MTB on this training ride......no big deal. All this, considering about half of these riders are serious racers..... This training ride is totally informal and most of all, it's fun!......that's probably why this particular pack ride's been going on since the 70's.....and will continue to do so for decades more... Thank you.

pcsanity1

This does not sound normal.

Our club has "ride leaders" but they do not stay at the front. Everybody takes turns pulling. I usually start out with the big dogs and drop down to a slightly slower group. There are usually several of us who drop back and form our own paceline. (The "not quite" big dogs)

Sounds like you need to get into a new club. Does your club consider 15 mph an intermediate group? Sounds a bit more like our beginner group.

We have something like (though we break into other subsets)

14-16mph - Cruisers
16-18mph - Fitness
18-20 - Sport
21 + Big Dogs
25+ ???

Sounds like your ride leader might be on a power trip.

Swimjim

My thoughts pretty much mirror pcsanity1. Our club has informal ride "leaders". That is, somebody has to know the route. However, if you want to break away, go for it. If you bonk or have a flat somebody will usually hang with you if you want or need some sort of assistance. The riders generally know one another and break off into different groups. If there is a new guy or gal we talk to them prior to start to find out what kind of skills the have and make some suggestions as to who to hang with to start off. They find there own niche from there.
Personally I've found one person who I ride with all the time and a few others that generally hang with us. Everybody gets a good work out. Everybody picks up skills and everybody has a good time.
Do an internet search on bike clubs. If your relatively close to a major metropoliten area you probably have a few bike clubs to chose from. Check them out. Life is to damn short not to have fun with it. Go for it!!!

Jim

mightypudge

Sounds like no fun to me.

I just joined a local bike club but haven't participated in any organized rides yet, since I still need to get "up to speed" (pun intended) on my new road bike. But when I do finally go on an organized ride if it's anything like you describe, forget it.

Markedoc

Agree .. if it's not fun, what's the point?

shaharidan

does the club allow others to organize rides? 2 of the clubs in my area seem to have atleast one organized ride everyday. every month people who want to lead rides submit them to be added to the next months ride calander. i havent participated in any of them yet, but they seem to be pretty diverse and there are rides geared to all different abilities. maybe you or someone else in the club who isnt satisfied could start a weekly ride on a different day than the current one?

caadman

Zorak I totaly know what you are talking about and empathize with you, I know you're probably frustrated and stuck all at the same time...The club that I belong to has a lot of rides, and fourtournatly there are other rides with other clubs in my area for me to go to...I don't know where you are, but if there are other rides to do in place of the bad one that you talked about here, go and do them, cause as you're asking yourself if you're getting anything good out of the group you currently ride with (the one that chastisaes you) then your gut feeling is probably right, and you're probably not...I was stuck in that same boat about 2 years ago, except I had the ride leader of the group that I was riding with tell me that I should get off his ride and go somewhere else..At the time I was going thru a hard time in my life, and I took it very personally and seriously and got very angry and mad with him..But then others started to tell me that he was just looking out for my best and growing in the sport interest....So I left that group for a time went to other groups, got stronger and actually saw as time went on, that he was right and what he did for me, was the best thing for me..It's just his words were a bit harsh....Now I go back to that group when I want to ride slow and just visit the people and my friends on the ride, and they and I have no problem with it..

While I'll agree with what most people on this forum are saying about this ride and these kinds of groups, cause it really does sound not to fun, the flip side of it, is those rides provide a type of riding for people in between the two speed levels..To fast for the beginers, and to slow for the racing and very fast types..It's when you get into that area of being to fast for the middle people and to slow for the racers, that it get's hard....Trust me I've been there...I'd just say keep working hard at it, go with the fast groups with some of your buddies that may be willing to drop off with you if you get droped, and sooner or later, you'll get stronger and be able to stay or maybe even lead the fast guys..It took me 2 years to get to the level where I was leading or at least helping with the "big boys" here in michigan, but now I do it, and it makes me feel very good about my progress..

Best of luck

Benjamin

Nofx

My Club/team has more of a social gather idea but we do have a set of 4 of us that will take off on a hard training ride. Unfortunately there is only 4 of us but the main thing that we stress is FUN FUN FUN..... If you are not having fun tell them to piss off and make it fun at least that is my best advice.... life is to short to be around a bunch of stuff bone heads.... Ok that was my rant... Last piece of advice... Never turn your back on the bottle because it has never turned it's back on you.

RiPHRaPH

i used to join a local group on sunday mornings. i'd barely hang on then get dropped hard. they would send someone out to sheppard me back to the group, but they were nice guys. i later found out that they raced on the velodrome friday nights and raced saturday, so by sunday they were actively recovering. and a little short on patience for guys who come out to test themselves.
it is hard in a group like that to work on skills. i'm working with a 3 person group that allows me to learn the nuances of racing. this type of training is invaluable.
a lot of guys in these bigger groups are cat4/5 or higher, and don't have a sunday to teach bike handling to a rookie. its hard to crack into a group ride of guys who all know and trust each other.
i loved my experience, and was encouraged- but it is hard to learn in a group like that.

djpluv

Yikes...sounds like it's time to find a new group ride.

I try to participate regularly on a weekly ride here in town. I must say it a great experience and filled with everyone from CAT5 to CAT1 caliber riders (being in Colorado Springs, we see a lot of international and national riders here acclimating to the altitude normally joining the rides).

The lead group usually bolts ahead, but it is easy to find a group of riders that are about the same level as you. These groups seem to stick together, yet no one group cares who joins them...just as so long as you take your turn pulling every now and then. And I don't ever recall anyone get yelled at, too

Zorak

18+ is considered the race group.

Power trip yes, but it isn't just the ride leader. The people who act as "shepards" are just as bad. They are always telling us that if we ride more than two abreast that we can be given a traffic ticket which is correct according to our local laws. However, they are constantly taking us through red lights which is not allowable by law.

When we approach an intesection that has only stop signs one or two of the shepards will usually ride ahead and block traffic. So it sounds like they want to quote the laws that are to their advantage and ignore the ones that aren't.

Nofx

Sounds like they need to start drinking and loosening up....

Zorak

Yes but not on the same days that the regular rides are on. I've participated in a few of the "non-official" rides but they were short lived because the shepards from the regular rides showed up and it eventually became like the other rides.

a2psyklnut

My suggestion is to find a "friend" in the group that is about your same caliber and then hook up with the 18+ group, hand as long as possible and then get "dropped" together. That way you're not all alone!

L8R

Zorak

Unfortunatly the other clubs are a 45 minute to an hour's drive away in the next town and therefore not a good option for an after work ride.

That's a good idea. I may see if I can talk to some of my friends to see if they want to ride with me in the fast group and try to hang together if we get dropped. The first time I tried to ride with them I got dropped and was by myself had a hard time trying to get back because I didn't know the route and had never been in the area before.

Thanks!

Zorak

Sounds like a good plan.

Thanks!

don d.

Here's a story about club rides that may help you to understand what they are thinking(although I don't think they are acting out correctly). I was very actively involved with a very large racing club and our club was sponsoring the state championship road race that year on the what was a composite of our regular Tues. and Thurs. night road race course. To bring the course up to the miles we needed we had added a few roads that most riders in our club were unfamiliar with and we had reversed the direction of the ride.

2 weeks before the states, we did a club race on the new course. We started at what would be the start line and rolled off. I say rolled off because the start was downhill on a long false flat that had us going 25mph in no time while backpedaling. On this particular ride a new rider had showed up and did not know where he was going or anything at all about the course. He did not know that at the end of this false flat the road dropped out from under you, and that he would start dropping like a rock right into a vicious set of snake curves that would test the best bike handlers. Well, this young man took off thinking that he could go as fast as us and faster, and he disappeared out of sight. I looked at a friend of mine who was sitting on the front with me and he looked at me and we jumped after this kid, but too late.

When I came into the 1st curve. I was just in time to see this young man bury himself head first into the passenger side windshield of a car, coming up the hill in the oncoming lane, with enough force to break the arm of the passenger in the car. When he came out he looked like he had been raked across the head and face by a tiger. He lived. He had several crushed vertabrae and very severe lacerations, but he lived. Overall, he was very fortunate, as was the club. The parents of this young man were not litigious types.

This tragic accident occurred twenty-five years ago. I wished then and I wish now that we would not have given him free reign on that ride, but noone was ever "monitored" or "brow beat" on any of our rides. I have been on a very large group ride where a club leader came up to me and literally yelled at me for minutes because I did not have a helmet on. It was a voluntary ride so I ignored him, but I understood his point.

There are positive and negative ways to achieve safety and satisfy the liability issues and implications of inviting someone on a group or club sponsored ride. Perhaps, in time, you can add something to this groups management of these issues.

Zorak

Your story makes sense and I could see why some groups would want to have some structure to their organized rides. But after hearing everyone's comments here I know now ithat t's not just my imagination that this club is being a little too anal about the way they do things.

A while back I was in the back of the group and watched as a new rider broke away from the middle and sprinted toward the front. Just as he did one of the other riders yelled to him that if he crossed the yellow line again he was going to knock him off his bike and kick his @ss! The new rider just looked at him, laughed, pulled out ahead of the group, dropped us, and never came back.

I have made some good friends in this club so I have to be careful about throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak. I will consider how I can tactfully be an influence but it is becoming a real challenge to stay there.

don d.

I agree that if your description is accurate, these people are acting out inappropriately. In life, we have really three fundamental choices, we can either adapt(become part of the process of change), migrate(find other environments to operate in), or die(stop the activity). Good Luck on yours.

caadman

I see Zorak your problem with those other clubs being to far away..Yeah I agree that is hard to make for a weeknight ride...And it sounds like you'll make some good decisions based on what you say and what others here are recommending...Also remember though if it's bugging you that much to stay there and it's becoming quite and challange, then you're probably not having as much fun and good times as you could if you did something else or moved up to the faster group, and since for most of us cycling is a fun thing that we ENJOY, and it's not our JOB, we should aim to keep it that way, and I think if you're feeling those negative feelings and thoughts, it's probably taking away from the fun of riding...

Take care, and I pray that you'll find a happy medium or move to the next level, and not have to deal with that junk soon..

Benjamin

BikeInMN

No!

Your group ride sounds more like group punishment than cycling. An easy pace ride is one thing but the heavy handed tactics of your so called ride leaders is pretty lame. If it isn't fun, it's not worth doing IMO.

You may want to give the faster group a shot and see how you do. Even if you get dropped, it'd be better than what you're doing now and will give you something to shoot for the following week.

Don't let the "racer" label spook you. We're not a bad bunch for the most part (read - still some A-holes but no more than any other group). Also, I've been on 100s of group rides over the years and very few if any have ever been at a race pace for the distance. Maybe for 20-30 minute bursts but never the whole ride. I also think you'd be surprised how little energy it takes to sit in a draft at 30 mph.

Good luck and report back if you decide to give it a shot!

Zorak

OK, almost everyone here has suggested that I try riding with the race group. I think that I am going to go ahead and give it a try.

Please be patient with me while I ask what may seem like a few stupid questions;

1) will riding hard with the faster group make me a faster and better rider or will it lead to overtraining like the folks in the intermediate group have led me to believe?

2) On a few occasions during bike ralleys in other towns I've gotten into pace lines and maintained a pace of about 25 Mph for about 15 to 20 miles before I dropped off. I've also done a bunch of 63 and 75 mile rides and a century ride. Am I right in thinking this could be an indication that I've outgrown the intermediate group?

3) Do you think mooning the intermediate group as I sprint past them to catch the race group would be a good way to make the transition?

OK just kidding on number 3! ...... or maybe not!

Nofx

I would do the third one.... just for entertainment value and a birth on yer way to the hard riders........ The other 2 questions require me to think and that just won't happen with the holiday weekend.