rubiksoval

Except that's not the case here at all. Go read what was written.

Bah Humbug

I never see the situation you're describing. What I do see is the topic of this thread (which is what has been described over and over of late in the 41): people happily talking about putting in extra effort in order to purposefully catch the draft of someone in front of them.

Bah Humbug

Your phrasing of your second line is ironic in the context of your first.

dr_max

I guess you can’t understand because you have never been in a bike race with strangers. It is the norm to signal your presence by indicating the cyclist your passing who’s moving toward your side by applying a gentle pressure on his side with your hand.

and it is always appreciated when another cyclist is passing you on a descent and is pushing you forward if you are trailing behind so you can catch up with the group if you were the one upfront and were doing the full work.

I guess you don’t understand touching someone else in cycling is mandatory because cycling racing etiquette is eluding you.

L134 

Fair enough but I have seen it or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I re-read the OP and it did state he jumped in after being passed so I think I read this differently than you. I’ve never ridden where he is talking about but it sounds as though it might be quite like Pacific Coast Highway in southern Ca. where I think the situation I described would not be all that uncommon. Headed north in the afternoon a little draft can be quite nice.

himespau 

Rolling up behind some rando on the MUP is different than racing. If you're a Cat6 MUP racer, you have your own set of problems to deal with.

genejockey 

And just like that, the goalposts moved.

Bah Humbug

The OP and several others have been grinding this axe for a week or two now, and are specifically talking about intentionally grabbing a stranger’s wheel to go faster than they could otherwise.

burnthesheep

How much touching?

kingston 

This happens to me all the time and is in fact exactly what happened in the snot rocket incident I described. The guy passing had to work to get by and didn't have enough gas in the tank to pull away after he was past me, but I also didn't want to put in the effort to pass him back. I mostly cruise along at around 175w in the aerobars, so I'm not that difficult to catch with a hard effort for anyone in decent shape, but it takes a pretty strong rider to just blow past and pull away.

On Saturday morning I was riding along Sheridan Road and got caught by one of the big local teams (xXx) with a group of about 30 riders. After I was about 5 riders deep, I was in the draft and keeping up with the group at the same power I was pushing before. I had to sit up and let them by or I would have been in the middle of their training ride for the next 10 miles. After everyone on the team went past I noticed that there were 3 random knuckleheads struggling to keep up at the back of the team.

On Sunday it was raining and a guy passed me, but he was very tentative in the corners so I would catch him at every turn. I pulled up along side and we ended up riding side-by-side and chatting for a few miles, which also happens to me all the time. When there was traffic, one of us would fall behind and draft for a minute or two. This kind of thing is so normal on Sheridan Road it happens almost every time I ride there.

caloso

I'll repeat what I said in #230, above:

Bah Humbug

genejockey 

More than an IMAX theater.

Hermes

Closed for moderation review and cleanup.

Hermes

We are going to clean up the references to touching of women and others.

At Bifeforums, we support our female members and their right not to be harassed by men. Even though, women may smile when pushed by a male up a hill or to catch up in a peloton, they may be acting politely but actually hate it.

Speaking for myself, I do not like to be touched when cycling. When racing, there is always incidental contact but...careful. Removing ones hands from the bars and touching another rider may be a violation under the USAC Code of Conduct. See below.

In addition, USAC has a Safeguard website that tracks racers who harass other racers or are dangerous. The rules are voluminous on what constitutes harassment and unwanted touching and bad behavior and dangerous riding.

From USAC code of conduct:

Violation:

1. Any non-consensual physical contact, obscene language or gesture, or other threatening language or conduct directed towards any person in connection with any USA Cycling-related activity.

Hermes

We are reopening the thread and please return to the original topic of drafting. We removed some of the more egregious references to touching women.

Also, we suggest members read through the USAC code of conduct and visit the Safeguard website. It is USAC’s goal to clean up dangerous riders that also use harassment and intimidation to gain advantage.

vane171

Drafting tends to motivate you to work harder than you otherwise would. Typically you draft people who ride faster than you could by yourself. There is no point in drafting behind somebody if that makes the going too easy.

The kick one gets from drafting is the joy of going at speeds you couldn't maintain by yourself and also you get the shared feeling, this latter especially if you can take the lead but its there even if not.

That talk about Chicago Sheridan Rd. riding, I gather its windy there in that city, not sure if the whole year or just some months. In side wind, do those groups ride in constant rotation style, like a chain gang or whatever it is called - you stay up front only long enough to allow you step out again. Or they lead for a bit before dropping back? Advantage of the chain rotation is that people are discouraged to try to join in.

Long time ago when I joined race club and went on training rides with them, we did this chaingang style riding in side winds conditions and it is definitely more challenging on riding skills, constantly being at full attention. We called it riding a 'terezin' but I think that was allusion to a second ww concentration camp and the idea was that riding like that was like being in one, due to its demands on participants...

Bah Humbug

Ok, so we're doing this.

No one contends that drafting doesn't let you go faster than you could otherwise. However, it is not my responsibility to provide that to you, him, or anyone else. If you can't motivate yourself to try hard enough without someone in front of you, work on your mental strength. It's a you-issue, not a me-issue.

Riding a paceline with your teammates is fine (if irrelevant to the question of assuming it's fine to jump on a stranger's wheel). Using a concentration camp reference for it is, well, something I wouldn't do and then certainly wouldn't bring up now, voluntarily. Frankly, I wouldn't use the term "chain-gang" lightly either.

genejockey 

So, the original question is what's the safe distance for drafting, and the answer is there's no one answer. I've ridden in big group rides doing a double line, where the lead pair pulls off and drops back, I've done smaller single lines, pairs, etc. and it all comes back to watching the person ahead for a few miles and closing the distance as you get more comfortable with their abilities. I don't even know what the final distance is, because it just is what feels comfortable, what you can maintain without freaking out and scrubbing off speed and then having to catch up. I guess I'd say if I'm not comfortable getting to that final close distance behind a rider, I probably wouldn't want to be behind them at all, so the safe distance is either a couple feet or not at all, depending.

I actually burned out on cycling, after doing group rides both Saturday and Sunday for a year or two. After the winter layoff I just didn't find myself wanting to ride. So now I ride solo exclusively, though when that club whooshes by me sometimes, I get nostalgic for pounding along in a paceline. It's like a freight train passing, and I miss being part of the train. BUT not enough to join up.

vane171

I only bring up the reason for it and what people get out of it. Otherwise the whole thread looks like people do it to get towed along, exploit others, which paints antagonistic views. And of course I know that you and everybody else knows what I wrote about the reasons for it, still think someone should say it. As to motivation, even if you don't have any problem to motivate yourself enough, it just makes it more pleasant and if the one(s) you tack onto are better than you, you get squeezed out and it is less painful than if you did that to yourself on your own. I say that even if I am otherwise quite closed, self sufficient kind of person.

I also am of the opinion that it is rude to just join in in most scenarios, if not in all. Like I did it last year on an empty road where you rarely see any cyclist, and one passed me and I hooked in behind him. Turned up he was OK with it, we exchanged few friendly words before our ways parted, it all depends on you reading the context. Here it was like seeing a brother in arms if you saw a cyclist in that region and most reasonable folks feel friendly to others in such situations.

I would never tack onto a group of cyclists without asking for permission, especially if I saw they keep tight wheel on wheel formation, which means they are serious about it. Myself if I join in uninvited, I keep a foot off the wheel minimum, primarily out of respect, not safety. And if it should turn up that it was you I hooked up with, surely you would find it less offensive if I didn't glue onto you just couple inches or even overlapping your wheel. I'd be nervous and maybe even upset too if someone I don't know did that.
Mostly the context and common sense should be the guide, I'd probably figure out before long you don't want me there even before you said anything.

As to the rest, thanks for the heads up, I know the times are shaky, but the history is what it was, I mean the history of our younger days.

BadGrandma

Also in the nineties. It made me feel even more inadequate than usual. Riding alone from being dropped by the local Jelly Bellies started my interest in time trialing.