"A" ride Nov 1st

[Anika]

AWESOME ride this morning! Fast, hard but smooth. Way better than the chaos of Tuesday. All around I think it was faster and definitely less frustrating. Especially awesome coming up to the Uplands gate when Josh and Kevin pulled a steady, fast and smooth pace up rather than sprinting just because there's a hill and then cracking at the crest. Let's keep it up

[Andrew]

Sweet ride today!

[Josh.E]

Yeah, really good ride.

It's always easy to keep it smooth when it's a relatively small number like this morning. Especially when everyone is as evenly matched as the seven of us today and everyone is rotating.

For rides like tuesday, although I though that ride was pretty good overall, it admittedly could be smoother. For most of that tuesday ride there were 4-5 of us rotating on the front and quite a big group sitting in behind. Occasionally people from the sitting in group would jump in to the rotation for a turn or two, then disappear again, or let a gap open and pull out of the rotation before pulling through. It becomes hard to know which wheel to jump on when you're moving back in the rotation, and frustrating when you have to close a gap to get around to the front of the rotation.

For my $0.02 from countless saturday sufferfest rides where we managed to keep fast moving groups of varying ability together, there's three things we could work on to make it smoother when people are wanting to ride between the rotating group and the sitting in group:

1) Riding doorman. It's your job to let the people in the rotating line know they have reached the end of the rotating line. This takes a lot of talking. Tell each person (by name if you can) that they're next up.

2) Joining the rotating line. Signal to the rider behind you that you're going to move out of the 'sitting in' line, Ride up next to the doorman on the side of the line moving up. Let the doorman know you want in. Doorman tells the last rotating person 'one more up' and you start moving up the line.
If you are already doorman and want to join. Say "one more up" and move into the rotating line. Person behind you is then doorman.

3) Leaving the rotating line. Leave the rotating line by moving back until the doorman tells you you are next up, then tell the person ahead of you that they are next up. You become the new doorman.
DON'T leave the rotating line by pulling out and leaving a gap, or by pulling in behind the lead rider. Both of these things in races are known as paceline disruption.

[trevor]

Fun ride indeed.
Seeing 4 of us in the lot and having 3 more join on was fortunate but easily could have turned in to the same Friday issue we had a few weeks back. It'd be great if the ride began at the parking lot, that way we could assess whether an A ride or B ride will occur. Lately we're actually taking a tally as to how many riders want to head out as As. It's proved successful so far and if it's to continue meeting at the lot, if you're able, would be great.
Sorry I had to get going right away post ride. Duty calls.
Well done everyone.
Trevor

[Lister Farrar]

Yeah, really good ride.

It's always easy to keep it smooth when it's a relatively small number like this morning. Especially when everyone is as evenly matched as the seven of us today and everyone is rotating.

For rides like tuesday, although I though that ride was pretty good overall, it admittedly could be smoother. For most of that tuesday ride there were 4-5 of us rotating on the front and quite a big group sitting in behind. Occasionally people from the sitting in group would jump in to the rotation for a turn or two, then disappear again, or let a gap open and pull out of the rotation before pulling through. It becomes hard to know which wheel to jump on when you're moving back in the rotation, and frustrating when you have to close a gap to get around to the front of the rotation.

For my $0.02 from countless saturday sufferfest rides where we managed to keep fast moving groups of varying ability together, there's three things we could work on to make it smoother when people are wanting to ride between the rotating group and the sitting in group:

1) Riding doorman. It's your job to let the people in the rotating line know they have reached the end of the rotating line. This takes a lot of talking. Tell each person (by name if you can) that they're next up.

2) Joining the rotating line. Signal to the rider behind you that you're going to move out of the 'sitting in' line, Ride up next to the doorman on the side of the line moving up. Let the doorman know you want in. Doorman tells the last rotating person 'one more up' and you start moving up the line.
If you are already doorman and want to join. Say "one more up" and move into the rotating line. Person behind you is then doorman.

3) Leaving the rotating line. Leave the rotating line by moving back until the doorman tells you you are next up, then tell the person ahead of you that they are next up. You become the new doorman.
DON'T leave the rotating line by pulling out and leaving a gap, or by pulling in behind the lead rider. Both of these things in races are known as paceline disruption.

+1