Tripleshot Cycling

A couple things came up on the A2 ride this Tuesday.

1) During a right turn from Caddy Bay onto Lansdowne we had a “fail-to-yield” incident. A truck was lined up at a red light waiting to turn left (therefore, into our path) from Caddy Bay onto Lansdowne. As we approached the intersection and the light (for the turning truck) turned green, people called out “car up!” to warn those at the front of the line, but riders at the front didn’t slow and the group ended up cutting off the truck and splintering. The driver was clearly unimpressed. In my view, riders in the front should have called to stop and waited for the truck to pass.

2) We single up now on Lansdowne. I had a very “non-Tripleshot” interaction with a regular Tripleshot rider who refused to let me merge into the one-up line. I had hand-signalled that I was merging into the nearest gap, and this rider sped up to block that gap, told me he wasn’t going to let me come over, and when I looked askance at him he said he wanted to stay on the wheel in front of him and that I should “go somewhere else.” In 4+ years riding with Tripleshot I’ve never had anyone block my attempt to merge into a single-up line on a TS ride.

This is not just antisocial, it’s unsafe. Merging two lines into one at speed on the short stretch of Lansdowne before hitting the turn onto Henderson is a tricky thing for the group to pull off safely. Everyone should be focused on facilitating the group’s effort to safely and quickly execute that merge. It’s not time to get possessive about which wheel you’d most like to be on. On average, half the people in the line will prefer the wheel they’re currently on to the wheel that’s merging in. If everyone gets picky the merge gets really disorganized and therefore unsafe. Any slip will have cascading effects down the line, so it’s several people’s safety at stake when you refuse to let someone merge in.

In this case, I believe the person who refused to let me in was coaching a younger rider, and that was his reason for wanting to stay on the wheel in front of him. I don’t know whether the coaching was for pay or gratis for a friend/family member, but either way coaching arrangements need to respect the safety and dynamic of the group. Sure, a coach will want to be on the wheel of their pupil for much/most of a ride, and I think most of us are happy to facilitate that 99% of the time. But safety takes precedence, and there’s little cost to a coach relinquishing their pupil’s wheel for a minute while we get through the hairy turn onto Henderson or in other similar situations. Once regrouped and in a safer setting, it’s easy to reorganize and get back on the wheel you want. If necessary, have a chat with people around you and explain the coaching situation and I’m sure no one will object to a re-org. With a rotating paceline it's even easier--just wait until you hit the back of the slow line, ask the rider who’s blocked your pupil’s wheel to merge to the fast line while you skip a turn and, voila, you’re back on your pupil’s wheel (this is also useful for getting off Claire’s wheel and onto Craig’s! ).

Modelling “safety first” and “group first” behaviour is a good way to coach teamwork into a young cyclist, and it will keep everyone in the group supportive of coaching activities on our group rides.

Thanks.

Martin

Hi Martin;

Sorry to hear about this incident, as it's exactly the sort of behaviour that we're trying to discourage on Tripleshot rides. Charging through a yield sign when there's a car (with right of way) beginning its turn is not merely un-safe, it's illegal.

As for the second incident, you are correct Martin - the club made a decision a few months back (at the request of the Oak Bay Police) to single-up along Lansdowne to make that right-hand turn onto Henderson safer. So when someone signals that they need "in" along that stretch, the correct thing to do is LET THEM IN! Nobody should be running a private coaching session in the middle of one our our regular group rides without at least letting the rest of the group know BEFORE the ride starts.

Hi Martin,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I too noticed both the blatant fail-to-yield and the problems(s) associated with the "coaching" taking place within the A2 group. Your descriptions are accurate and your advice worthy of everyone's consideration.

The failure to yield, or even slow down(!) is, as John says, both unsafe and illegal. This act seems to be getting worse and more frequent in my opinion; as the speeds ramp up, some of those at the front appear 'desperate' to stay away and/or maintain the high pace, while those behind risk being dropped if they act safely. It is especially irresponsible to do this at an intersection where we have already been flagged for inappropriate cornering. We have decided that we should form a single line, slow if necessary, and regroup after turning the corner within the lane. I think the lead riders, could sympathize with the riders waaaaay in the back ( those that let people in! ) and that a subtle steadying of the pace until the top of the rise where we join Foul Bay would be appreciated. It's not that hard! As Ritchie pointed out recently, it is IMPERATIVE that the lead riders assume the responsibility of initiating any actions deemed necessary at ANY intersection. In the case of Tuesday, the black pickup (why is it always a black pickup!?) had the right of way 100% and we should have come to a virtual stop. This means going from 45 km/hr to 5 km/hr in a short distance but that is exactly what a person would do in a car. It also means that EVERYONE in the group needs to be ready to stop or slow at every marked intersection. I will NOT be a happy person if I yell out "STOPPING" some day and get ploughed into from behind.

As for the coaching, I believe it was a father/son session and there were a few times when the pace altered or gaps appeared during exchanges of information. I'm not sure that the Tuesday A2 ride is an appropriate time to do any instructing ..... I for one am just hanging on at times and in the heat of the battle, I find myself carefully strategizing the timing of a tiny sip of water! It's always nice to have the juniors join us and they can certainly teach us a thing or two, but as you say, being informed that some coaching may take place needs to happen before we leave on a fairly intense ride so accommodations can be happily (we're Tripleshot!) made.

I suspect that some of the parties don't read these forum entries and so miss out on some of the new requests/guidelines and our advice/admonishments .....I'm not sure how we can ensure everybody is aware of these issues short of John offering colourful lectures on a weekly basis - I sure wouldn't want to miss one of those!

Andrew

P.S. I might just try your "skip a turn" strategy .....I seem to spend half of every ride attempting to get on Craig's wheel only to find myself behind the slender-of-hip Claire, or Lisa, or Jack or Penny or ......

Thanks Martin and Andrew for bringing this up and for the reminder.

I think the issue, as always, is communication. The new rider might not have known the new rules and found it offensive that Martin was trying to "steal" his wheel.

We probably need to do a better job of communicating routes and the culture of the rides to newer riders. Last week Friday, we nearly had a crash when a rider from Vancouver missed a turn. None of us (including myself) had bothered to take him under our wing to explain the route and culture of the ride to him. Im not sure how one does that mid ride, or how one defines the culture of the ride (we cant even figure out the namenclature:)), but it must be fairly daunting to join a ride to find the riders singling up in strange places, setting up pacelines and shouting at you to "keep it smooth" at others, whilst trying to crush you on every hill that rears its head.

Craig

Bosie wrote:The new rider might not have known the new rules and found it offensive that Martin was trying to "steal" his wheel.

Except that the original account mentioned "a regular Tripleshot rider", not a new rider.

mfarnham wrote:A couple things came up on the A2 ride this Tuesday.

2) We single up now on Lansdowne. I had a very “non-Tripleshot” interaction with a regular Tripleshot rider who refused to let me merge into the one-up line. I had hand-signalled that I was merging into the nearest gap, and this rider sped up to block that gap, told me he wasn’t going to let me come over, and when I looked askance at him he said he wanted to stay on the wheel in front of him and that I should “go somewhere else.” In 4+ years riding with Tripleshot I’ve never had anyone block my attempt to merge into a single-up line on a TS ride.

Thanks.

Martin

I was thinking that it might be preferable to stop sending people up to the front as soon as we turn on to Lansdowne, and with a bit of luck we would be single file by Henderson, without any need to merge. (or at least less need to merge) At worst, the last person up would have a longer pull until Henderson, but their tiredness would then facilitate the "fattening up" of the paceline. I might be missing something from my armchair...

Rich's idea makes a lot of sense. Just stop rolling new riders onto the fast line when we hit Lansdowne. Hopefully that way no one has to slide into a gap between 2 riders. The fast line just continues rolling out front until we're single file. Much safer, I suspect. We did that on our last Lansdowne this morning and it kind of worked (hard to get the message out to people to stop rolling).

We were significantly better this morning, with a couple exceptions. We were pushy with a pedestrian during our first turn onto Henderson, and we could have been more cautious at our first turn from Cedar Hill X onto Caddy Bay, but otherwise a bunch of good stuff happened:

*We had 2 times coming onto Henderson with a "car up" and each time we were (as far as I could see) tight to the right and so well out of the way of the car.

*The lead riders heading up Henderson were pretty good about holding the pace down to let everyone regroup after the corner and re-form the rolling paceline.

*Peter and Dylan did a good job slowing the pace as we came up behind a slow car on Henderson. Best just to neutralize when that happens, and that happens best when the riders on the front clearly dictate a slower pace (Peter and Dylan stopped rolling for a bit which clearly signalled and enforced the slowdown).

*The group responded well to a car that pulled in front of us and blocked the turn from Henderson to Cedar Hill X. The car was being a bit sketchy but people just slowed up, backed off, and were respectful.

Peter made the point that we could have had a better final sprint on the box if we'd backed off even more from the sketchy car. We kept pace with it as it accelerated on Cedar Hill X. A better approach might have been to hold off, let the car open up a big gap, and then we'd have had more room for the final sprint.

But overall great, careful riding--and our pace didn't seem to suffer. We averaged 38.2kmh on the Tues B Ride Strava segment.

Nice work!

Martin