Safety comes in numbers!

Hey there!
Continuing my series of Tips & Tricks, I am writing about the difference between riding alone and riding with some fellow bikers.
Here's how you can organize your bike-riding group for maximum safety:

1.
Get to know the people you ride with. Most likely you do already but you should know who is the smoothest and fastest and therefore a good man to follow, or who is a dangerous lunatic and should be avoided at all times. Knowing the relative experience
and ability of the people around you will help you relax more and make it more enjoyable.

2.
Have a plan of action. Where are you riding to? What route are you taking? If everyone gets split up will the ones at the front wait at the next junction or will you see them at the cafe at midday? So long as everyone knows the rules, no matter how loose they might be, no-one should get into a panic about getting lost.

3.
The man at the front has more responsibility than the rest. He has to know the way but also needs to dictate the pace and attitude of the group. If he rides like a twat
he’ll either piss off into the distance or he’ll cause everyone else to ride too fast behind him and potentially ask a bit too much of some. So only go at the
front if you’re confi dent, know the road/directions and be prepared to use your mirrors.

4.
If you’re not the front man don’t feel pressure to keep up or keep ahead of the bloke
in your mirrors. It won’t do you any good to be trying to ride above your ability and worrying about what others are doing when you should be thinking about your own riding. Make sure you have pre-arranged plans in place for people getting split up, stay cool and enjoy the ride.

5.
Similarly if you can keep up don’t follow too close. If you know the way and you’re
faster, then overtake and stop bothering your mate in front. Meet everyone at the next junction, lay-by or wherever. If you don’t know the way and aren’t confident getting to the front, stop thinking you’re Valentino and back-off a little.

More safety advice coming...

- Use the person in front like the ghost rider on MotoGP game on Playstation, looking through and past them making your own decisions, and not staring at their back wheel and mimicking. If the person in front out-brakes himself and runs into the
hedge you don’t want to follow him do you?

- Being at the back isn’t always the worst place to be. From there you can often see
the knock-on effect of everyone following and copying each others lines, braking
points and reactions and where they are going wrong. Giving yourself more space
and drop-off can help you to learn where you can be smoother and faster .

- If the group comes across a line of cars don’t all overtake each individual car en-mass. It can’t hurt to go past one at a time can it really? If you try to all overtake at once the person (people) at the back will have to squeeze in between the
cars and if you’ve picked a particularly stubborn car driver you might find there’s no gap at all.
- Also there are aprticular signs that are used when riding in a group...some of these signs can be seen in the folowing picture :

I shall keep posting Tips & Tricks to make everyone's ride smoother and safer.
Keep riding safe and...
Dry roads, riders!