Alot of posts on here about how roadies can corner better and why tri geeks shouldn’t wear speedos on a training ride…I think it’s irrelevant what bike you show up on, whether you wear socks, or skill level.
BUT, if someone is causing confusion in the pack for whatever reason (roadie or tri geek or tricycle rider), someone should step-up and immediately address the issue directly to this individual in a non-threatening way.
If the individual chooses to remain as a member of the pack, he/she can conform and continue. If not, he/she can turn around and go the other direction.
There are a ton of group rides around here and I’ve noticed that the most dangerous ones are the ones with no “leaders” in the group. A faceless, aggro, testosterone pumped crowd is a dangerous crowd.
I agree with your post to a point - It doesn’t matter what someone shows up with for a group ride. Only concern I have is tri bikes are meant to be ridden in the aero bars (and fairly hard) which does not lend itself to the kind of control you need to have in true pace line. That being said, we have group rides in our area that are tri specific and it tends to be more of a group that starts and ends at the same place that rides the same route but you are more or less on your own during the ride. I feel my bike handling skills are pretty good but when I’m in the bars riding hard, I would not necessarily want to be riding right next to me.
I really don’t want to see a tri bike show up for a group ride. If we saw that at one of our group rides we would automatically assume the person isn’t very bike smart.
Our roadie group has 25% riders who are AG trigeeks. Not one of us would even consider bringing a tri bike to the group ride. We all come on our road bikes and save the tri bikes for triathlons or TT’s. Tri bikes were not designed for group riding or road racing. They are designed for riding solo on non technical courses. This is where they shine.
We’re fortunate that our group has several riders who are either current or ex road racers. These guys are the best teachers IMO. It’s only thru them that us trigeeks in the group have learned about the pace line and improving cycling skills.
I’ve got a Kestrel Talon. My only road/tri bike. Since it is my only stead for the road, I must use it for group rides. However, I still handle my bike much better than a majority of those whom I ride with. Partly, I believe, comes from extensive mountain bike riding. Kestrel, in its Talon, makes a great roadbike that can TT with the best of them! So, would you, on a roadbike, be afraid of me in a group (if I stay off my aeros)?
I am a roadie who came over to tris. That being said, I owe allegiance to neither the roadies or the triathletes, but I discovered a very interesting difference: The triathletes are much more fun to go drinking with. Anyone else notice this? Also, there are more hot chicks at triathlons than at bicycle races. I’m sure that this point is significantly less argueable than the first one. I am also sure someone will argue it. It is an opinion, no scientific research has been done to back any of this up.
As far as squirrely, the roadies and triathletes around here are pretty scary either way. The difference is that triathletes don’t know when to pull off, and get mad when you come around them. The roadies will let you pull all day.
Spare the lecture. I ride my tri bike with a roadie group all the time and so do a couple of other tri guys. Get a clue. It’s not the bike its the rider. My Yaqui Carbo handles just as well as my Litespeed Vortex. All the tri guys who ride in our group have as much riding experience as the road racers. Nobody cares if we ride the tri bikes. There are plenty of guys who show up on occasion on road bikes who can’t ride worth a damn.
Specificity is important. In season you are better off riding your tri bike as much as possible to race your best, group or no group.
Nope. I’m in the bars in a line with 6 other guys at 35-40mph. We’ve been rding together for years and trust eachother. Never had a problem.
Here’s a newsflash. Cycling doesn’t require a lot of athletic ability. Fitness, yes, but coordination, not much. This may piss some people off but it’s true. All you have to do is point it straight and hold the same speed. Make a smooth turn. Learn the rules. Not that hard. Take a typical cyclist and put him in a game of basketball and you’ll see what I mean.
When I ride, it’s usually alone. However, if I meet up with someone while on my TT bike, and we ride together, I don’t act any differently than if on my road bike. Which is to say, when I ride in a group on my road bike, I’m not down in the drops…I’m up on the hoods…same basic position I ride my TT bike in a group. If I were to hook up with the “better be in the drops because we are hammering hard and there’s a chance there’s going to be a little contact from time to time” kind of group…I choose not to ride with them anyway. Been there, done that…not worth the risk of old broken bones. I will occasionally run across a group that must be tired, and I’ll pull them back to town…I’m aero-bars all the way on the front of that train…they love the chance to just sit in. And, since they’ve at least seen me out and about, I’m not looked at as that gray-haired stranger that showed up at the Time Trials and whipped most of us! (In all fairness, I’m one of the only ones that has aero bars, it’s a small town, and I was the only one with a disc, it’s a short course…they aren’t really that slow.)
All that said, I still find Triathlete crowds to be MUCH more fun to be around…not nearly as much of the chip-on-the-shoulder attitudes.
“Nope. I’m in the bars in a line with 6 other guys at 35-40mph. We’ve been rding together for years and trust eachother. Never had a problem.” … Why does everyone feel it nescessary to exaggerate the speed at which they ride at to make a a point? I would be more impressed if you said you and 6 guys rode at 28-30 mph. Just for reference the Postal team(9 guys) won the TTT at the Tour averaging around 32 mph. The team pursuit at the recent world cup was won at 36 mph. If you and your buddies are holding 35-40mph then you better call Velonews.
“Take a typical cyclist and put him in a game of basketball and you’ll see what I mean.” … I agree with you on that one. I was a basketball player before getting into triathlon and have since played with some of my cycling buddies. They are pathetic!
Didn’t mean to mislead. We hit those speeds going downhill in the line. Point I was trying to make is that if you are riding with good riders who know eachother you can ride the bars in a paceline even if the speed is fast. We do it all the time.
Not all roadies are snobish. triathlons do provide much better “scenery” than a road race, however.
Cerveloguy. I organize a Wed morning “before work group ride”. I get up to 30 riders in this ride. Pretty well all the guys are aerobar guys, riding tri bikes, or “worse yet”, riding road bikes with tri bars with their seats jacked forward at 80 degrees on forward posts. In 6 years, we’ve had two crashes. This ride is aggressive, with many “sprints”. In general, we ride in a double paceline the whole time. No one is allowed to ride in their aerobars unless in the front of the group, or trying to bridge a gap in excess of two bike lengths. All the riders are pretty “steady” and clearly communicate their intent in the group. A funny thing started happening in the past two years. More and more of the city’s top road riders are showing up to this group ride that was started by triathletes. My only equipment rule is now disks or deep rim race wheels since it is a training ride. That’s it. Most of the guys in our group, don’t have the money to buy two bikes. They make do with one bike. Either a tri bike, or a road bike, “retrofitted” with aerobars and a forward post. I’m not about to turn anyone away due to equipment limitations as long as they can hold a straight line and a steady in the group. Trust me, anyone who is not finds out in a hurry from either myself or the regulars.
I stand by that statement. Last year everybody made such a huge deal about Lance riding straight through a field when he went around Beloki. Big deal, he just went straight ahead… That’s what anyone would have done. How about Ulrich going over the cliff the year before. Awesome athletic move! Mountain bikers and sprinters are the exception to the rule. That takes skill. By athleticism I mean skill. Riding a bike doesn’t take a huge amount of skill. OK maybe for you it does, but most of the rest of us it comes pretty easy.
“No one is allowed to ride in their aerobars unless in the front of the group,”
OK, now go back and read Slick’s posts about riding mid pack on aerobars. Him and I have been exchanging “niceties” for awhile on this forum.
I should qualify with our group. The trigeeks all have their road bikes fitted with aerobars but ride obeying the same rules as you guys do on the group rides. No riding on aero bars unless pulling at the front. Most of our trigeeks have only one bike, for many a road bike fitted with shorty bars, a couple of guys have Soloists which they run slack for group and steep for tri and a few of us have two bikes but only ride road bikes on the group rides. We do have one guy with a tri bike but he rides it slack with drop bars. Go figure.
There’s probably no reason why a decent rider couldn’t ride a tri bike in a group ride as long as they stay off the aerobars other than when pulling at the front. However, they might hurt a bit on a ride with steep hills and curvy descents. Shifting gears on the tri bike would be a pain since you’d be off the aerobars most of the time.
Hey, lets let the anger go, shall we. We all now know that any idiot can ride in the TdF, provided they have sufficient endurance. Whew, thank GOD!!! I started my new training plan just now to get ready for 2005. Now about the 100kph descents and the cornering in the rain on cobbles, they have stunt doubles for that crazy shit, right? BTW, last weekend I shot a round with a former pro cyclist (a top 10 finisher in the US pro champs in Philly), and he has a 4 handicap. Combine that with his 202 bowling average, and the fact that he was a varsity starter in basketball and baseball in HS and college leads me to the thought that maybe…just maybe, you’re wrong. I say this with the utmost respect for your ignorance.
I think a lot of the problems/crashes come into play when riders are fatigued. I saw this a lot on the ride across Iowa last year. Honestly, this site was the first one where I learned about not riding in aerobars while in the paceline. In our local group, it is very seldom that I am not in the front(it is a recreational group). Nobody has ever complained about this being a problem. I ride a lot by myself or with one other person so it comes natural to be in the aero position because we seldom draft when training for half ironmans and IMWI. I think I have gained great skill in riding a line in the aero postion and running with HED 3’s with a 30mph cross wind. So riding in a group in the aero position becomes no big deal. I think it is a matter of trust between riders. They trust me to lead the train and watch out for their safety. I can say that nobody has crashed in 3 years of this group riding together.