Poor etiquette from a cycling club

barrybridges

I was driving on Saturday around the Sevenoaks/Brasted area and was pleased to see the bank holiday sunshine had brought many hundreds of cyclists out. The sheer number of them made me think that a sportive was taking place, but I can't seem to find anything in the BC diary for that weekend.

However, of the cyclists, one particular club was doing nothing for the image of cycling by the way they handled themselves.

Approaching the Polhill/Sevenoaks roundabout (at the bottom of Polhill) I found myself in a very slow-moving queue of traffic behind the club.

First off, by my counts, the group was riding as a pack of about 30 - 40 riders, at times 4 abreast on what aren't wide roads.

That's fine and nothing wrong with that in itself, but what was causing a hazard was the fact that most of the group seemed to have no situational awareness for what was around them. It looked like something of a mixed-ability group, with some people on MTBs, others on road bikes, some wearing cycling gear and others not.

The first problem was that most of the pack was splintered up into smaller pockets of 5 or 6 with awkward-sized gaps between them - the entire peleton was maybe 150m in length which made is almost impossible for anyone to pass them safely. They weren't really riding as one group but they weren't riding as separate groups either; which made it difficult for vehicles wanting to overtake safely. If they weren't riding as one cohesive group, they obviously didn't need to set off as a group and it would have been safer and better to have split into two or three group rides, given the size.

Most of the riders kept swerving into the middle of the road, going from single-file, to 2 abreast, to 3 or 4 wide without thinking that cars might be passing. Literally weaving all over the place without any warning, slowing down to chat to the person they wanted to speak to, unaware that a large queue of traffic was building up behind them.

The group wasn't travelling at a consistent speed - or even a 'suitable' speed. The road is generally flat/undulating, but there was no communication between those at the front of the group and those at the back. The people at the back were riding <10mph, those at the front kept changing between a 'usual' clubrun pace and the slower pace, to avoid dropping people. As a result, it became impossible for any car to pass safely because the group kept speeding up and slowing down with no reason and certainly not related to the gradient. The only way to describe it was as if no-one was leading the group or knew where they were going.

I was second in the queue of cars and the rider immediately in front of the car in front of me kept getting really frustrated and waving the cars past him, but it was absolutely clear to anyone driving that it wasn't safe to pass. He kept getting really animated and waving the cars to go by, but there was oncoming traffic and it would have been lunacy to have overtaken at those points.

I understand how frustrating it is to have a car behind you, but I refuse to believe that the cyclist was a regular club member as I'm sure that anyone on these forums in that situation would have understood that it wasn't safe to wave cars past. It was a really stupid thing for him to be doing; encouraging cars to overtake on a very narrow road with oncoming traffic, with several of his club mates in front of him and in-the-line-of-fire should an overtaking car need to pull in to avoid oncoming traffic.

Eventually, the bulk of the group realised that there was a long queue of maybe 30 cars behind them and so they decided to pull over to the side of the road. However, such was the communication as a group that only about 15 people pulled over; the rest continued (and sped up) and so no-one could overtake still. Worse still, when the group pulled over, they didn't actually pull over, so the queue of traffic had to stop as the group had effectively stopped in the road.

Watching this from where I was, I was pretty shocked by such a poor situational awareness on behalf of the group. Many of the other cars beeped as they tried to overtake and I'm surprised that an accident didn't take place.

I wanted to raise this to the club directly as it really wasn't on, but I can't find a website for them or email address.

I probably haven't described it very well, but it was really dangerous riding and made me feel unsafe as a driver trying to follow this group safely, or pass when an appropriate opportunity became available.

diy

sounds like this:
http://www.tourdekent13.co.uk/

barrybridges

diy wrote:

sounds like this:
http://www.tourdekent13.co.uk/

Edited: just saw the route. It possibly could be that, but this was on Saturday and according to the route map it's unlikely anyone would have been at that part of the route by then?

Raffles

any sanctioned club run should never let things run as badly as what the op describes, given that there were mtb`ers and riders without helmets then its unlikely to be sanctioned and sounds more akin to a free for all

goonz

Yep poor form on any organisers part.

Doubt it would have been a proper cycling club though. I tagged along on a club ride on sunday and about 40 odd cyclists turned up. there was no chance everyone was going to go out together it would have been madness so the group was rightly split into I think 3 smaller groups and cyclists with similar abilities were grouped together and set off in different directions. Makes much more sense and does not cause a nuisance for other motorists.

Monty Dog

Sounds like an informal/beginners/charity ride rather than a 'club' ride IMO. To me it demonstrates the genuine value of a 'club' to help provide people with the awareness of how to ride safely in a group - IME there are far too many new riders who lack basic skills such as looking behind before overtaking or failing to single-out on narrow roads with traffic behind.

barrybridges

It was definitely a proper well-known London club; wearing club jerseys and kit for the most part, apart from a few.

Granted, it might have been a mix of new members/old members and friends-of-friends, but I'd say 80% were in club kit.

In fact, they were by far the most 'visible' of all the riders out that day in terms of wearing club kit.

fish156

British Cycling's "Club Finder" may well have a web address and contact details.
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/clubfinder

Alternatively, I expect there are members from the club here on BikeRadar.

racingcondor

Speaking as a member of a 'well known South London cycling club' I'd like to think it wasn't us but second fish156 comment. Send them an email linking this thread and asking them to be a little more careful to break groups down to sensible sizes and raise awareness of group riding skills (width on the road etc).

If it was us then your comment on it being a mix of road bikes and mountain bikes suggests that perhaps a large (12-15) club group had ridden into the back of another group of more mixed cyclists and was taking a while to pass safely. Whatever the background it sounds like it wasn't handled all that well and caused more hassle than it probably should/could have.

barrybridges

racingcondor wrote:

Speaking as a member of a 'well known South London cycling club' I'd like to think it wasn't us but second fish156 comment. Send them an email linking this thread and asking them to be a little more careful to break groups down to sensible sizes and raise awareness of group riding skills (width on the road etc).

If it was us then your comment on it being a mix of road bikes and mountain bikes suggests that perhaps a large (12-15) club group had ridden into the back of another group of more mixed cyclists and was taking a while to pass safely. Whatever the background it sounds like it wasn't handled all that well and caused more hassle than it probably should/could have.

If you're Rapha Condor then no, it wasn't you.

I've found the club's details, but is it worth even emailing them? Won't I just look like a sad git?

Genuinely, what I saw was bad riding at worst and led to all sorts of hoots and cursing from passing drivers.

Ben6899

barrybridges wrote:

I've found the club's details, but is it worth even emailing them? Won't I just look like a sad git?

Genuinely, what I saw was bad riding at worst and led to all sorts of hoots and cursing from passing drivers.

I think you should email them. Just be careful how you word it. We know you're not trying to bad mouth anyone; merely trying to offer an outsider's opinion, which - given the nature of the incident - should be welcomed (if it was my club, I'd like to know so I could take steps to prevent it in the future).

My guess is that one 'proper' club was slowly overtaking some other type of ride. But I could be wrong.

barrybridges

I've sent the club a very friendly and polite email, but haven't raised this thread as there's no need for a witch-hunt.

The main thing is that cyclists and drivers need to co-exist peacefully (given that they are normally one and the same) and that what I saw on Saturday could easily have resulted in someone getting knocked or and injured.

lotus49

barrybridges wrote:

I've sent the club a very friendly and polite email, but haven't raised this thread as there's no need for a witch-hunt.

The main thing is that cyclists and drivers need to co-exist peacefully (given that they are normally one and the same) and that what I saw on Saturday could easily have resulted in someone getting knocked or and injured.

I couldn't agree more. It's very easy to point to bad behaviour from car drivers and, let's face it, it's generally the cyclists who are running the biggest risk in a collision. However, just as we expect drivers to be tolerant of us, we need to cooperate with other road users as well.

I have been in a position like this in the Yorkshire Dales although the group wasn't as large. I ended up pulling into some fairly small gaps in the group and had a few cyclists shouting at me but my options were to sit there for ages (it would literally have been more than an hour) behind people doing a quarter of my speed or to do what I did. If they had split up into defined groups everyone would have been better off.

priory

an excelllent guide to leading a group and riding is here :
http://www.readingctc.co.uk/guidelines- ... s-on-road/

and it particularly says:

''Change to single file riding when the call “car up/down” is heard – normally the inside rider of each pair moves forward, allowing the outside rider to slot in behind.
If there is traffic behind which is unable to overtake, split into smaller groups of about five to help it pass.''

I could not find this in the ctc main site, but i have always thought the instruction to split into groups of six or so with some car lengths between (when it is appropriate , obviously)was standard. It should be and it used to be in the ctc leaflet. I have found that even in our very well behaved club many people do not understand this bit.