How not to ride your bike

So let me begin by saying this. I've been riding bikes seriously for a while. Not as long as most, but I'd like to consider myself a fairly well rounded rider as the only aspect of bikes I havn't really tried yet involves 45lb+ bikes and 10' drops off of cliffs. So, I guess you could say I'm a bike snob, not like Bikesnobnyc. I'm just a dude who likes bikes a lot.

So on Sunday I went to the Beltline group ride. It was $20 and the money went to Atlanta Bike Coalition. Atlanta Bike Coalition is doing a ton of awesome stuff to promote riding in the city. I'm glad they are making waves and putting together stuff like this. So me and Jim went to see what was up. We had spent the previous day riding our face off in the rain and running around Athens with Chris. So we show up and there are tons of people. I'd say 2-300ish roughly. So we pay our monies and get to our corral to get goin. Someone starts talking after everyone registers and talks and talks and talks. No one can hear them, inside jokes are said, a few people chuckle. Someone finally screams "less talking more riding." This man did not listen and kept talking. I'm glad he's keeping everyone informed, but most of the people there you can bet read the website and are up to date, else they wouldn't have heard of the event. Eventually this guy wraps it up and we begin to ride.

I realize very quickly. This was going to be like a dentist visit. My legs were fairly blasted from the previous days activities, but we weren't riding hard or fast. It wasn't even moderate. I spent more time riding the brakes than pedaling, even on climbs. So we eventually get to a stopping point, after riding an average of 10mph, to the other side of Atlantic station by the water reservoir. We waited about 20 minutes to let everyone catch up. I kid you not, 20 minutes. There were about 120+ riders in this group, which was the "long ride" set to a distance of 28 miles. After the next leg I take Jim's advice and get to the front. I quickly get cut off by someone on a downhill as he gets in front of me and proceeds to slam the brakes. I was annoyed.

How not to ride your bike in a group:
-If you don't ride in the city, and don't know how to change lanes or check over both shoulders, then don't ride in the city.
-If you haven't shower don't keep trying to get in front of me
-Don't ride two abreast next to me and steer me right into a sewer grate and curb
-Don't hammer on a downhill then get in front of me and coast/brake after you cut me off
-Don't ride painfully slow
-Don't complain that riding in the city is for "crazies"
-Try your best to hold a line even on super flat and wide open roads
-Don't be an unpredictable climber who thrash their bikes back and forth like flag semaphore
-After I call out potholes don't yell "thanks for calling the pothole out!" in total sarcasm as you plow through it (for the record there are infinite pot holes in Atlanta)


Before the ride started the guy who kept talking was giving rules of the road and just things you should do. I guess a lot of people just never do group rides and don't know how to deal. After riding the whole day before with a very well formed group where I got pulled all day I felt spoiled and forgot that not everyone does ridiculous stuff like that or knows how to handle their bikes. It was only last year that I did my first group ride and I still get dropped on every single one I go on, but at least I have some experience and know general manners. I guess everyone has to learn sometime. I'm glad I joined a team and have done things I have.

Anyways, I don't want to do another one of those rides. It was a glorified Critical Mass. They might as well have had police escorts. I understand this wasn't supposed to be some fast roadie ride. I get that, but the size was just too much to deal with. I am just amazed at how many people out there that are totally clueless. No wonder cars hate cyclists. I ended up leaving the ride somewhere around mile 10. I couldn't take it.

I'm Bob and I'm a bike snob. Ride hard, ride smart, ride confident.

/end rant.

This is probably the most disjointed blog. I can never focus enough to make everything outline properly. So if this seems like an 11 year old with ADD writing, you're probably right.