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Why would you care if someone drafts you ? it doesn't make you slower. Apart from the remote possibility they may tag you if something happened at lights etc, i can't see why it would make the slightest difference ?
Because even in the absence of any other points, it's creepy as f***.
Would you jog to catch up with a stranger on the towpath, then stop behind them and just walk in step with them breathing down their neck?
I have no problems either working together for a break and to pass by some miles quicker, or if they ask if I mind them sitting on my wheel for a few minutes as they're knackered. Or if it's an Audax and there's a whole stream of people heading in the same direction. The only (not getting attacked by a creepy stranger) danger is to the rider behind if they're stupid enough to half wheel, or to both if the rider in front can't pedal smoothly but you soon spot if they're a competent roadie or a lost MTBer and can drop back / pull out a bit / just let them ride off.
But people who just sit there silently are just plain creeps.
Bin Dun, (at least once every 4 months since the dawn of time) someone not really accustomed to riding on the road gets wound up by them wot wears the lycra and has to tell the internetz.
If you're really that spooked by someone travelling in the same direction as you in closer proximity, give 'em the old elbow flick to pass and then coast so they can believe they've Dropped you like a real pro 😉
Personally it doesn't bother me, normally people will pass if you're going too slowly for them and/or the passing traffic leaves sufficient space for them to do so.
But honestly riding in close proximity to another person on a bike isn't actually that hard, unless one of you chooses to make it difficult.
I guess this isn't happening to you as you say they are blocking your line of sight but I thought I was being drafted through the city centre the other day due to loud freewheel behind me but when I did the shoulder check to move around a parked vehicle I saw they were actually a bike length or two behind.
If I catch up to someone marginally slower or at an inopportune time to overtake then that's generally what I do, just stay a few lengths behind. I find it a bit awkward to pass someone when there's only a marginal difference in speed and then have to smash it to make it not look like a "must get in front" billy big balls move. That is extra conflicting when overtaking a female who is similar speed, I don't like to be the creepy lurk over their shoulder guy but I also don't want to be the bloke who must pass the woman just because.
A while ago I was riding to work in a pretty strong side wind. Just had my head down trying not to get blown about. It was also raining so I had my hood up. I was in a cycle lane that was about to end and did a shoulder check before moving into the road proper.
I was very surprised to see someone sitting with their front wheel about 30cm away from my back wheel. As in, his front wheel was level with my back wheel and 30cm to the side.
Just as well I did a shoulder check instead of just moving over.
Bin Dun, (at least once every 4 months since the dawn of time) someone not really accustomed to riding on the road gets wound up by them wot wears the lycra and has to tell the internetz.
If you're really that spooked by someone travelling in the same direction as you in closer proximity, give 'em the old elbow flick to pass and then coast so they can believe they've Dropped you like a real pro
Personally it doesn't bother me, normally people will pass if you're going too slowly for them and/or the passing traffic leaves sufficient space for them to do so.
But honestly riding in close proximity to another person on a bike isn't actually that hard, unless one of you chooses to make it difficult.
Thats fine if they are paying attention and nothing exciting happens, on my commute I had two people sat on my wheel, a chap in the road on an mtb hopped up the curb into the cycle lane in front of me. I braked very gently to check my speed and not run into the guy in front. The two people behind both ran into me and ended sat in the cycle lane.
They were then shouting abuse at the guy on the mountain bike.
Life is not a peleton go and play roadies if you want just not near me.
If someone annoying starts drafting me without permission I very very steadily start to slow down. And then they either don’t notice or bugger off.
or I become erratic
Anyway, sensible solution is a cycling version of one of these
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I agree it's kind of creepy and certainly feels dangerous.
I'm not sure this works in every conceivbale situation, but on the rare occasion it happens to me I just slow down a bit until they pass rather than let it stress me out. I'd be surprsed if it impacts my journey time by as much as a minute.
Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with this term, what's "half wheel"?
I’m afraid it’s a misuse of the term. What is meant is “overlapping”. Half wheeling is when you ride alongside someone and keep pushing the pace. IE You move half a wheel ahead, they accelerate to stay level with you, you accelerate again to stay half a wheel ahead and the process repeats itself as the speed gradually ramps up.
HTH
Ah, thank you.
A mate and I do this on foot. We both walk quickly, we often end up where I'm trying to keep up with him, he's trying to keep up with me, increasingly faster until one of us goes "FFS slow down a bit will you!"
Drafting strangers/being drafted by strangers is situationally ok, in my book:
Narrow road, lots of traffic, lots of junctions, lots of predictability, non-roadies, shitty weather, poor road surface. Nope
Wide, open, country roads, low traffic levels, fellow roadie(s), good weather and road surface. Sure
For sure, it's nice to ask/be asked and get a good tow and rhythm...
The most disturbing thing about this thread is no-one seems to be able to spell peloton.
I'd never draft a stranger without asking, outside of an organised event where most people tend to expect it. If someone drafts me without asking I'll stare back at them while veering wildly left and right until they give up or I fall off, taking them with me.
someone not really accustomed to riding on the road
ooooOOOoooooOOOooohhhh
How many more decades of riding in London do you reckon I'll need before I "become accustomed" to it, oh cycling guru? 😂
I got rear ended by someone drafting me when I stopped for a traffic light they had thought they wouldn't have time to stop for
Same here. In my case a zebra crossing. I was unsympathetic as they lay there in the road.
Anyway, this thread seems to have a fair number of people keen to tell us how fast they cycle on their commute. I'll duck out now for a good swoon.
I'm the only regular daily cyclist I see on my daily commutes. There's a couple of other cyclists I might see once or twice a week, a third once or twice a month. I'm well jel, it's so lonely being the only one. A month or so back I was nearly rear ended by a e-scooter-ist - I'd decided to practice my track stand skills on a traffic island as there was a car coming - I probably could have got across haha. Didn't even know they were behind me until I heard a sudden skid close behind. Informed him I nearly defecated my panties.
10 years ago when commuting by bike in Switzerland 9/10 you'd get someone behind you. They see you as a Windschatten (wind shadow). I used to see it as a challenge and try and lose them..I usually did except the ebikes. Similarly I'd sometimes do the same.
Got very fit.
They’re making you more aero. Just flick your elbow and ease slightly, then get on their wheel. Happy for anyone to draft, they won’t knock you off if you cross wheels. You will however take them down if you do.
Erm...since when is 16.5mph "bimbling"??? #humblebrag
Since I bought an ebike!
Most people drafting are getting something for nothing, hence cheating , which is a lot of what seems to be upsetting people. But it you're on an ebike, you're already cheating so just share those volts with a smile 😎
Some w@nker on a pristine xc hardtail that's clearly never seen off road let alone the sdw mud, wearing full on roadie gear and white(!) disco slippers, and likely on a 5 mile loop, who comes past a very muddy me, 30 miles down, - and doesn't say good morning, clearly trying to burn me off, then yeah I'm going to draft him until my turnoff, no matter how hard he tries.
If your not knocking out 5 watts per kg are you even a roadie?
pristine xc hardtail that's clearly never seen off road let alone the sdw mud, wearing full on roadie gear and white(!) disco slippers
Errr, that was me for 10+ years.
Except it was usually the beginnings of a 30-40 mile offroad ride... And what's wrong with keeping your kit and bike clean and wearing clothes suitable for the job at hand, rather than riding around on a filthy, knackered bike in baggy shit that holds mud and lets drafts in?
At college back in the late eighties, I had a quite low powered moped. I got drafted by a roadie on one occasion 🙁
People seem to be making this unnecessarily complicated. The thing with people properly drafting you - as in sitting just off your rear wheel for maximum benefit - is that it introduces an element of risk to you, over which you have only a little control. If you don't know and trust the draftee, then you have no idea if they are vaguely competent and likely to clip your wheel etc.
You also need to take their reduced stopping distance into account when braking yourself. If you brake hard and unexpectedly then they cannot react in time. That's reaction times for you.
If you're fine with that, then fine, but it's as well to at least understand that that's the case rather than doing the whole 'what's the problem?' thing, which suggests that maybe you haven't thought it through.
I don't personally get really cross about it, I just ease off and wave them past. And I wouldn't draft a stranger, because similarly, I don't know if they're competent or, like some of the posters on this thread, random enough to deliberately - or otherwise - tow me at speed into a pothole that could leave my front teeth all over the road.
My hot tip, for the Whitton and the like, is that people in well worn club kit are generally reasonably competent in close proximity. Personally I don't ride in big groups a lot, so I'm aware of my own, and other people's, limitations in that situation.
You should change to my commute. Only other rider I ever see is an old fella with a long white beard, smells like a charity shop. He sometimes cuts off a corner up a one-way section and beats me to the hill, but I grit my teeth and pass him a bit further on 😀
Where is this, I need to live there!!
I met the guy with the white beard. Rural Argyll. I was most impressed with his triple Ever Ready twin D cell front lights.
I never let folk draft me. it puts me in danger. They will be told to go away and procreate focefully
I've often wondered what is the acceptable distance to follow someone? If it's windy and you set off from the same point it can happen that you can keep up with someone from 2m back but don't have the beans to go past them.
2 second gap as the highway code states
But if you're in a car, would you care another car is behind you ?
Not the best analogy. No one likes a tailgater.
This is true but oddly there are plenty who don't mind being the tailgaters.
Back on topic. . . Some people ride road bikes, they don't "roadie".
I've been riding road bikes for 35+ years but I'm not a roadie. On road I'm generally just me or me + sons. My group riding was more CTC club run in my youth and that has a totally different dynamic. All these implied responsibilities etc. are news to me as someone who doesn't group ride.
That said I still wouldn't do what the antagonist(s) in the OP did because despite knowing none of the unwritten rules of chain-gangs it seems just manners/common sense not to.
Common sense is not really so common.
Wouldn’t particularly bother me, but if I was going steady enough for someone to close up then I’d expect them to push past rather than sit on.
Its what I’d do, I wouldn’t sit on a strangers wheel as I prefer to have confidence in the wheels I follow.
I guess I’d sit up a bit which should give them enough incentive to go past.
Luckily with the combination of there being few riders on my routes around Glasgow and me riding outside commute times it has never being an issue. Being slow helps as well. Anyone catches me they get past without difficulty. I wouldn't like someone sitting on my wheel for safety reasons. If it happened I would just freewheel until they went past.
No one sits on my wheel on my commute. It's a very short commute and is basically a plummet to work, so no one can keep up with me in that direction. On the way home it's a grind up a steep steep hill and there's never any other cyclists around. That said whilst I am not comfortable being drafted nor do I draft other people.
As is the case in the drivers Vs cyclists 'debate', there is no 'bastard roadies', just inconsiderate folk.Your making the mistake of seeing somebody do something annoying, identifying a subgroup that they belong to , which you don't, and latching onto it. It's called 'othering' and usually doesn't end well.
I have a habit of bunny hopping potholes when I'm on solo rides - cos I'll always be an mtber at heart really 😁
About 3 years ago I was on a ride on Exmoor, properly in my own world, keeping a nice pace and feeling fine. I was unwittingly being drafted, and the first I knew of it was swearing from behind as he dropped his front wheel into a pothole I'd just hopped over.
I did stop to see if he was ok, but rode off when he swore at me, apparently it was my fault 😆
This used to happen to me *all the time* with my 10km commute to Oxford. Trouble was, I was on a 3-speed Raleigh Hercules, with 16 inch wheels and SPDs, yet somehow being drafted by someone on a road bike in lycra. I literally could not fathom how someone could live with themselves like that - drafting some guy on a shopper bike.
More so, when I got tired of being drafted, I used to drop them by kicking hard - up and over one of the bridges on the A40, which amazingly worked 99% of the time.
Anyway, it's lovely living somewhere now where this sort of weird UK sh*t doesn't happen. Nobody cycles to work here at all in NZ, so a morning's bike commute is free of strange cycling politics like this. Although, because I don't need to commute to work by bike here, due to loads of parking availability and no traffic jams, I drive to work in the safe, warm comfort of a car most days anyway 🤣
Where is this, I need to live there!!
Rural Waterloovilleshire 😛
Nobody cycles to work here at all in NZ...I drive to work in the safe, warm comfort of a car most days anyway 🤣
My condolences.
I’ve got Rotorua Forest - one of the world’s top MTB destinations - literally right outside my office, with 160km of purpose-built trails. I'm all good thanks 🤣