Advice for riding in packs (in preparation for hopeful racing next season)

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I've been a long-time cyclist, but never in group settings before. Occasionally with others in a somewhat casual ride, but certainly never in any sort of competative sense. I'm *HOPING* to be able to progress enough to the point of feeling comfortable entering a few races next year, but do realize that I've got some development I need to do first. I imagine something basic like riding in a pack comfortably and safely would be a great place to start.

How do you all handle mass-starts? I've done that a couple of times in MTB races years ago, but certainly never on the road. How about cornering as a group? I can see myself getting all stiff and worried about the guy beside me and eventually causing mischief among the group myself as a result of this.

I've heard from a friend who went through a car racing school that they're taught when entering a turn to focus not directly in front of them, not even 30 feet in front of them, but rather on the EXIT of the turn. Do you find this true in cycling as well? If so, how do you balance that approach with worrying about the back tire of the guy in front of you? Or the handlebar of the guy who keeps encroaching on you right beside you?

I'll be doing some group rides (non-competative) with some others here starting this next week and carrying through the rest of the season and so hopefully I can start simulating riding as a group in a fast-paced atmosphere to some extent, but your help/advice would still be very appreciated.

I've been a long-time cyclist, but never in group settings before. Occasionally with others in a somewhat casual ride, but certainly never in any sort of competative sense. I'm *HOPING* to be able to progress enough to the point of feeling comfortable entering a few races next year, but do realize that I've got some development I need to do first. I imagine something basic like riding in a pack comfortably and safely would be a great place to start.

How do you all handle mass-starts? I've done that a couple of times in MTB races years ago, but certainly never on the road. How about cornering as a group? I can see myself getting all stiff and worried about the guy beside me and eventually causing mischief among the group myself as a result of this.

I've heard from a friend who went through a car racing school that they're taught when entering a turn to focus not directly in front of them, not even 30 feet in front of them, but rather on the EXIT of the turn. Do you find this true in cycling as well? If so, how do you balance that approach with worrying about the back tire of the guy in front of you? Or the handlebar of the guy who keeps encroaching on you right beside you?

I'll be doing some group rides (non-competative) with some others here starting this next week and carrying through the rest of the season and so hopefully I can start simulating riding as a group in a fast-paced atmosphere to some extent, but your help/advice would still be very appreciated.
im afraid youve got to just go out there and do it. at first ull struggle and ull get abuse for nearly causing crashes but ull learn and thats the only way im afraid. training in groups wont prepare you that much for races because noone is competing for places there. in a race if you switch off youll find about 5 people have come in front of you and soon youll be at the back.

im afraid youve got to just go out there and do it.

+1.

You won't learn pack skills or race-cornering while sitting at your keyboard.

Find a training crit and dive in.

Bob

A couple tips from my first race......don't be the guy swerving all over the place..... ride straight. Second and the one I noticed the most is do NOT hit those brakes just because. I was alomost taken out by the guy in front of me because he flipped out and locked up a bit because of people slowing a bit infront of him. Mac

My advice is to stay out of pack and drafting situations. Unless you're a pro or very serious amateur it's just not worth the added risk that it brings to cycling. The number of serious injuries and deaths among amateurs caused by drafting is absurd.

Yup, ya gotta learn by doing. That's why they call it Crash5. That being said there are some decent books out there such as: "Racing Tactics For Cyclists" by Thomas Prehn and "Bike Racing 101" by Kendra Wenzel.

Riding in a pack or paceline will teach you some bike handling and get you comfortable being in close proximity. Agreed, one of the major rookie mistakes is locking up your breaks. Also, when doing criteriums you should try to hold your line especially in the corners.

Chain gangs and club runs are the place to start out. Most club runs will just ride in 2 rider formation without people moving up and down the field, so will give you a feel for riding close to other riders and teach you to look out for each other and to get round the corners in tight formation. Chaingangs will teach you some more advanced formation riding like pace lines, and will be much closer to road race speeds. The problem is that both are much calmer than races and people are much more disciplined, so eventually you'll just have to chuck yourself into a race, but at least you'll be comfortable having riders close to you and you'll have learnt to find straight lines to progress through.

Once you're in the field, the only real advice I'd give is to remember that crashes tend to happen when the pace backs off. When the pace is hot people tend to be quite disciplined in their lines because they're just trying to hold the wheel in front but when you lift off the gas there's a regrouping and people try to sneak forward through the bunch. It may take quite a while, but eventually you'll find you can move forward and back through the bunch without too much difficulty.

My advice is to stay out of pack and drafting situations. Unless you're a pro or very serious amateur it's just not worth the added risk that it brings to cycling. The number of serious injuries and deaths among amateurs caused by drafting is absurd.

:confused: Really? I wonder how you define 'very serious amateur', because group riding is pretty much a staple of club level riding, whether it's the Sunday morning café run, Tuesday night chaingang, challenge sportif or 'chipper' roadrace. In my 15 years or so of club riding since I was 12yo, I can't remember very many serious accidents in group situations, but an awful lot that have happened to riders out on their own, largely because a group is much more obviously visible to motorised traffic (and arguably drivers are more careful if they know that there's a whole group of witnesses!)

In those 15 years, the worst that has happened to me in a bunch was some skin whipped off my ankle (and perhaps I should count a bruised elbow from a crash in a 2 rider group); riding on my own I've broken numerous bones and lost considerable amounts of skin and blood.

My advice is to stay out of pack and drafting situations. Unless you're a pro or very serious amateur it's just not worth the added risk that it brings to cycling. The number of serious injuries and deaths among amateurs caused by drafting is absurd.I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, so please don't read this reply that way, but . . . wouldn't this completely eliminate the whole element of learning to ride in packs? I mean, if I avoid a pack, I can't very well learn to actually hang with them.

Thanks for all the replies everybody. I was afraid this thread would sink into e-oblivion.

I do want to enter a couple long-distance rides next year (Seattle to Portland, Seattle to Vancouver B.C.) and hopefully I can get in a few races as well in order to get my feet wet. I have a group of guys that I plan on starting riding with (perhaps even as soon as this weekend) and so I know that'll help me at least a LITTLE bit in terms of simulating close riding quarters, but perhaps I'll look into a few training rides with some local clubs or something. I really do want to focus on this and still be riding (and racing) hard-core in 30 years.

I think I mentioned in my original post that I have a TINY bit of group riding experience in some MTB races I did over 10 years ago, and I do remember a lot of swearing, slow-speed crashes when rounding corners, etc., and in this situation it was to my benefit to have been already squeezed to the fringe of the pack (off the side) at which point I could zip around most people simply because they were so closely jammed in. Hopefully my first several experiences with close-quarter riding and cornering will be far smoother than my last memory of it at these MTB races (although I was fortunate to be able to to only witness the crashes, etc., instead of being in the midst of it).

[QUOTE=ryanspeer]I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, so please don't read this reply that way, but . . . wouldn't this completely eliminate the whole element of learning to ride in packs?

Yes, Ryan, it would. I've lived in quite a few places in my adult life, and have usually been in or associated with the local bike clubs. I can't tell you how many broken bones (usually wrists and collarbones) and concussions have occurred in these clubs as a result of pacelines. And for the most part the victims are just fitness amateurs, with jobs, etc. Now multiply this by all the amateur groups around the country (or world), and the number of injuries is enormous.

(The argument that this sort of thing doesn't happen nearly as frequently with experienced riders is a non-sequiter. First of all, you have to get through the inexperienced stage to get to that point. Second, even the pros bring each other down often enough, and at higher speeds.)

Riding a bike on the road is itself an activity with appreciable risk. Riding in groups at close quarters raises the risk significantly. What, for you, would make this added risk worth taking? That's all I'm saying.

An analogy would be skiing. You can ski down the intermediate hill, with its moderate risks. You can ski down the expert hill, with its greater risks. Or you can go backcountry and add the risk of avalanche to the mix. I just advocate that each person do a careful assessment of the risks versus benefits so that he or she makes reasoned choices, instead of automatically "going for it."

Riding a bike on the road is itself an activity with appreciable risk. Riding in groups at close quarters raises the risk significantly. What, for you, would make this added risk worth taking? That's all I'm saying.

because he wants to do bike racing.

[QUOTE=ryanspeer]I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, so please don't read this reply that way, but . . . wouldn't this completely eliminate the whole element of learning to ride in packs?

Yes, Ryan, it would. I've lived in quite a few places in my adult life, and have usually been in or associated with the local bike clubs. I can't tell you how many broken bones (usually wrists and collarbones) and concussions have occurred in these clubs as a result of pacelines. And for the most part the victims are just fitness amateurs, with jobs, etc. Now multiply this by all the amateur groups around the country (or world), and the number of injuries is enormous.

(The argument that this sort of thing doesn't happen nearly as frequently with experienced riders is a non-sequiter. First of all, you have to get through the inexperienced stage to get to that point. Second, even the pros bring each other down often enough, and at higher speeds.)

Riding a bike on the road is itself an activity with appreciable risk. Riding in groups at close quarters raises the risk significantly. What, for you, would make this added risk worth taking? That's all I'm saying.

An analogy would be skiing. You can ski down the intermediate hill, with its moderate risks. You can ski down the expert hill, with its greater risks. Or you can go backcountry and add the risk of avalanche to the mix. I just advocate that each person do a careful assessment of the risks versus benefits so that he or she makes reasoned choices, instead of automatically "going for it."

You make it sound as though it's absolute carnage out there.

Every activity involves a "risk versus benefits" analysis, including getting in your car to drive to work every day with its attendant 40,000+ vehicle-related deaths in the U.S. each year. Without having any statistics at hand I would venture to guess that the health benefits associated with cycling (solo or in groups) far outweigh the risk of injury.

You can't go around in life being afraid of everything.

Bob

because he wants to do bike racing.Exactly. I want VERY MUCH to get into racing in the near future. In order to be competative, I know I must learn how to RIDE competatively. Playing safe rarely gets a person to that point - or at least not nearly as quickly. I don't want to be a road hazard, but I don't want to be the guy consistently finishing in the last 50% of the pack either. To me that would seem like a complete waste of an entry fee. I'm sure there are some general "tricks of the trade" so-to-speak for how to ride in close-quarters and I'd rather not learn them the hard way any more than I have to. I understand that the most practical way to learn is to get out there and do it, but I don't want to be the guy getting cussed at and bringing others down just because I made an error that could've/should've been avoided.

One person mentioned not overlapping front and rear wheels; another mentioned no sudden braking. It's stuff like that that I find very useful. Better to already have the concept in my head when I first head out there than to learn from the school of hard-knocks when it's not required.

If/when you make contact with another rider, lean your body weight into that person instead of bouncing off.

I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, so please don't read this reply that way, but . . . wouldn't this completely eliminate the whole element of learning to ride in packs? no, it would eliminate racing altogether. that is unless you were to solo right of the start to victory or just sit off the back and purposely finish minutes behind the pack.

I can't tell you how many broken bones (usually wrists and collarbones) and concussions have occurred in these clubs as a result of pacelines. And for the most part the victims are just fitness amateurs, with jobs, etc. Now multiply this by all the amateur groups around the country (or world), and the number of injuries is enormous.

Riding a bike on the road is itself an activity with appreciable risk. Riding in groups at close quarters raises the risk significantly. What, for you, would make this added risk worth taking? That's all I'm saying.


As I say above, I just don't see where this is coming from. We regularly taking complete beginners into our chaingang and I can't even remember the last crash on that. I can remember a crash on our sunday club ride, but that was years ago. In the last year or so at least 3 members of our club have ended up in hospital after serious accidents with cars while riding alone. Look at the number of deaths that occur in timetrialling and compare them to roadracing if you want some more statistical evidence.

I can see that if you ride in a group consituted entirely of beginners then there is some room for added danger (and this does happen increasingly with the current trend away from the club scene and for people to do all their riding alone, and then just jump into a 4th cat race) but trust me, even if you put me alone in a group of 30-odd complete beginners, after 5 minutes I'd have yelled at them all enough to keep them moving in straight lines and staying tight to the wheel in front. It's not rocket science.

If op wants to race his bike, then he needs to get in a bunch. End of. :)

no, it would eliminate racing altogether. that is unless you were to solo right of the start to victory or just sit off the back and purposely finish minutes behind the pack.
It doesn't eliminate time trials.

I don't see myself really wanting to do time trials. I want endurance races with the pack. Mano-el-mano. In 2 or 3 years I'd love to be racing cat 4 or cat 3. You can't get there by playing safe and hoping someone will wave you on through to the lead pack. I just don't see how avoiding a learning situation will help you learn. It doesn't sound rational to me at all.

I was told the best way to learn is to start by learning how to draft and maintain a 2 person paceline. You start by getting about 6-10 inches of the guy in front of you. At this point you want to concentrate on staying straight on his/her wheel. As you progress and get more comfortable, you inch closer and closer until you are about 2-4 inches away. I've seen pros draft even closer. Eventually you'll get a feel for the drafting effect and how close you have to be. To slow down, you soft-pedal or come out of the draft a little bit to adjust speed. Now once you get that down, you can add a person or two (who know pack racing) and work on paceline and group skills. The key is to start far apart and to progress to being closer together. I'll admit, there's nothing like learning in the middle of a race, but it would be less stressful to learn on a training ride. In turns in large packs, you would soft pedal to slow down instead of slamming on your brakes. In a pinch you could feather your brakes, but be ready for the guy behind you. Pack riding is about flow and trusting the guys in front aren't going to do anything abrupt.

I'm sure there are some general "tricks of the trade" so-to-speak for how to ride in close-quarters and I'd rather not learn them the hard way any more than I have to. I understand that the most practical way to learn is to get out there and do it, but I don't want to be the guy getting cussed at and bringing others down just because I made an error that could've/should've been avoided.

One person mentioned not overlapping front and rear wheels; another mentioned no sudden braking. It's stuff like that that I find very useful. Better to already have the concept in my head when I first head out there than to learn from the school of hard-knocks when it's not required.Yes, there are some "tricks of the trade." First, understand that if you overlap your front wheel with another rider's back wheel and you touch wheels for any reason, you're going down. He will only feel a little bump, but you'll go down. The main reason most riders overlap wheels is fear. They fear getting out of the draft and getting dropped. So, when you're learning to ride in a group, back off a bit and give yourself at least 1/2 wheel diameter gap. Second, keep your fingers wrapped around your back brake lever at all times. You may have to slow down quickly at any time and that's not the time to be reaching for the brake lever. If you do use your brake, don't jam it. Just tap it a bit to lose a little speed. Third, learn to anticipate when the guy in front of you is likely to slow down a bit. For example, if the group is approaching a hill, he may stand to climb out of the saddle. When he stands up, there is a momentary deceleration and you can easily run up on him and overlap his wheel. If you ride with the same guys repeatedly, you will come to learn their habits, but in the meantime you should assume they will stand at some point on a climb. The drafting benefit drops considerably on a climb, so it's not really a problem to open a larger gap and it's safer. Fourth, some riders are just not smooth in a paceline. They are constantly surging and falling back. Other riders (usually the best) are smooth as silk and they maintain a very steady cadence and pace. Identify these latter types and try and ride on their wheel. Some guys I ride with are so smooth I think I could take a nap riding on their wheel. Have fun.