Ok, moving on past the post-race season "Cyclists Gone Wild" phase, Ky came to visit and we ushered in the more subdued "loafer-wearing, cupcake-baking, and quietly studying" phase of the fall. With all-night partying being sooo last week, the ample daylight allowed for some serious mileage, and our renewed nerdiness brought on this safety inquiry:
The thing that bugs me most about group rides is the way people call out obstacles. Not that it's the most pressing safety issue in the world; maybe it's just funny, but the specificity with which some people point things out is absurd. Beyond the usual "Car Up," "Hole," and "Slowing," today I also heard stuff like, "Car back...no wait...it's a truck...OMG YOU GUYS! TRUCK BACK!!" What exactly were we supposed to do with the additional information? Do they think we're all like, "Oh, a truck? The chassis is higher than that of the aforementioned car and could run me over rather than throw me over the hood, hmmm...I think I'll move to the side of the"...errrr...splat. I've also heard people correct each other, like "walker up," then, "no dude, that's a jogger!" It'll probably produce the same crappy result if you hit a walker going 4mph or a runner going 8.
So next time, maybe we should just stick with a few basic alerts. If there's no easy description, then the universal, "Gahhh!!" would probably incite an appropriate level of caution.
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| Ky and I made fortune cupcakes with overly specific alerts... |
When calling out obstacles, it's hard to achieve that balance between not enough information and too much. Yelling "hole" just induces panic when you're buried in a paceline and can't see where it is.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I heard that on the Greentree deathmarch there was even an effort to stop the calling out of holes in favor of riding through them. That seems like a wheel truing nightmare though. But I guess the deathmarch needs its own set of rules. How do you tell everyone, "Hey, that guy has a gun!" without inducing panic?
ReplyDeleteGunmen, craters and fierce thunderstorms on the deathmarch. These are some of my favorite things.
ReplyDelete