Good idea, you wanna pay for it and spend your time?

If I owned a bike shop and was running the ride, yes I would. I think in addition to safety, it's a great marketing tool for the shop. Decal-up an SUV and there you go.

The tour de rock held out here is large group ride for police staff and they have escort F&R (of course!)

---

Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

I think it can make sense for some rural rides. E.g. team training camps. Don't think it makes sense in urban or suburban areas

The group rides I do wouldn't work well with this. Sometimes we're in the lane, sometimes we're on the shoulder, and sometimes we're in a bike lane. A car can't always follow, and sometimes we move faster than the speed of traffic in the bike lane. Sometimes the roads we ride on are back residential roads where a car can pass us if we are single file, but a car can't pass another car. Certain hills we climb at 10 mph on the shoulder where cars are going 30+ mph...you can't just have a support car blocking the lane like that. Not sure if it would be considered illegal, but I can guarantee it would get reported by a lot of people. I would certainly be pissed and yelling some WTF like profanities if I got caught behind a car blocking traffic for other cyclists. And I'm a roadie.

Now if you're route is always multiple lanes, not busy, and does not cause additional inconvenience then maybe you can go for it. Just would never work where I ride.

Who wants the responsibility of being the support car? Someone has already mentioned that they would be pissed being blocked by a car climbing at 10mph (lots of people would be), but you would want the car plastered with adverts - that doesn't sound like great advertising!

You also say yourself that rides weave in and out of traffic - so the car wouldn't be able to stay with the group anyway. Then you would limit the group to roads, whereas usually bike paths are used to cut out the worse roads.

It sounds very unneccessary to me. People all around the world manage group rides without support cars. If you find them too scary, then you should either keep at it and you'll get used to it, or not do group rides.

I think this would upset my local population and lead to some civil infractions.

Terrible idea for a multitude of reasons - mostly as mentioned by Jason N above.

Doing things like this, whether legal or not, unnecessarily irritates the hell out of other road users. And that's not good for anyone. The only way riding gets safer is better relations with motorists and/or improved or segregated infrastructure. This would almost certainly make relations worse.

Is it possible that since you've only ever done one group rides, your perception of danger and good practice is not quite optimum? Your brief description certainly sounds overly dramatic! I consider group rides to be safer than solo rides as far as traffic risks are concerned. I do plenty of both. Although I consider it a bit safer in general, there are of course some risks specific to group rides too. Mainly the possibility of touching wheels if there's inattention, or hitting a pothole or road furniture if someone in the group doesn't call it out. These are real risks but they can be managed to a reasonable level through good group ride practices and simply paying attention. Group rides on suitable roads with competent cyclists are not lethal and do not need support vehicles.

I've been stuck behind a woman doing this for her husband (I assume). One guy on a bike that would have been easy to pass on 50 different occasions. But instead, this woman is following in an SUV making it difficult to see and requiring you to move over much more than necessary (which I guess is safe for the rider, but I already give significant room when I pass since I know what it's like).

Now, I have been on training rides with a tri club that had support vehicles. They did not follow the whole time, but would regularly circle the route to check on everyone and would stop at pre-planned spots on the route to refill bottles and such. Well marked cars. At least helped a little by following for short periods and just advertising to all in the area that cyclist are around. But a constant tail would pretty much never work.

It is interesting to read all the negative reactions - but growing up in Belgium a support car is required by law for all groups of riders of a certain size (I believe over 15 people). It requires special signage too (a triangle with red border and a bike in the middle) and it should follow the riders. There are strict rules for other traffic regarding passing a group of riders - in fact I think the law says it’s illegal to pass them unless there is an extra lane.

Does it work? Hell yeah it does. It can be annoying for other traffic but the law is heavily enforced to protect cyclists.

There is a cycling club in my area that uses a support car on some of their rides. I have never ridden with them but I have seen it on multiple occasions and as far as i know there has been no negative reaction. The operator of the club is a successful competitive cyclist originally from europe and he will drive behind them. Drivers probably think it's a sanctioned ride and probably just wave it off as another inconvenience

Maybe I'm lucky, but I've never run into group rides that are this bad

---

Chasing PB Podcast Latest interview with Eli Hemming on Targeting a US MTR spot in Tokyo

First off, this group was obviously full of idiots and you did yourself a service by not going back.

Find a good group to ride with and it should change your mind about group riding. Been doing this for a long time with a very good crew, and you'd get your ass handed to you if you did any of that on our rides. No need for support vehicles. Just knowledgeable, competent riders willing to follow the rules of the road and the rules of the peleton.

Standard practice in my experience is to limit group sizes to below 10 and preferably 8. We often have more than that turn up for a group ride, in which case 2 or more groups of 5-10 riders will go off a few minutes apart (generally faster riders first to avoid having to pass later).

The main goal is to make it feasible for cars to overtake without sitting in the other lane for an extended period due to the length of the group. Having a car behind would make the obstacle considerably longer (a safe gap from the group to the car will be necessary) thus makes it far harder for cars to overtake safely.
If you have hard shoulders or multi lane roads everywhere that may be viable but on the majority of roads I ride that's not reasonable IMO.

Great idea but it is close to impossible to find drivers who are consistently willing to spend hours tooling along at 18-20 mph on a nice Saturday morning . . .

I did do an all day kind of epic group ride where we talked a guy into being our support driver. I did not feel any safer but it sure was nice to be able to off load clothing as the day warmed up and not to be tied to random gas stations for drink and food.

Of course, at the end the driver swore he'd never do that again and he actually looked like he had suffered almost as much as the riders.

I got to drive the follow car at crit last summer and even though I'd been handed a brand new convertible Mercedes, after a few races, I was more than happy to give up the car. Driving a car at bike speeds for any length of time kind of sucks.

I did some long rides with my friends training for IMFL in 2016. One girl’s husband had a moped and would ride behind the group carrying ice water, spare tubes, food, etc., and would run interference on cars that were coming too close, or if we were crossing a bridge where the shoulder completely disappeared (not that we were riding on the shoulder, but at least had it as a buffer). It was super helpful...he has a prosthetic leg and doesn’t do any kind of racing, but it was his way of being involved and helping.

Where I live (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil) there's a popular road for triatlhetes that is almost mandatory that you use a car behind a group. Many accidents have happened over the years. We kind have other options right now, but since we got used to it, most atlhetes still use it everywhere. And it's cheap when you split by 5-6. (like $30-40 with the currency rate right now). Also, we use a light in top of the car. The road cops understand that safety comes first and they allow it.

I used to do this all the time while living in Lagos Nigeria. Plus, when the road gets quiet, a Landcruiser turns into a hell of a good motor-pacing rig.

One of the slowest pace group rides out in the sticks near me rotates car duty among group members in the club.

In the city it won’t work. You have to teach first folks etiquette and skills, or drop them if they won’t learn.

For a paid membership club it makes sense. Especially big clubs with a routine group of 30 or so.

Doubt they'd be ticketed. A cop may stop the car but usually group rides aren't done through town and more in an open space environment. My guess is that if it caused a big issue a warning would be given. That said, a car is a great idea with some of the violence that cyclists sometimes receive from motorists. Also helps protect the group and insulate them from cars.

---

Nourish - Sports Nutrition Made Easy

Most cycling teams in my country do this, and paying a dedicated, experienced driver is part of why I pay (a pretty significant) monthly fee. Most training starts outside of urban areas, and support cars provide shelter against traffic. The car usually has the hazard lights on, a large warning sign on the back, and bike racks. Apart from providing shelter, it carries first-aid kit (driver is trained responder) spare wheels and rider's personal bags (food, water, cold weather layers).

This allows teams to train (relatively) safely despite the lack of good infrastructure. Usually (if conditions allow) we'd ride two abreast, one column on the shoulder and one just on the edge, and the car does not much more than force drivers to take the by-law required 1.5m gap. If the road is narrow, it allows us to take the lane (as we legally can and should) without fear of someone plowing into us.

Now, I'm pretty "street-smart" on the bike and feel pretty comfortable moving efficiently in urban or technical terrain, but for a group of less-skilled (or more risk-averse) riders, a support car is crucial here. Many good riding roads in my country have some pretty sketchy multi-lane roads connecting them. Moreover, the current ministry of transport is doing a lot of road widening (as if the dogma of more roads = less congestion hasn't been debunked many years ago) so a lot of roads that were good 5 years ago are now near-highways. I've already given up on mid-week outdoors riding.

This system has already proven to save lives - two years ago, a distracted driver went 90km/h into the back of a local team's support car. The car took the brunt of the force, and even so hit the back two riders of the group (possibly the support car was too close at that point). The result was two wrecked cars and some bike damage, but no serious injuries; the distracted driver suffered minor injuries, the support car driver got whiplash and the two riders only minor scrapes. Without the car, there would have been multiple dead.

---

ZONE3 - We Last Longer

I think it would be a nice amenity for a shop or club to offer for a decent sized group ride. With respect to the issues of a slow moving car impeding other traffic, the support car could leapfrog the group and pull over where appropriate to let other traffic pass, and then get behind the group again. I have done numerous multi-day charity rides with professional support, and this is what the support vehicles do.

For my squad on the weekends, I sag weekend rides 8 months of the year (i ride with them in the winter "base" period). I have a wrapped team AO car, and I use flashers. We also ride with radios so they know how many cars are coming, etc. Whenever I see a few cars building up, I simply pass my athletes drive up a mile, wait for them to come through. So me in the car is never a "hazard", it's also on rural roads so traffic is minimal to begin with.

I was just got sorta side swiped by a distracted 20 year old girl in a car with one of my juniors at a major bike interesection here in Raleigh yesturday. We were going straight through a light and had right away the girl was turning LEFT (into where we were)...I had eyes on her the whole time and could see she wasnt looking up for her phone until 0.24s before seeing/swerving/bumping me. We were all fine, I was furious the asshole was looking at texts in an intersection. No harm, no damage, just asshole driver. It made me realize I need safer options for juniors and making sure my squad who rides on weekends, has better "protection". I also have a rule, no more single riding out on your own now. Group rides always for safety in numbers (yes the girl this past weekend ran over what 6 cyclists in a 14 group ride, but most of hte time group in numbers gives you better "visibility")


ETA: I should say "sagging" the ride as a driver is stressful as hell. Always paying attention to cars behind, making sure your not holding up traffic, etc. I think the most stressful part is when you know the road is clear and the 1 car behind you just sits there, and you know your pissing them off; you can wave them through and it's like they don't understand what's going on. My guys always laugh at the end, it looks like I exerted more energy on the 3 hour ride then they did.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

see you next week :)

I agree - it’s very challenging for the driver. I’ve driven sag for my local team’s Califronia coast tour, as well as for Epic 5 and Ultraman a number of times. In those situations, you cannot impede traffic (by event rule), so it’s a lot of leapfrogging, but only when safe to do so. In Ultraman - specifically if you’re crewing for riders the caliber of Tim Sheeper or Rob Gray - you also have to pick your hand-off points carefully, as the flats are super challenging and downhills near impossible. There also isn’t always a spot where you can safely pull completely off the road and leave room the rider(s) when there’s traffic.

Ian