Group rides

Training
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Hi all, what do people think of group rides here? Also, tips for better group riding welcome?

I’ve trained solo most of my active years, and I find structured training highly effective but after five or six years I found value in the social aspect of a weekly club run, despite them being generally too hard for optimal benefit they do act as an anchor day to keep me engaged and it is nice to have friendly faces around. I’m looking at bringing in regular group rides into my calendar where I can fit it in with family life, and so far whilst they are highly fatiguing they are a bit random, effort wise. Most advice I see is that they aren’t effective training.

For context, and because everyone loves a poll, I’ve added a poll.

  • I ride in groups regularly
  • I do not ride in groups regularly
  • I sometimes ride in groups
  • There is no option for my situation
0 voters
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It’s a really useful skill, however. There are generally three types of road group rider, those have actually raced, those that talk like they have and those that ride socially in a group. (squad vs social if you like).

Actual racers, ex-racers tend to have very good discipline but the pace can be high. There are rarely crashes though.

The social rides in a club can be great, they still give calls, depending on the situation but tend to be less ‘intuitive’ and can rely on good leaders (as most group rides do). There is less pressure and more room for errors on these.

By far the most useless and dangerous group rides are the ones frequented by those think they know how to race, have never held a licence but have a bit of power in their legs. (the B ride can sometimes be these). I avoid these like the plague because you’ll get multiple conflicting calls (and egos) and they’re an accident waiting to happen.

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Weekly club rides are generally called “The Club Run” even though it means a bike ride - as it’s a run out.

I don’t enjoy going out for a “social” ride (whatever that is) or stopping on rides of under 5 hours.

I can easily hold a conversation at 33kmh. Which is under 5hrs for 162km (ish). And if I’ve spent 5hrs with people, why the hell do I need to spend more time chatting with them???
I’ve said everything. Like. All of the words.

Chaingangs are best. 40km / 70mins at an effort. Get dropped, tough luck, you’re out.
I got them up and running AND WORKING post-lockdown, but they died a death as people don’t like being dropped, doing turns on the front, or not being able to “bag” some inane strava segment.

Hilly rides are also a joke. As I’m a bit fat and slow uphill, everyone waits for me … then I descend like a normal person and end up waiting for everyone else. So it turns a 3.5hr ride into 4hrs.

And as I’m a bit heavier than a typical cyclist, I like going downhill with no brakes, to get momentum up the other side. So don’t brake in front of me. I need momentum. You weigh about 3 stone wet, so will come flying past me anyhow.

That’s what annoys me off about group rides.
And the gaps between wheels.
I could fit a bus between some of them.
And the weaving over the road when looking round, or taking a drink, it’s embarrassing.

When I started road cycling, I got a telling off most Tuesday/Thursday evenings. Got my saddle held, bars held, shoulder pushed, butt shoved - until I could ride properly.

Do that stuff now and there’d be uproar.
Not many people can handle their bike, they just turn the pedals and point it in a general direction.

And when they turn the pedals, it’s not a smooth circular action, it’s a MASH THEM TO THE MAX action. Learned from maximising Zwift power.

Oh, and the creaks. And dirty bikes. And lack of maintenance skills. “My chain has snapped. I’m calling my wife for a lift home”

Eh? Your chain looks about 19 years old. And my wife would tell me to **** walk home, you absolute baby man. Get your chain tool out and fix it. Oh, you don’t have one “‘cos a big saddle bag ruins my SWorks aesthetic”

Nah met, your utter lack of respect for your wife’s time ruins the aesthetic.

So I don’t ride in groups anymore.

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4

I have a short attention span & get bored riding by myself. So if someone’s up for a ride, usually it’s game on. Except, not at 4am on Friday, which seems to be the appointed hour for long group rides locally. That’s for sleeping. But in the evening? Yeah ok.

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the people’s poet has spoken…

Yep…best bang for buck…

yes…but there is a great anecdote abot a certain established peaks club ride and a rather diminutive ‘girl’…

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There does seem to be a fair amount of variety, but mostly seem very loosely bunched. My approach is just to hold the wheel in front as close as possible, as though it were a group TT. When I get to the front, I add 20% effort to counteract the lack of draft. Look around behind me and there’s usually no one there.

Like @Poet I fall backwards on the climbs.

They’re fairly hard rides, intensity always near 0.8 for me and was around Ironman TSS for a 4.5hr ride. I think I burn too many matches, and spend too much time soft pedalling, which could be my technique or the group ride dynamic.

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That’s why I used to love track, it was 4 * 15minutes of hard efforts or the winter sessions outdoors at Herne Hill we’d do 45 minutes of half lap changes after a 15min WU. not stopping and if you got dropped you’d move up the track and drop in when you’d recovered

Id say most club rides end up much longer than solo anyway. We’d do say 50 to 60miles that solo or with a couple of mates I’d be out at 6 and home between 9 and 10. In a group b tri club ride that was leave home at 8, 8:30 meet, lucky to leave at 9, and even luckier to be home 1:30. not ideal with kids! Cycling club were better but always involved a half hour to hour cafe stop half way and its really hard to get going again and wastes loads of time!

@joex training wise solo can be better unless doing draft legal as you can make the most of your time to suit you, but we ain’t elite, and 99% of this is about being fit, healthy and the social aspect plays a huge role in this but for me I preferred a few mates than a proper club ride. The cycling club rides were always too hard (when I went you had a young Ethan Hayter and Fred Wright, as well as a number of juniors on pro conti teams), with a cafe stop half way.
The tri club had 1 good group of death, which were hard, no stop, if you get dropped goodbye, but good that you got the work done and all were competent cyclists, just a bit much as they were typically type A trying to smash each other rides. Group B were terrible, too much waiting for people whose ability was writing cheques their body couldn’t cash “I can average 18mph”, so went out way too hard ruining the group for the first 30minutes and blew hard before you’d hit the first proper hill and you’d spend the next 3 hours nursing them round and waiting at every junction, people who didn’t bring enough food, water or any spares for their badly maintained bikes and generally sketchy riding. group C was “social” and a waste of training time, but fun occasionally. Lots of waiting though…LOTS!

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I go out with my local road club, but only if the route/pace suits me.

Problem for me is that I rarely ride without a purpose; so I will have goal in mind for the day; zone 2 or V02 max improvement for example. This is often incompatible with the club run.

Also the level of faff and time spent at cafes annoys me.

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I’m basically looking at one down from the top ride groups, one of them was no messing with a very solid leader.

The others are more sociable, which is fine for now. I need to see if the fatigue doesn’t fuck up my structured training before going harder.

Yeah I’m monitoring that, they seem to take stops near home so can be skipped without being rude or ‘stranded’.

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yer this is the issue with the better groups, its not “zone 2” and can often involve hard up climbs, or “sign post sprints”

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11

Hard up climbs & sign sprints are part of the special sauce that make group rides good training. The important bit is the quick regroup after which most triathletes are incapable of doing.

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depends what the goal is and what you are training for.

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No EH or FW on ours.

Nearly every time I rode the local club Thursday night A ride ~80 - 100 minutes I’d get a threshold has increase notification after. Got you fit but dead for the next 24 hours.

The summer I did nearly all A rides has many of my all time power PRs.

We had a A 20mph plus but nearly always 21+, B+ 18 to 20 mph (a bit shorter) and B ride 15 - 18 mph and shorter still. The B was only any good for active recovery, Okay if you wanted to go back and pace back stragglers .
The B+ was okay coming back to fitness.
The A ride was lets see how long I can hang this week, there was always a regroup at the time on the main climb a 12 ish minute effort on two different loops they did. Every week the first 30 minutes would have a 1.0x IF. Like you say, too hard really.

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This is not good practice.

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That implies you significantly increased the speed which I agree is not good practice

If you did that on our “through and offs” you would regret it… lol… you’ve look around and everyone would still be there and when you fell back you’d have zero chance of tagging on, you’d be spat.

Learnt the hard way. Its a bit more effort at the front just maintain the speed.
Dropping back its a effort before the end / last man of the train otherwise you are fucked, and can’t smoothly tag on, and will have to close a gap. Do that too many times (close a gap to last wheel) and again you get spat.

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Yeah always a desperate squeeze to get back onto the last wheel

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Surging off the front is the quickest way to not be invited back to a group ride.

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It’s so simple to not do, too!
When coming through, just maintain that effort.

The line peeling off is doing less. Or should be.
If they aren’t, then it’s them who are the C U Next Tuesday’s :joy:

Just drop down two gears when you’re done. Keep the cadence the same.
Simples.

The 100km rides where I used to live (over a decade ago!) are still going strong. Same route. Still. One week north (hills), following week South (flat) - get dropped and it’s game over. Same route, so either get back on, or take a shortcut :woman_shrugging:t2:

I liked that.

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19

Some local guys around here would just make to pay if you disrupted the pace line with surges and drop you, the 380 - 400+ threshold watt guys.

Conversely if you don’t hold the same speed as in slow it down, you will be told to peel the instant you hit the front… lol.

Not been for ages, I was thinking about going down again, but my bike skill aren’t great, probably worse these days than went I rode in a group twice a week. Poet would love my…

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Yeah I’ll try that, they can always tell me to hurry up. I was sort expecting someone to call “up” or “down” rather than just watch me disappear…

I might also try the easier groups to see if z2 is ever feasible.