Roadman today I want to give you 10 actionable tips for group-ride…
Roadman today I want to give you 10 actionable tips for group-ride ethicists. Let's cue it out in trouble! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Rodeman, welcome back Rodeman, it's another Rodeman cycling podcast, thanks for joining me and giving me your most precious resource, your time. Today I want to talk to you about group writing, Ethicus and I had a podcast, I was nearing on four months ago. Whoa, I'm a podcast veteran, haven't I? When I say four months ago now, it seems like I'm Joel Hogan, 2000 episodes deep. But we are up as far as episode 160 something at the moment. So yeah, I do feel a little bit of a veteran. So yeah, joining all the way back to four months ago, I had a podcast. This is even before we went daily and it was the death of the group right. And I think it's one of our most popular episodes. It's definitely one that still get shared around a lot and I occasionally get Instagram comments still about that. But what I don't know that podcast was I kind of identified a problem without giving you guys a solution. So today I want to break it down and give 10 actionable group-wide etiquette tips that you can put into action right away on your next group-wide. Before I jump in there I want to do two things. It's our little public service announcement section. Firstly, remind you about Patreon, because obviously that's how we keep this whole podcast, how we keep the show on the road, how we keep the halting alive. And honestly, I need your support on Patreon now more than ever, because of an extra massive time commitment at the moment. I've committed to the first ever Roadman Virtual Cycling Summit. So for two days, over the 8th and 9th of December, I'm going to give you guys access to the 30 of the greatest minds in cycling. I'm going to tackle the question of performance from 30 different angles. So I'm going to talk to nutritionists, sports psychologists, bike-fated experts, experts on tactics, climbing, sprinting, strength conditioning. Every single facet you can imagine on cycling. And the idea of this is to just give you every single bit of information you need to optimize your performance. holding it's going to be totally free no charge but you do need to secure your free ticket and I haven't figured out how many tickets for the moment I'm only telling you guys on the podcast about it because I want all the podcast guys to get their tickets first before my software has a limit on how many people I can have on the event I haven't figured out quite what that is I'm hoping it's gonna be upwards of five thousands people but I want to give you guys the early heads up. So to get that ticket, the link is in the bio, it's www.robmansumets.com forward slash free, put in your email address and that's going to secure your ticket. So what I'm trying to do is pick the brain of these 30 guys for their secrets on how they boil hack their physiology, how they melt away body fat and stay so lean on how they smashed our cycling goals. They're going to share with me their secrets and I want to share with you their secrets. So grab your free ticket there. That's going to be epic. But right now, that's not helping you if you're going out on a group ride and all you've heard was, well Anthony's told me how the group ride is dead. Now I'm going on the group ride and I'm having a clue what to do. So I'm going to give you guys 10 tips, some rapid fire, some not so rapid fire. Number one, if you're on the front of the group, these are some of these are simple, like this one's real simple. Number one, if you're on the front of the group, signal, a direction change. If you're coming up to a torn, put an arm out, say you're going right before you go right. Don't just turn right because if you're on the front, vision is obscured when you're behind.
Tip number two. If you're on the front of the group, again, the first…
Tip number two. If you're on the front of the group, again, the first viewer about being on the front of the group because mistakes here are so important because a mistake here has potential to take the whole group down. So we're going to focus quite a bit on the front and the front is when we assume that leadership role. When we're at the back of the group, we're in follower mode. Front leadership role. So when you get to the front and you're coming up, you're approaching a traffic light. If the traffic light just goes orange, don't sprint for the traffic light. You got to think about your driving an articulate truck that's 20, 30 riders deep. Are you going to get the back of the truck through? Is every single rider safely going to get through this junction? There's no point in sprinting for it and the first two or three guys get through the junction and then the rest of the guys have this really sketchy decision to make to keep playing through the junction so you don't get dropped or you press breaks and now the person behind you is anticipating that you sprint, they potentially sprint into the back of you, it's a complete disaster and the same thing goes for if you're funneling down, this is still tip number two so it's actually kind of a bonus tip. You like that, this could be 11 tips now. So the same thing goes for funneling down traffic or if you come to a red light, you need to act like a car and fall in behind the car. Don't start funneling true gaps down the left hand side and right hand side because all the riders aren't going to fit through and the light's going to go green and it's just going to end up in a complete mess. You're an articulated truck. Get that into your head when you're on the front of the group. I'm an articulated truck. Tip number three, when you're on the front of the group, you've got to ride hard enough. You've got to be riding a leased zone tree when you're on the front of the group. You've got to maintain and keep the pace of the group. If you're not as strong as some guys, do a short or torn, not a slower torn. If you're stronger than other guys, do a longer torn, not a faster torn. So the problem is, if you're not riding hard enough when you're on the front of the group, the guys in behind you are literally freewheeling. Like if you come to the front of the group and you're riding at 100 watts on the front of the group, go out behind you in the draft, literally you need to put no power on the pedals or 20-30 watts. So you need to be at least zone tree on the front, I would say, but really what the main metric is speed here. So if the group is a group that's traveling at 35-36k an hour, you need to maintain the 36k an hour when you get to the front. If you're not strong enough to do it for very long, you swing off. Easy. Next one again at something that I think is practiced on The front of the group definitely but really anywhere in the group No matter how good of a boy handler you are don't take your hands off the bars in the group This if you're trying on your own and you take your hands off the bars because you want to get something out of your pocket You want to put a raincoat on that's fine. You bring yourself down. No one really cares about you Maybe your parents care about you, but nobody cares about you. If you're in the group and you bring someone down, you're bringing the whole group with you. So it's respect for guys around you. So it's like the same if the helmet debate is not one I want to open up now, but if you want to go out trying and without a helmet on and you crash, that's a personal choice. It's like I'm not going to lecture somebody that smokes and go, that's very irresponsible. They know it's very irresponsible. But if you smoke in a car with children, that goes from irresponsible to hoarding somebody else. Go out on a group ride without a helmet, that's hoarding somebody else because somebody else is potentially going to have to look after you.
Same with no hands on the bars
The same with no hands on the bars. If you crash, you're bringing the order of toys down. So move to the side if you want to put a rain jacket on, get out of the group briefly, take your hands off the bar, stick your rain jacket on and then slop back in. Or else better yet, do it when you're at the back of the group. tip. Signal when you're standing. It's as easy as putting your hand behind your back and a little wave towards the sky to show people you're about to stand. This just means the rider behind you is not going to ride straight into the back of you. So this typically works well when you're riding into the base of a hill. We all like to shift gear and get out with the saddle coming into the base of the hill. Just give those behind you a little heads up on the bow to stand and don't stand when the pedals are at the 6 and 12 because you're going to extra push the bike back. So stand when the pedals have torque on them at your tree clock and nine o'clock positions. Holds is a contentious one and I ripped into this in our debt of the group, right one. The group works well when it's calm, when it's silent, when it's not panicky. So point holds out by just having your hand on the bar, flicking your hand to decide to shoulder as a whole and move around us. No world's waves, no crazy screams of whole left right center. Just a little hand movement to indicate there's an obstruction on the right hand side that can pass back the chain right or two, back to row three, back to row four, each row, if it's appropriate, just indicate to the next row behind that there's an obstacle on the road. Tip number seven, well this is not rockets or spit rockets. Look, everyone's super sensitive about this now. We're in the whole COVID era. It's always been a problem, but now be extra cautious of it. If you do need to spit, if you do need to snort, everyone needs to do it on a group ride occasionally. It's easy, just move out to the side a little bit. Get your snot rocket, lift off, deployment, it's gone out of there and then slip back into the group. You're not snot rocking someone or we call it friendly for her collateral damage. Number eight, I could talk about this one for the rest of the month. It's half-wailing. Just don't do it. I might even do a full episode on half-wailing someday. Half-wailing is a massive sign of your insecurity as a boy-crotter, your insecurity as a strength, or your insecurity in your own strength. It's not a show that you're stronger, it's a show that you're weaker, it's a show that you don't know, you don't embrace or know about the traditions that we hold there in Soiklin. It's very fucking annoying if somebody's be soidge under half way only all day. Get beside them and line your bars up with their bars. If their pace is going to increase it's a mutual increasing of pace. It's not one rider nudging a foot on front of the other guy only for the other rider to catch up and you nudge a foot on front of him again. Which 2k down the road results in the speed of that group gone from 30k an hour to like 45k an hour and then all that happens in this piston contest is the strongest rider on the front whatever you want to know, it's a line dealt and it's not really a group right, it's a shit show. Number nine and I love this one and I don't see enough people doing this. If you're riding a climb, we all have different strengths, we all have different abilities. My zone tree could be someone else's zone five, someone else's zone tree could be my zone five or all very different abilities, we've different power, we've different weight. On the flat we're drafting, it's not such a problem but when we get to the climb, different abilities are really exposed. So, right to the top of the climb, at your own tempo, at your own pace and if you're the fastest guy, when you get to the top, maybe stop for a second, put your range back on for the descent or your GLA, but double back down the way you came up until you get to the slowest rider and then fall into the line behind the slowest rider.
Don't half wheel them, C.7 or 0.8 half wheel and don't half wheel…
Don't half wheel them, C.7 or 0.8 half wheel and don't half wheel them and put pressure on them. Don't even talk to them, just let them suffer in peace up to the top of the climb at their pace behind them and then when we get to the top of the climb we're all together because each rotor that goes up doubles back to the slowest, next guy goes up doubles back to the slowest we're going to have a full group behind the slowest rider on the climb and then we can all go over the top together and finally number 10 this is similar actually to number nine but if a rotor has a puncture a mechanical the whole group doesn't need to stop 20 guys don't need to stop with like, tree, I'm trying to change the tower and then 17, it goes looking on, putting pressure on it going, oh, I actually do it this way, I do it this way. Right, no one cares about all that. The guy who punctures somebody, a group writer, group leader, anyone, checking with them, do you have levers, do you have a tower, do you have a tube, do you have a pump or CL2, do you know what you're doing? If the answer is yes, the whole group continues down the road for three kilometers, four kilometers and then turn around, double back to to him and then hopefully at that stage he has a fixed and we can all go on our merry way. The overarching thing you need to remember with the group right is, the group right is this environment where strong we protect the weak. We all came up through this system. We all started at the very very bottom and somebody looked after us, somebody used these rules, indoctrinated us into the system. And so that's your job now. It's strong to protect the weak. And that's not just the strongest protecting the weakest as you often see. It's there's all you're always with a changing role within the group. If you're not the weakest, you're the second weakest. So you protect the weakest. So it could be things like pushing them on the way home, pushing them up a climb offering them food, giving them shelter, offering assistance with mechanical stuff. Or if they forget their money in the coffee shop, it's buying them a coffee, buying them food. We were all beginners once. So please embrace that beginner's mindset. Help your fellow group ride friends and do take these 10 group ride etiquette. They're like the 10 commandments. You need to be doing this stuff on a group ride or it's going to turn to shit. Take these 10 group ride commandments. Share this podcast Fire and Wide, share it with your group that you ride, with share it with your local cycling club and make sure each and every one of these things is to be practiced every single week in every single group ride because these are not optional things that'd be nice to have. These are absolutely essential things if a group is the blossom, if it's the flourish and if it's the tribe. Roadman, thanks for listening and you know what, I'll be back again tomorrow. Roadman, before you go, I've got an important announcement to make because over two days and the 8th and 9th of December. I'm going to speak with 30 of the world's leading fitness experts and I want you to join me free of charge from the comfort of your own home. This is the first ever Roadman virtual performance summit for aiming to bring together the best minds and fitness and they're going to share with me their secrets for biohacking your physiology, melting away body fat and smashing your cycling goals. Would you like to learn their secrets? It's easy. All you have to do is register for your free ticket over at www.roadmansummit.com forward slash free. That's www.roadmansummit.com forward slash free. The link is in the bio.