My teammate Bob has a great post about cycling safety on his blog [linked below] --- new riders aren't being taught how to ride safely in groups. It used to be that the experienced riders instructed the inexperienced riders and they either listened or they were out of the group. If you couldn't be trusted, no one would ride with you.

But now, a lot of new cyclists are older and aren't willing to listen to someone tell them what to do. So they don't learn. And worse, they have no clue that they've missed something extremely valuable. Riding in a group with these guys is dangerous.

So what does my team do on our weekly group ride? The first part of the ride is "no-drop" at an easy pace --- perfect for teaching skills. But, as noted, some people don't want to hear what they're doing wrong. Which makes it hard to say anything.

Now, I am certainly not a very skilled rider. But I'm aware of my shortcomings. I've been scolded and I thanked the scolder and tried to do better. I've improved a lot. I still do boneheaded things, but I really want to be a good, solid wheel to follow and I work hard to be that.

There are people on our ride that scare me. People that I'll avoid. People whose wheel I won't follow. But I find it difficult/impossible to say anything about it. As do the more experienced riders, it seems. No one wants trouble. Which isn't to say that teaching doesn't happen --- it does. But the guys who won't listen and who endanger us all, aren't excluded. They're on the ride week after week.

How do we address this? In the pre-ride speech about helmets and riding two abreast, should the ride leader just say "someone might give you safe riding tips during this ride, and you need to listen."?? Who would that "someone" be?

This is something that the team has been struggling with for a while.