Zaskar

The opinions on this one might have a broad range ;-)

Okay, the Tucker Ride in Atlanta is a long-standing open group ride. It's a 40-mile ride listed as "very fast paced training ride, 24 mph++. Terrain is hilly..." But remember - Atlanta... home to 6 million people. We have some cars down here. The ride goes east out of town, some rural(ish) roads, but still there are intersections. Atlanta.

The group blows 4-way stops - they're mostly treated as no-stops or green lights. First guys make sure no one's entering or about to enter, group flies. That mostly makes sense. I mean, 60 riders at 24 mph will be through that pretty quickly.

This Saturday as we approached a 4-way intersection (one lane each way with lights) at 22-24 mph, we lost the green, the yellow was stale and a car was waiting to go - from left, crossing our path. I was probably 4th or 5th back, two lines... I would've made it through on a fresh red, but before the car went. But the other 50+ riders would've been blowing a red - hopefully only pissing off the driver, not reshaping the passenger side of the car.

I was going to ease up, and yell "STOPPING" but fortunately someone else did first. We all stopped. A few riders in the back *****ed "AHHH COME ON!!!" "Jesus *$&@... " One guy even flew past the group, and turned into small parking lot and looped around - like he was going so damn fast he needed a runway to land. He was shaking his head. Seemed like the guy who tells his buddies "I did 40 miles at 25 mph today". No Ace, the group did 25 mph. You hid in the back and got mad when we didn't ride like @#%^heads and your average dropped by .1 mph.

So that's the question - when do you make the call? When do you decide to tell 60 hammerheads (a relative term) to stop. Oh sure, "when it's not safe" But come on - these rides left safe miles and several mph behind.

Note: "This is why I don't do group rides" doesn't count as an answer ;-)