After nine days on the road as one of nine guys on bikes I have to say that you do not want to use us as your riding safety model. In the early days, when there were just three of us, we worked out some simple safety procedures and it was easy to follow them.

As new guys have joined the group we simply have not done a good job of inculcating those concepts and the result is a hodge-podge group that doesn’t follow any one set of procedures. We’d be safer riders if we did.

For instance, one of the newer guys seem to target-fixate on the tail-light of the guy in front of him. He’ll move in to about 2-3 bike lengths behind and just sit there. If the guy in front moves left, he moves left. If he moves right, this other guy follows, always staying right behind, and way too close.

Some of us try to set up a staggered riding pattern but all it takes is one guy to make a mess of that. I was two back of one such guy at one point, and the guy between us was trying hard to maintain a staggered position. Move left and he goes right, move back right and he goes left, and then sit in the middle. No attention to lane position. I sat back and observed all this and knew exactly the frustration he was feeling when he finally goosed the throttle and pulled ahead of the wandering rider.

It’s not that we don’t talk about these things. It’s just that we don’t seem to ever have the conversations when the full contingent is present. For instance, one night on this trip we talked about how to pass through a town as a group. I said the leader needs to slow down when approaching a traffic signal, while those behind should speed up. This then allows the leader to make a determination of whether everyone will be able to make it through the green and to take appropriate action. Everyone present agreed, but we all knew the worst offender in this strategy was not present for the discussion.

Ditto the discussion about maintaining proper speed so we don’t build up a long line of impatient cars and trucks behind us, and making sure to leave spaces so they can pass one or a few rather than all nine of us at once.

I admit it, I’m as guilty as the next guy in terms of not insisting that we have a full discussion with everyone present. Instead, I just tend to take up position in the rear where I can ride my own ride without needing to be concerned with what the folks ahead of me are doing. And I make damn sure not to be directly ahead of the tailgater. Every year before this trip I tell myself I’ll try to organize the meeting to hash this all out, and every year it doesn’t happen. Maybe I’ll actually do it next year. Somebody kick me in the butt, OK?

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Biker Quote for Today

You might ride fast, but never ride in a hurry.