I have a couple of pals who are dreadful faffers.  They tend to say – meet at 10, start ride 1030.  I reply – I’ll see you at 1025 ready to roll.  I do whatever is needed to my bikes at the end of each ride and check them over the night before a ride.

Roadie clubs have it right, “ride departs at 9am”, and it does. No one is upset by this because there’s no expectation that everyone else will be happy to stand around waiting for you to do what they were organized enough to do 15 minutes ago.

And from the article; 29 and 37. You do have time, you’re not carrying too much, it is better for your local environment, society and the planet, you will get fitter.

As a reformed faffer, I’m now always ready to ride within a few minutes of arrival.

How best to manage the faffers you ride with:

Merciless mockery until they learn better. Never did me any harm.

Having a “wheels rolling” time might work for weekly riding groups, but it’s a bit anal for when you’re just meeting your pals for a ride and catch-up.

I actually think the faffers and those who are late are a bit rude and clearly don’t value my (or indeed their) time.

Like many on here, I’m pretty time poor so if the ride is meant to start at 10am I want to be riding at 10am. If I’ve got 2 hours spare from 10am I want to be using every minute of that for the ride. If you’re going to faff, do it in your own time.

I also, somewhat controversially, apply this to coffee stops as well. Put the coffee stop at the end of the ride and those short of time can skip it without impacting on riding time. Coffee stops in the middle of a ride are wasting valuable riding time.

Yeah, I tend to allow for faffage in all plans and just remember that we do this because we enjoy it and then I try not to be too much of a bear-with-a-sore-head about it :o)

We’ve started doing “ready to roll at x time” too, people can then work backwards for the journey and faffing. Obviously if you have a major issue you call somebody and more often than not people will hang back.

Especially at this time of year with the light fading and it getting cold, it has to be done.

just remember that we do this because we enjoy it

I quite agree, most of us enjoy the riding the most, hence trying to the maximum amount of it in the time allowed.
Less faff, more riding.

Mountain bike group ride – start meeting at X, set off at X+15
Road bike group ride leave at X

Not so much in bad weather.

Thats key at this time of year, no one wants to be stood around getting cold because someone didn’t do their faffing in their own time

Mountain bike group ride – start meeting at X, set off at X+15

Non faffers turn up at x+ 14?  thats what I would do.  I am not going to stand around for 15 minutes while others faff

But in a group of 10 that’s collectively wasted an hour of their time.

What’s the going hourly rate these days for acting as a ride companion? 🙂

Faffage/lateness is directly proportional to how close a friend it is in my experience

Most definitely this.

I’m going to name and shame and mention the fact that when it comes to my usual riding mate I always build in what I refer to as ‘The Vortex of Swinney’.

The Vortex is a time portal that exists, like a black hole, to suck in about half an hour, pre-ride, every ride, for fitting brake pads, changing tyres, trying to find shoes, filling camelbacks, charging lights, feeding the dog and all manner of other faffage. 😀

I was intentionally 30min late for one mate as he was an hour of faff and lateness late last ride.

He was the car ahead of me into the car park.

He is perfectly competent and runs a team that maintain. . £££££ machines  for a living.

I just don’t get why he can’t be on time for social stuff.

I lived with another mate at uni. I used to tell him we had to be somewhere an hour before we actually had to arrive. I’m not sure he ever noticed. We were still regularly late!

The Vortex is a time portal that exists, like a black hole, to suck in about half an hour, pre-ride, every ride, for fitting brake pads, changing tyres, trying to find shoes, filling camelbacks, charging lights, feeding the dog and all manner of other faffage.

OK – what is the *worst* faffage example you have?

I did have someone turn up and set about changing tyres as we were due to leave….

Faffing is a bit rude IMHO – do it on your own time, not mine.

I’ve known some world class faffers over the yrs. One bloke kept me waiting for 90 mins, that was was the last time I rode with him & pretty much spoke to him!

Number 1 for me is: don’t meet at someone’s house, or car park if they will be driving. Meet somewhere they must ride to – 1km up the road from the car park, or a convenient landmark midway between where you all live.. That way they must finish faffing before they set off to ride to meeting point for agreed time.

Roadie clubs have it right, “ride departs at 9am”, and it does.

Not the club I roll with! (although TBF they might have changed, not been on a roadie club run for a good long while).

They’re was always at least 10 mins of chatting, deciding on leaders, route, club announcements etc. so people started getting there 10 mins late so they didn’t get cold hanging about. Then the club announcements, chatting, route decisions were delayed until all the expected attendees arrived. 😠 Absolutely did my crust in and is one of the reasons I stopped going!

Meet somewhere they must ride to

We always do this with our regular Tuesday night ride, we’re normally riding within 5 minutes of the agreed time.

I’m terrible for being prompt. Try as I might, I’m just virtually never late for anything barring an act of Dog or something.

If someone says meet at half nine, I’ll be there by at least 9.15. I don’t obsess about time in the slightest, but somehow,I just am able to be on time and be ready without effort or thinking about it.

I used to get picked up for riding by a mate with a van. He’d say a time, and instead of him ever having to knock the door, I’d be at the end of the road, ready with bike and kit so he didn’t even have to turn off the main drag.

Now I’m the one with the van and always pick up a mate. We’ve been doing about the same every weekend for over ten years, and I still have to knock, he’s still not ready, bike not out, bag not out.
I usually just let it slide but have to admit it irks me sometimes, especially as I’m doing all the driving, and getting the bike wash kit in as well.
I just don’t get it.

I don’t think folks are intentionally rude or anything, but somehow their brains work in a way that seemingly makes it impossible for them to learn that you don’t enjoy waiting for them week in, week out.