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The Dangers of Cycling

03.26.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

“While I was lamenting my problems with my sore ribcage, something a lot more serious happened to a good friend of mine. It was last Saturday morning, on one of our club rides.

A group had gone out to Kyle, about 23 miles south of town, and made their usual turnaround stop at a gas station/convenience store. The road through Kyle was repaved about a year ago, and is quite smooth, with a generous shoulder. The Line was moving at about 20 mph, according to one of the riders. It had started to rain. The road was slick. The day was chilly. Because of the wind, the group formed a sort of paceline.

Just before reaching a stoplighted intersection, the lead rider saw two obstacles in his path. One was a car bumper, the other something unspecified. The rider pointed out the car bumper on the right, but did not point out the object on the left. He led the way between the two, expecting those behind him to follow in his tire tracks.

Apparently, the rider behind him braked. The third rider in line swerved. The front tire of the fourth rider, Jerry, touched the rear tire of the third bike. Jerry went down in a heap, and the next four riders went down in a pile.

Jerry suffered a broken femur. A passer-by who turned out to be a nurse treated him for shock until paramedics arrived, and he was taken to an emergency room in Austin. On Sunday, he underwent surgery to repair the break, and is getting close to leaving the hospital as this is posted.

The experience triggered a flurry of posts on the club’s Yahoo group. Debra, whom I ride with on B rides out in the country, had some simple, straightforward advice: “Don’t ride in pacelines.”

The second rider in the line posted that no single thing caused the crash, but suggested some lessons to be learned from the mishap:

  1. Avoid riding in the rain if at all possible (not an option in this case)
  2. Provide more buffer space from other riders (in front and laterally)
  3. Ride slower – not a race – especially in inclement weather
  4. Yell out any road debris and signal behind you

To which, the club president reminded everyone that our club rides are not races, although they might assume an “aggressive” pace from time to time.

Others cited communication as being the most important factor. The lead rider called out the road debris, but did not signal. The second rider signaled, but did not call out. Another member pointed out that calls don’t travel very far anyway.

One of our more experienced members advised that the rider in front should stay focused on the road and try to lead the group around the hazard, rather than point it out and miss it by an inch or two.

Still another said the leader shouldn’t be too diligent at pointing out trouble. “Pointing out every gum wrapper will make your little ducklings less likely to notice the massive boulder they’re about to endo over,” he wrote.

The club president noted that there are only a few group riding configurations. Since it’s inevitable that we will line up behind each other at some point in a group ride, it’s important to be able to handle those situations.

He’s going to arrange for a cycling coach to conduct some paceline drills for the club.

I’ve written before of my aversion to pacelines. But if the paceline drills happen, I’ll probably sign up.

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Categories // crash, Technique Tags // crash, paceline

Still Not Comfortable In a Paceline

12.18.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

pacelineMy friend B.J. commented on the last post that he thinks a paceline is just an accident waiting to happen. Over the past five years, since I started what I call “serious biking,” I’ve ridden in lots of them. Other times, I’ve simply glommed onto someone’s wheel for a pull. But I’ve got something in common with B.J.–after all these years of riding, I’m still not comfortable while drafting.

Most of the time, I find myself in a sort of paceline on our Sunday morning club rides. That’s because of the sheer number of riders out there. We’ll get anywhere from 15-30, and when we leave in a group, it’s quite a peloton. It’s not the classic double paceline, where the leaders pull off in different directions and then fall back to the rear. We’re a lot more disorganized than that.

The great thing about riding in a group like that is the drafting effect. You find yourself moving along at a good clip, but with very little effort. The peloton pulls you along.

However, I find this kind of riding to be both exhilarating and tiring at the same time. I’m grateful for the added speed, but I expend so much mental effort in the process that I’m worn out afterward.

I’m still not fast enough to hang with the paceline that occasionally forms on our “A” rides. I clearly remember one Sunday, when the “Bs” left early for some reason, but on our way back, met the “As” going in the opposite direction. They had one of the best-defined pacelines I’ve ever seen. They gobbled up the pavement. It was very impressive.

When I find myself drafting someone, or a group, my antennae go up immediately. I gauge my distance to the wheel in front, and work at maintaining a distance of no closer than a foot. I’m frankly more comfortable with about a three-foot gap to the guy in front of me. Then, I look past him to the rider ahead of him. If there are any complications, I figure that’s where they’ll happen. I suppose the thing that bugs me most about riding close is that I can’t see obstacles in the road ahead, and so am dependent upon other riders to point them out. Still, if I’m right on someone’s tail, I might have to react in an instant.

“Don’t draft unless you know the person you’re drafting, and are familiar with his riding style,” goes the advice about riding in pacelines. Good advice, I suppose. Problem is, I’m not familiar with anybody’s riding style — even club members I’ve been riding with for years. That’s because I might ride behind that person only once in a while. But how are you going to get better at it unless you practice? So that means you’re going to ride behind people you’re not familiar with — and hope for the best.

One of the cooler things to happen this past year was when the club headed south on its Sunday ride. We were on Old San Antonio Road — a two-lane blacktop with no shoulder. It’s a good cycling road that leads into the small town of Buda, and is very popular with all sorts of club rides. As usual, the A riders outdistanced me and the two other B riders who came along that day. We were on our own, until another club ride caught up to us. They were a little slower than our club A’s, but the momentum of their group pulled them past us. I hung on to the last rider in their group, who turned out to be their ride leader. He started offering impromptu coaching to me and one of the other B’s.

“Pull ahead of me, and get behind that guy,” he said, pointing to a rider several positions forward. I did, and that put me in the left row of the paceline. The leader hung back with my friend, who was having lots of trouble adjusting to the group. He patiently talked my friend into speeding up, finding a comfortable distance, and maintaining speed.

Meanwhile, I concentrated on keeping even with the rider next to me, while looking ahead for trouble. We flew into Buda, and at the corner Walgreens that marks the end of Old SA Road, they peeled off in a different direction than we were heading. I felt good — felt like I had really accomplished sticking with the paceline for a change.

But that, in my experience, is the exception. Most pacelines aren’t that organized, and the ones that are are too fast for me. I guess I’ll continue to look for opportunities to draft, but I know that most of the time, I’ll be feeling uneasy while I’m doing it.

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Categories // Technique Tags // paceline

Cycling Etiquette

12.16.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

The president of the cycling club I belong to usually takes the lead in organizing club rides. He traditionally starts the Sunday morning ride, which is our “main” ride of the week. He’s got years of riding experience under his pedals, and is happy to share his ideas about cycling with anyone.

Last week, he posted on our club Yahoo group some points of cycling etiquette. He gave me permission to use them on the blog. “They may or may not work for you,” he wrote, “but at least you will know why I am doing what I am doing the next time we ride together.” Here they are:

•Passing other cyclists on either the right or left is OK as long as you can safely get by. Corollary: if there is no room to pass on either side then passing is not OK.

•You are responsible for your own behavior: as opposed to “I ran the red light because someone else on the ride did it too.” If your friends all jumped off a bridge would you do it too? (Sorry, I forgot who I was speaking to. Of course some of you would!)

•If you hit someone from behind it is primarily your fault.

•If someone hits you from behind it may still be just a bit of your own fault (esp. if you vary your well established line abruptly), but it is still primarily the person behind you who didn’t give enough room for your unexpected behavior who should bear responsibility for the crash.

•Calling our “On Your Left,” etc. will more often than not cause the person you are planning to pass to turn his or her head that way. As goes the head so goes the bike. If you do that nine times and get by safely and then once you come to grief, well then it is still mostly your own fault and memories of those other nine safe passages will fade before your road rash.

•Among riders who are very familiar with each other, a gentle touch on the passing side hip will alert the rider in front to the fact that you are coming by and it all should happen like clockwork. (Warning: Don’t touch strangers; they may not like it.)

•If you come upon a group of riders in single file you must make absolutely sure that:

A. You are welcome in that line,

B. You have the skill and ability to negotiate your turns in the line (ride along behind and to the side for at least one whole rotation of the line to be sure you aren’t getting in over your head), and

C. There is adequate room for you to slide in safely (that means a gap of ~1.5 bike lengths if you are all experienced riders: give more room if any of the affected parties are less experienced in pace line dynamics).

•Under no circumstances should you assume any of the above. Make darn sure it’s a fit before you throw your personal monkey wrench into their gears. If you cram into a line of riders unannounced or unwelcomed, or unsafely, you should expect to get an earful. Cyclists are not generally well known for self-editing.

•If you hear this complaint more than once you should assume you are guilty and fix your problem.

•Most Bikes don’t have brake lights to let riders behind know that you are going to suddenly slow down (If yours does, trust me, nobody knows what they are for).

•Good riders can pick up on the audio and visual cues when someone in front takes pressure off the pace but if you hit those brakes you will rapidly find very close company from the rear about whom you may have been, until just then, blissfully unaware.

•When you are planning to hit the brakes you should make that announcement orally and, if you can do so without increasing the risk, with a hand signal (hand raised, palm forward, like a cavalry captain for the entire peloton, or held palm facing out behind your saddle for just the rider immediately behind you).

•If you need to touch your brakes suddenly you should be well aware that the person behind you will find your deceleration problematic and you may want to consider first altering your own line (if you can do that safely without cutting off an overlapping wheel) to give all of you more room to breathe.

•When you are in a large group on a narrow winding road it makes sense to stay together to establish a substantial visual impact on passing motorists.

•However, if you find cars stacked up behind the group you will find it easier to wave them past if your group is not so large that it blocks visibility of the road ahead. Consider breaking into more, smaller groups to give cars a chance to get by safely.

•On this same topic, if the group is too large for a following car (or even cyclists at the back of the group) to see the front rider waving a left arm for a safe pass then the group may need to be broken into smaller segments.

•And if the riders in the middle are too far from the rear of the group to even know there is a car looking to pass, then your group might be too large.

•It’s not about rights or owning the road, it’s about not causing a problem situation in which you will be severely disadvantaged. Car>>Bike in terms of F=M*A. That’s higher math for “OUCH!” and “OH NO, MY COSTLY BIKE IS DESTROYED!”

He continues: “You probably have your own set of rules for keeping safe. Please share them. Making sure others around you know how you plan to behave in tight circumstances can only help those rules to do their intended job, i.e. keep you safe.

“If your personal rules differ from mine I’m happy to hear it. If your logic is convincing I’ll most likely steal your ideas and claim to have invented them myself.

“But, if your plan is to take unwarranted chances, exposing yourself and others around you to needless risk, then you should not expect willing company in that adventure except as it may involve others who could represent a hazard to themselves and you with their own Brownian Motion bike handling skills.”

Your thoughts, Bike Noob readers?

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Categories // Safety, Technique Tags // etiquette, Safety

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