Crazy legs, the scenario you describe does happen, no reason to get annoyed about it, just stop and give them a bit of time or overtake if you can. I’d never drop someone from a ride, that’s just rude.

It’s not always possible to pass someone, at some point the MTB etiquette thing has to be explained to some people too.

Question for you, how do all these roadies get “the knowledge”? Does it come in a book? Surely at some point everyone is a newbie and needs to be educated, not dropped. Personally, I’ve never ridden in a group before on the road and would definitely not be confident at the front. I do have bottles though. I am assuming that some roadie clubs are less interested in this stuff?

You learn by doing it (although yes, the information is widely available in roadie training books). I did similar on my first ever road ride (brand new road bike too), eager to try it out I’d be off the front on every hill climb, had no idea of how to ride and ended up dying a death and being more or less literally pushed back home by a club mate. During this he explained the basics to me and I listened, took his advice on board and learnt to ride in a group. That meant I could then race with the team, know what was happening and enjoy it more.
Had I continued doing the idiot thing of jumping off the front, not doing a turn etc, the club would eventually have just told me not to bother riding with them again…

how odd. When i joined a road club last year they explained all the signals and rules of the road. Told me i didnt need to take turns on the front til i was confident and they even made sure no one was dropped. I had baggys and peak lid and mtb shoes and they didnt mention it. Now after a year i know all the rules enjoy my turns on the front and have figured out lycra makes sense ive lost the peak but still wear mtb shoes lol 🙂

firestarter: exactly – most clubs are quite patient about it and keen to educate, inform and encourage new riders.

yup and im very happy with mine :-)theyve even got me interested in the tt eve league starting this month lol

So most clubs wouldn’t insist on a new rider doing their turn, then drop them when they wouldn’t? Sounds like the OP’s club is the exception rather than the rule. Might give it a go when I’m a bit fitter.

cynic-al – Member
A real shame the op didn’t present his point better in the first instance, but I expect the usual anti-roadie prejudices would have come out.

Al, I’m sure anyone with half a brain saw his point, but (and I think I speak for the majority), the way he portrayed it – valid, or not – gave most folk the impression, that he was in fact the realisation of everyones pre-concieved stereotypical impression of a roadie cock.

Anyway – I may be prejudiced against raod riding per se, as I’ve done plenty of it in my youth – and it’s bloody boring (my opinion and I wouldn’t berate anyone for thinking otherwise). One of our best riding buddies does get his fair share of abuse for his road riding tendencies though. 😀

I have no real life experience of a real ‘roadie’ group ride, or it’s participants – however, if more than a small minority come across like our Dave, then I’m happy with my chilled out off roading buddies thank you very much.

I remember my first ( and only) road bike club outing. Turned up with my new road bike, baggie shorts, spd’s n mtb shoes, unpeaked lid. I was there, ready for this ride. I’ve seen tour de france, watched some Eurosport bike riding, i was even happy with my general high fitness. I could ride an average 18mph all day, could sprint when needed to. This was it, it was (bloody) 9am on a cold winter morning, my friend who was a roadie told me when and where and i was there. They all (part from 1 other) had there winter hack bikes, me…. full carbon training/race bike. Well, what can i say……..64 miles and 5.5 hours later i was back. We averaged about 12 miles per hour and i was bored as hell. I done more than my fair share on the front, but where i was ready to train at high speeds, most of them spun and gabbed all day. The hills, ah the hills. I would attack them from the front, a few would tag on but by the top i was alone and would have to wait 3-4 minutes for everyone else to join up. Bottom line, i dressed like a mtb’er, done my time at the front, cahatted to EVERY single other biker, but most of the riders were just so slow. I hear that club is now separating into speed groups. May go back then

Why on earth would anyone want to ride along with 30-40 guys in skintight fluorescent gear sniffing up his arse? Why on earth would anyone want to ride along in skintight fluorescent gear sniffing up the arse of the guy in front? Wouldn’t taking a bus be better?

Sad ain’t it?

As a training ride for an mtb’r that was probably a pretty good one I would think.
Long distance with some strength work on the hills. He’ll probably do pretty well on his next enduro ride/race.
Sounds like he was on his own agenda but using the roadies as an excuse to put some distance on his ride.

Great thread! Well started OP, though I’m wondering if you haven’t been a roadie very long…..

It’s the job of the bunch engines to tow the group along. They do that because they’re macho and need to show everyone how strong they are. It’s perfectly acceptable to sprint past the engines whenever you see fit. Here’s an example – say there’s a big crew out, perhaps 30 riders, and there’s a cafe stop. With a mile or so to go it’s normal to pass the engines in order to get to the cafe first, and not end up in a queue.

Plus, being first to the cafe means that your bike is closest to the wall. Meanwhile the dumb engines bike is easiest to get to, so he’s first away, on the front, where he needs to be and likes to be.

SB 🙂
PS – I learnt my roadie stuff with the Liverpool clubs back in the 80s. Anyone else remember the ‘Two Mills’ cafe, or the Crits at Birkenhead Park? Those were the days……..yeah and in the winter they use to let us ride through the Mersey tunnel…..

epicyclo – Member

Why on earth would anyone want to ride along with 30-40 guys in skintight fluorescent gear sniffing up his arse? Why on earth would anyone want to ride along in skintight fluorescent gear sniffing up the arse of the guy in front? Wouldn’t taking a bus be better?

Sad ain’t it?

why comment like this? OP is v strange, but its cycling dont forget.

Good god the whole roadie/mtb’er thing gets on my nerves.

Don’t any of you read viz?

‘Attacking’ in group club rides doing a 100, hmmmm not the done thing at all. IME the race group training rides have always just been about high pace steady good quality riding.
I think I’d be a bit pee’d off if I were maintaining a good pace only to find someone trying to blow it appart on the hills.
Reminds me a bit of when a new guy tanked off during the handicap lap of a crit, when we could have taken all day to get the one lap headstart.
Annoying but he did’nt do it again.

Ok, I’ll try and explain it a bit more rationally and see if you get it then.

On a long road ride the group tries to cover distance well by taking it in turns on the front. The front is where you push hardest against the air and wind. Therefore the riders on the front do more work than the rest. The general idea is that if you all take turns to do a bit, you spread the effort and the group moves faster as a whole. This works to a lesser extent on the hills but keeping the group together as much as possible helps.

Some riders are not as strong as others and consequently can’t do as long on the front. Being a nice bunch, we kind of accept this and the stronger riders will spend longer on the front to compensate.

forget to explain to us all that a bike has two wheels and pedals
i’ve printed this explanation off in case i get senile dementia

Camelbaks?
Peaked helmets?
I still think black socks are a major no no.

black socks, and “mountain biker right leg” all major no no’s

Seems to me some of these – serious – roadies could do with taking up a motto from the great John Cooper Clark as their ‘raison d’être’

‘There’s more to life than fun’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z80XDK1QMX4

You don’t want to go enjoying yourself too much guys – it’s not good for you 😉

Also it’s an assumption to think all road club sunday rides will be fast.
Some are plain slow and social and others have two or three groups going out at diferent paces from slow to mental.
As a pointer there was a poster that maintains 18MPH average all day, I can’t do that so I hop from one club ride to another depending on how I feel. That guy probably needs to get in with the fast boys, most road clubs have elites or National standard riders even Olympians and sometimes up and coming Pros so they probably need to be out with them.

I must say though I’ve always found riders wether road or MTB to be able to switch from one dicipline to another without a problem.

Good god the whole roadie/mtb’er thing gets on my nerves.

It’s silly to have an automatic ‘all roadies are ****’ attitude, but it does seem from many people’s experience (and the OP) that some road clubs are weird, unfriendly, old fashioned, cliquey affairs, with secret etiquette and unwritten rules, along with gear/bike snobbery.

I like riding my bike on the road, but the idea of joining a club really doesn’t appeal. Mind you the idea of joining a mtb club doesn’t really appeal either.

100.

Before the internet, David would have just made a mildly amusing cafe stop anecdote about this incident, and that would have been that, he wouldn’t have hundreds of people hating on him and reinforcing their prejudices either way. But hey. 🙂

I do most of my group riding on the road rather than off. I’ve always found my club to be very pleasant and sociable, without being regimented or cliquey, but I’m conscious that others on here have not had the same experience of it.

They had a word and now I spend time on the front and give it some on hills as well, you get some grudging respect for that.

i’d rather go out by myself than with a group where the best you could hope for is grudging respect! sounds like a blast… 😆

The flipside of the OP –>

Road Riders on Mountain Bike Club Rides[/b]

Please don’t turn up with bottles that fall out of the cage on every bump, sit at the back for 10 miles apart from attacking like a maniac on each downhill and thinking we love your awesome descending ability when you are actually utterly crap….oh and if you want to know why we dropped you on the last few miles we’d be happy to explain it to you AFTER KEPT OUT OF OUR WAY ON THE TECHNICAL BITS YOU CAN’T RIDE FOR TOFFEE!

🙄

Reminds me of a book i just read, this guy called Landis who apparantly was a mtb’er initially turned up at some Rd race in his wolly socks and tracky bottoms and totally un-cool bike with dinner plate front ring, casually works his way to the start line. the usualy comments ‘Who the Fu** are you?’ so mr landis says anyone who can keep up i will buy them dinner – howles of lafter from the pack, turns out mr landis didnt have to buy anyone dinner and had plenty of time for a plate of EPO before 2nd place came in.

What club are you riding with Mick?

Reminds me of a book i just read, this guy called Landis who apparantly was a mtb’er initially turned up at some Rd race in his wolly socks and tracky bottoms and totally un-cool bike with dinner plate front ring, casually works his way to the start line. the usualy comments ‘Who the Fu** are you?’ so mr landis says anyone who can keep up i will buy them dinner – howles of lafter from the pack, turns out mr landis didnt have to buy anyone dinner and had plenty of time for a plate of EPO before 2nd place came in.

I’m not sure if someone raised this point having only skim read… I know that ‘anybody’ can sit at the back for 100miles and cling on – but. He was on an MTB and you reckoned you were averaging 20mph!

That’s fast going on an MTB slipstreaming or not.

Bitterness me thinks. If he was that quick on the MTB he’d utterly destroy you on a road bike. Regularly commuting on both, my 20 min commute on the road bike takes 35 mins on the MTB – that’s the effort difference so kudos to him!

dunno about roadies with no skill………………

A lot of the good ones seem to have mored to road bikes from other bikes (mainly BMX)

scotia – Member
“epicyclo – Member
Why on earth would anyone want to ride along with 30-40 guys in skintight fluorescent gear sniffing up his arse? …etc…”

why comment like this? OP is v strange, but its cycling dont forget.

Good god the whole roadie/mtb’er thing gets on my nerves.

But why? Serious question.

I can understand track, time trials, touring and triathlons, but I really can’t see what pleasure there is in riding in a tight group totally dependent on someone else’s reactions and judgement. I can’t stand having someone on my back wheel because I that limits what I can do on the bike. I’m not interested in being so close to the person in front that a large chunk of my concentration is going on maintaining that position rather than enjoying the ride.

As for wearing shiny technicolour clothing with “sponsors” adverts, that’s really a fashion thing, so I shouldn’t criticise because I have never been cool (on the good authority of my teenage daughter), so I’ll withdraw that jibe 🙂

It seems it comes down to roadie cycling is a group activity, and mtb is a personal activity (even when there’s a mob of you)

a roadie actually smiled and waved at us the other day when we were out on the MTB tandem? Is this a first? Usually they pretend not to see us

But why? Serious question.

I can understand track, time trials, touring and triathlons, but I really can’t see what pleasure there is in riding in a tight group totally dependent on someone else’s reactions and judgement. I can’t stand having someone on my back wheel because I that limits what I can do on the bike. I’m not interested in being so close to the person in front that a large chunk of my concentration is going on maintaining that position rather than enjoying the ride.

As for wearing shiny technicolour clothing with “sponsors” adverts, that’s really a fashion thing, so I shouldn’t criticise because I have never been cool (on the good authority of my teenage daughter), so I’ll withdraw that jibe [:)]

It seems it comes down to roadie cycling is a group activity, and mtb is a personal activity (even when there’s a mob of you)

Seriously? you are not adult enough to accept a sport for what it is? How old are you, 12?

Get a grip and maybe accept road biking along with all the other sorts. If you’re never going to do it yourself it shouldnt bother you. Ok so the OP is very strange and i dont agree with his opinions, but still youre acting just as bad by doing the same thing..or dont you get that?!

I’ll bet the idea for this thread started in some cafe during a roadie group ride…

As someone who considers himself a cyclist rather than a roadie or mtber (and with a good enough pedigree in road riding/racing to be able to comment from a view of knowing something about it), I find this thread says so much about why the road racing scene in this country is dying – almost regardless of whether the OP is trolling or not, there are people who do think like this.

For some reason a significant proportion (and I’ll be very clear on that — not ALL so please don’t assume all roadies/clubs are full of to55ers) road racing clubs seem to have some bizarre sense of superiority to everyone else who rides bikes – be that mtbers, triathletes, casual riders or even just roadies from other clubs. This seems to lead to the whole ‘getting new riders to earn their dues’ attitude which is putting so many people off these clubs.

I recall my first forays with road clubs, coming from a background in another sport which meant that I was fitter than the majority but without a clue about the rules or ettiquette. Not being some complete numpty and being willing to learn the rules/etc. I didn’t take kindly to being patronised or the attempted bullying (which funnily enough included attempts to drop me at the end of long rides for which they eventually paid which wound them upeven more 🙂 ) – now you could say that’s an arrogant view but I did what they asked me to do when asked and didn’t make the same mistakes twice. Strangely that never seemed enough and lots of the guys would rather that I served out an apprenticeship and behaved like a good little boy. They disliked it even more when I beat them at races.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the clubs like this (DaveB’s by the sound of it) will die out pretty soon with the current squeeze on road racing in Britain and more importantly more and more people deciding that you don’t need to join a club to ride on the road (the sportive crowd – another are of derision for roadies) so if they’re not offering anything other than riding with an arrogant bunch of tryhards, why bother. Can’t happen soon enough I reckon.

Last summer I was out for a ride on my old MTB which is fitted with 1.5 slicks and is mostly used as a commuter. Waiting to pull out of a side road and a pack of about 10 roadies goes past I nipped out and attached myself to the back of the pack thinking I wont be able to stay with this lot for long but I will have a go. I was right I couldnt stay with them very long my legs were a blur trying to keep up. I managed to stick to the back for about 10 miles and during those miles I didnt hear a single word spoken even whilst waiting to cross a main road not a word 😕 Do roadies ever talk or smile or laugh. Perhaps they are worried it would waste a calorie.

pantsonfire – it all depends. If it’s a hard training ride then probably not because you can’t. If it’s a winter get-the-miles-in ride then there’s lots of chat…

i think the attutude of rough stuffers is one i like to encompass, views, smiles and cake, as for roadies cliques, well they can’t have any of my cake 🙂

during those miles I didnt hear a single word spoken even whilst waiting to cross a main road not a word [:?] Do roadies ever talk or smile or laugh. Perhaps they are worried it would that waste a calorie.

Nearing the end of a century ride the last thing I want to is talk, that said I do 99% of my road riding on my own and I certainly do not want to join a club as I just can’t be arsed with the politics of it all.

Great fun this thread 🙂

For similar related humour check these out:
How to MTB
How to road ride

kingtut – you’d love it – all those people with something in common with you – grumpiness 🙂

Some people form clubs for security (cliques) and other to help others (open). Just because one club doesn’t welcome you doesn’t mean they are all like that.

When I’m too old to MTB, I’ll be getting a proper road bike, and maybe joining a club for the company. As it is, the only road riding I currently do is on my commuter (adapted steel MTB with slicks and bar ends). I enjoy thundering up and down steep country lanes with blind corners, mud, debris, potholes etc. I really am a mountain biker!