How to Ride in a Group

Yesterday I did the Journey for Autism, a ride in Macon to benefit children in Middle Georgia who have autism.  Not only is it for a great cause, but also this has become one of my favorite group rides each year.  That's because my friend Jake does such a fantastic job as the ride leader.  He controls the pace so that we all stay together, and the weaker riders like me don't have to kill ourselves to hang on.  There were about two dozen of us who rode together, averaging almost 21 mph for 102 miles!

Recently I read a cycling article that gave a good explanation of riding effectively in a group.  Don't ride like you're on cruise control in your car; ride just the opposite.  The purpose of a car's cruise control is to maintain a constant speed.  Therefore, the accelerator pushes down for increased power going uphill, and it eases off downhill so that the car doesn't go too fast.   I've seen so many cyclists erroneously take the same approach at the front of the peloton, hammering up the hills and coasting(!) downhill.  It might seem counterintuitive, but the key is that you're not trying to maintain constant speed in a group ride.  You want to maintain constant power.  Too many cyclists have no concept of this, but Jake was valedictorian of his graduating class in the Chad Madan School of Group Riding.

By the way, a true group ride like this is different from a ride like Tuesday Worlds, which is really a practice race.  All's fair in love, war, and Tuesday Worlds: surges, attacks, etc.

One of the rest stops on the Journey Ride had a photo op that I simply couldn't resist.

Don't have a cow, man.

Also at this rest stop, Jake drank some Gatorade that didn't sit well with him.  Therefore, he let a couple of other guys pull for about the last hour.  One of those was Stony.  Stony is an excellent cyclist, but I think he graduated from some Elbonian school of group riding.  He has only one setting when he rides: Stony Grinder.  It was definitely a harder effort for the last part of the ride, and I was happy to stay with the group to the end.

We had a delicious spaghetti meal after the ride.  I sat with my buddies Monte and Nate.  Nate built a backwards bike for Monte, who had it set up as a fundraiser for the Ocmulgee Mountain Bike Association (OMBA).

For $5 you got three tries at riding the backwards bike a mere 10 feet.  The prize was $50.  The trick is that it really is backwards; when you steer right, the bike turns left, and vice versa.  I didn't try it, but apparently almost no one can ride it even such a short distance because it messes with your head so much.

Check out Nate's signature on the front of the backwards bike

It's kind of appropriate that the backwards bike was at the Journey Ride because of the seemingly backwards way a truly good group ride works: easier on the uphills, harder on the downhills.