Limited relevance but it is a nice picture! Hardknott Pass last week; it focuses the mind on safety very effectively!
Riding in a group doesn’t absolve any individual rider of the responsibility for handling his own bike safely at all times and this must be his top priority. But when you are part of a group it helps if everyone does their bit to care for other riders in the group whenever they can too – and of course everyone usually does this, which is what makes the companionship of group riding so valuable and group riding so enjoyable.
So there is a potential conflict between being part of a group ride and also concentrating sufficiently on your own safety, so you need to avoid any situation in which you might feel pressure to sacrifice your own safety because you are thinking of the group. And it’s not just the leader and Sweeper who are at risk, as the following sad story illustrates.
A group of ten or so riders, a sub-group of a large tour group of twenty or so bikes, were on a day’s outing in an area of Germany with which none of us were familiar. The route was planned before we set off and everyone had been told what it was in the form of a list of small towns which would be the turning points along a circular route.
We didn’t know where we would be able to find suitable refreshment stops, so they were to be discovered as we rode. I had satnav on my bike although the route wasn’t on it, so the Leader briefed me to ride behind him and, lacking radio communications between us, I would toot my horn and point with my arm if I thought he was going wrong. Between us we would navigate the route, by one means or another.
All went smoothly to start with, as it had done the day before when we had first tried to use this ad hoc approach to navigation, except of course because we were in Germany, I worked out fairly quickly that tooting my horn and then pointing my raised right arm toward a right deviation as we passed through a village was open to misinterpretation by pedestrians. I did get some very funny looks until the penny dropped and I started waving my arm instead. Fortunately I didn’t get arrested.
I don’t remember whether there was a specific briefing about how Drop Offs would work before we set off that day but it was certainly my expectation that only turns would be marked, so if there was no marker bike, the route would be straight on. The day before most of the same riders had ridden together successfully in a smaller group and I don’t think any need to drop a turn marker off ever arose because as things turned out we were always more or less together throughout.
Looking forward to another lovely riding day
So on the second day of riding together we set off full of enthusiasm for another good day’s riding together. About half the group were advanced riders and none appeared to be nervous or slow; we made brisk, but by no means forced progress on the open country roads we were using. We passed through little villages uneventfully and traffic was very light or non-existent; we were enjoying excellent German biking roads on a lovely sunny day. There was no pressure, we were not trying to make fast progress.
Busy roundabouts and junctions can easily split a group up, hence the value of a drop off at the next turn.
And then we came into a town which our planned route would take us more or less straight through, although with a bit of a deviation to the left as we emerged from it. The town was bigger and much busier than it looked on the map and it turned out to have a lot more roundabouts and a lot more traffic than anyone could have anticipated. We were effectively skirting the old town centre on a ring road through the outskirts.
Inevitably our group of ten bikes got split up in the course of negotiating this series of busy roundabouts, even though were going straight ahead at all of them. The roads were urban and relatively narrow as well as busy, and the view across the roundabouts were all obscured by vegetation, road signs and other clutter. The road signs were of course in German and were mostly names of the villages to which the turn-offs led.
The three leading bikes managed to stay together and as we got through the last of them and were beginning to head out of the town, the Leader pulled over to let the others rejoin us. We waited for five minutes or so then two of us continued waiting while the Leader back-tracked. After half an hour no trace of anyone else had been found.
Since we had no way of making contact with any of the other riders in a situation like this there was nothing further we could do, so eventually the three of us continued along the route, hoping that we might rejoin the others further along if we found a refreshment stop overlooking it.
It was about four hours later when our Leader got a text message from the Leader of the other sub-group, who was also the Tour Leader to ring him. We then learned there had been an accident and a rider was in hospital.
It emerged that the fourth rider in our group sequence had turned right at one of the roundabouts, having lost sight of the bike in front and which way it had gone, i.e. straight on. He was then heading North out of town on a suburban road instead of West, as the route required. Everyone behind him had followed.
Tragedy strikes
Here the leader is allowing the pack to bunch as they enter a village, to minimise chances of getting split up
The rider was reported to have realised he had gone wrong very quickly and was seen to be looking up at a large, high-up directional signpost on the left (off side) of the road, presumably trying to work out which way to go, as he drifted across double white lines into the path of a heavy lorry. The lorry driver didn’t stand a chance of avoiding him and neither, by the time he realised he had drifted left, did the rider have any time to react.
Everyone stopped. The biker who had been riding immediately behind him had recently done a First Bike on Scene training and gave first aid; other riders helped or held up traffic. Local car drivers also stopped immediately, helped to control traffic and also called for help.
The emergency services were extremely quick and efficient. The injured rider was given the best possible care both on site and then in a state of the art hospital to which he was taken. Unfortunately so serious were his injuries that he died three weeks later of complications.
The injured rider was certainly not new to riding but he was on his first European Tour and he was probably pretty new to group riding too. He was in his fifties and rode a tourer; might not have been an advanced rider but he was no boy racer either. He had joined the Tour not knowing anyone else, as others had done too, and he was a bit diffident and shy in company to start with.
But we had been riding together for three or four days by then and he was seen to be riding confidently and well; he was certainly no novice rider. He had been with us the day before, ridden well and really, really enjoyed himself. He was also coming out of his shell socially by then and thoroughly enjoying the Tour. There was nothing to suggest he was at any special risk.
Maybe he got a bit flustered when he found himself separated from the bikes in front while negotiating traffic through a sequence of several busy roundabouts in an unexpectedly busy town, suddenly finding himself leading the group the wrong way. Maybe he got confused by the similar names of the many towns and villages which were signposted at these roundabouts. We will never know.
In the end it was the individual rider’s inattention to his own safety which actually caused this accident to happen and precisely why he lost concentration on the safety of his own riding will remain a mystery.
It is useful, and a mark of respect to the rider who was killed, to draw as many other lessons as possible from a tragedy like this. So let’s do that now.
Ride safely yourself
A yellow hi-vis is a useful safety feature for bikers
The golden rule when riding in a group is that each rider must give top priority to the safety of his own riding at all times. You’re riding in close proximity to other bikes as well as general traffic, so always give yourself the time and space to stay safe. If you get confused about where the others have gone and what has gone wrong, find somewhere safe to pull over, look at your map and work out what to do next. If you have the rest of the group behind you when this happens, concentrate on finding somewhere for everyone to stop safely and don’t worry about navigation until you have done that.
Contingency communications
The Leader did have a mobile phone with him on the day of this accident, so did I, so probably did most of the group, but no one thought in advance of exchanging telephone numbers among the riding group. We all had the Tour leader’s number but that was it.
In this case it would not have prevented the accident if we had all exchanged mobile numbers at the start of the Tour or that day’s ride, but it would have allowed the three of us who became detached up front to find out about the accident much sooner and therefore to have been able to help the others deal with it.
Since that day I always ensure that everyone on a foreign tour who has a mobile phone exchanges phone numbers with everyone else. If I am leading group I ensure that I have everyone’s emergency contact details too. This isn’t always practical for group riding within UK, but it’s good practice for groups of riders who ride together regularly to exchange mobile phone numbers and for every motorcyclist to carry his emergency contact details on him whenever he is riding. I keep my next of kin on my mobile phone under “ICE”; this stands for In Case of Emergency and apparently the emergency services know to look for such an entry.
Pre-Ride Briefings are valuable
We did at least have a route briefing before we set off that fateful day. In retrospect a clearer briefing about the Drop Off System we were to use and more explicit instruction to continue straight ahead at any unmarked junction or roundabout might have helped the rider to avoid his mistake in turning off route inadvertently.
An orange hi-vis is a good choice for the sweeper AND his pillion
I’m not criticising the Leader of this particular ride by saying that, because of course pre-ride briefings are not the norm among bikers, especially anything like a military-style or detailed briefing. That’s a far too regimented an approach for most bikers; it smacks too much of being bossed around. I’m simply observing that if things had been spelled out more clearly before that day’s rise started, it might have made a difference because the rider who was killed might have been less likely to get confused when he suddenly found himself losing sight of the bike in front in a completely strange place.
So maybe a leader should be prepared to spell a few things out before a ride starts, even if it might appear to some riders that he’s taking a surprisingly organised or even a bossy approach.
As a result of this experience I always conduct a rider’s briefing when I am leading a group ride, even if the ride is pre-planned and route cards have been handed out, if only to make sure there is an opportunity for the riders to ask questions. I try to make it as brief and easy-going as possible, consistent with getting the essentials across.
And if someone thinks I’m being too structured or bossy by doing this, then I can live with that and I don’t even mind if they take the p**s, as long as they do their bit as group riders not to put anyone else at risk.
So as far as I am concerned a pre-ride briefing is potentially worth its weight in gold. If the Leader conducts an adequate briefing before the ride starts, everyone will at least have had a chance to understand what the plan is, or at least enough of it to be able to cope with the risk of getting separated and having to find their own way either to the next planned stop if they know where it is or wherever else makes sense to them. I would almost always give briefing before a group ride.
An informal approach can work too
I would not claim for a moment that holding a pre-ride briefing is the only acceptable way to lead a group ride.
See how easy it is to spot the sweeper in that orange hi-vis
A friend of mine has been very successful in leading rides of this kind with no apparent briefing at all and mostly not even knowing himself when he sets off where the urge will take him on that day. His approach is always to move at a pace and on roads which will allow the group to stay intact as a group, relying on CB communication with someone who has agreed to be Sweeper, so that most things which could go wrong probably will not do so, and he will otherwise cross bridges as and when he comes to them.
And in effect there has of course been a pre-ride briefing anyway, by virtue of the long established and well understood basis upon which all rides in this particular club among a small group of friends and over many years. Most of them could probably also predict fairly accurately what all the others will choose for lunch, so well have they come to know each other’s ways. That’s OK by me; for that type of ride I don’t think anything further is needed. It works for that group on that type of ride, it wouldn’t work for many other types of group ride.
The more complex and unfamiliar the route, the more the need for planning and briefing
But at the other end of the spectrum, for a Ride homewards for a mixed-ability group of 20 bikes across over 300 miles of France in heavy showers to the Channel Port where a deadline has to be met for the Ferry and a new Leader has had to take over because the Tour Leader has gone off to do his own thing, getting the riders together for a briefing before the Ride sets off becomes absolutely essential. And failing to include information about the planned route, where the planed steps will be and how the group will be kept together is a recipe for disaster.
But with a briefing, and a leadership style which stands a chance of keeping the group together (and probably a bit of luck too) it can be done and it can even go remarkably smoothly. The leader who took over on that day did an excellent job.
Some riders are just not group riders
Not everyone likes fitting in with other or, as they might see it, being regimented. And some riders will not want to be bothered trying to know anything about the route in advance; some of them might even announce openly that they can’t be bothered trying to remember anything and they’d much rather just follow the bike in front and other people do the worrying. Some people might decide to abandon the ride part way around and not think of telling anyone they are doing so.
Satnavs are wonderful, but sometimes you just can't beat explaining the route with a road atlas
If riders are unwilling to take any interest in group safety and don’t realise at the very least that bailing out to go home without telling anyone creates real problems for other people, people who have been putting themselves out to organise and lead a ride for them, then they may need to be told – that they must at least tell someone else before they peel off to go elsewhere or they should do their riding on their own. Apart from having to make things like that clear if it becomes necessary, a pre-ride briefing can be a very light hearted affair which covers the essentials without taking on the character of a full scale military mission briefing.
So for many, many reasons the Leader really should conduct a briefing of some sort before the ride starts because it is by far the most effective way to prevent many of the problems which might otherwise spoil the Ride happening at all. It can be as simple as a few quick words or a few notes about the route and the riding plan. A route sheet can be handed out at the rendezvous or, these days, circulated in advance by email.
But one way or another someone, preferably the Ride Leader, needs to get the message across about where the Ride is aiming to go, where the planned stops, if any, will be, which if any Drop Off System will be used and how the communications will work.
In the next Article in this series I will try to provide some tips on leading group rides.