Distance/time at front before rotating

ronnierocket

When on a group ride, and you are rotating the guy at the front, what is your criteria for swapping. My friends and I normally do 0.5 miles each before swapping round. What is everyone else optimal time and distance?

Pseudonym

Depends what the purpose of the ride is, I guess. Half a mile sounds excessive if the aim is to ride quickly as a group. On most chaingangs, you will move off the front as soon as you come through...

cyco2

As above.... Chaingangs are much quicker changes.
One of the problems with your method is it doesn't allow for ability or slopes. It could catch riders out with with lesser ability holding up the better ones. Who also need the benefit of a training ride.
This is what I did.......On the flat, all in about the same gear ask the riders to count their pedal revs. when on the front until they slow down or near MHR. Some will be able to hold on quite long but will be hogging the front too much so get them off after 30 revs. Others may find 20 is enough. When each has had a turn still on the flat reduce each riders revs. by 5. The idea is to balance out the abilities of the group to keep the maximum speed going. So, keep an eye on your speed. It now gets interesting when you get on a slope because the heart rates climb sharply. So, all reduce the revs by say 5 or so. Since you are the one asking then if you do use this method then you need to shout out the rev. changes. If you are able to watch your heart rate you will find your recovery before each stint on the front will change for the amount of riders in the group. If you use the numbers of revs. per rider to balance out their efforts you should all be able to get along at a good pace. All the changes must be very smooth with no accelerations.
When you get to a climb all this discipline goes to pot so reforming is needed again.
I hope you get what I am saying to you because this method does work.

Monty Dog

Depends on how many are in the bunch and where it's a training ride or you are simulating racing. With a small bunch of say 6-8 in a race, it's best to just keep it moving through and off whereas on a training ride it's often better to ride in pairs, with two on the front doing a 'turn' and then both peeling off to let the next pair come through. Turns in this case can be as short as 2 minutes to 10 minutes. The main issues is keeping turns smooth - inexperienced riders often pull-through too hard, making it difficult for the recovering rider to get back on - might be fine in a race to reduce the size of a group on a hill/incline etc, but less good in a team TT or where you've got a long way to go.

jibberjim

Remember the reason for the through and off in the race is not because it's more efficient, but because it removes the freeloader problem, you know that everyone is working the same. If you actually want to go as fast as possible as efficiently as possible in a group then you need a single pace line with regular changes with the length different for each individual depending on how strong they are.

For us on training rides, the person on the front goes until someone decides to go through. That way everyone regulates their training, if there's lots of people wanting to go hard that day, we end up with short turns with lots of changes. If there's a just a couple it regulates itself down.