I think I'd try to take it a bit farther, see if it would be possible to
identify the club running the ride, and contact the club leadership and
voice your complaints. What that group did was irresponsible and
unsafe, and they need to be called out for it. If you can track them
down, a face to face meeting wouldn't be out of order. It is just a
matter of luck that they didn't cause you to crash, which in turn would
have caused their entire pelotoon (i.e., a peloton made up of clowns and
cartoon characters) to crash.
I had a similar situation a few years ago, when a local racing club ran
rides on the local bike trail 50 strong, taking both lanes and forcing
oncoming traffic off the path. What set me off was when they hit a
construction zone at a bridge and by taking both lanes at the spot where
the trail was narrowed by those orange and white barrels they use in
safety zones caused a commuter riding in the opposite lane to crash. It
was easy to identify them, they were all wearing their velo club kit,
and I looked them up on the internet and wrote their president. I never
heard back from them, but the mass rides on the bike trail stopped
permanently.
On 05/22/2016 09:35 AM, Patrick Moore wrote:
Jay -- I think safety for a cyclist requires that you be somewhat
aggressive - aggressive in ensuring the rights that keep you out of
danger, such as taking a lane. Yes, I would have taken the lane and,
further, if someone crowded me, I'd have crowded back -- this last
action would be supererogatory, and just a way to relieve my feelings.
And, with a heavy-ish bike and a load, you have the advantage. But
however you feel about that, the lane is a very definitely yes.
I've been crowded before -- very rarely, I'm glad to say -- jerks who
get annoyed when I pass them or seem to them to be riding to fast. My
own reaction has been, "Bring it on, boyo!" (It's never women who do
this, IME.)
On the other hand, to give this pack the benefit of the doubt, their
omission may have been due simply to their focus in staying with the
group and "not personal."
On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 7:26 AM, Jay LePree <jaymlep...@gmail.com
<mailto:jaymlep...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi group,
I am writing to ask how you would have handled this and to get a
bad action off my chest. Today, I was coming home with some baked
goods after my ride in Nyack, NY on my Rambouillet, set up with a
big saddle bag..Clearly not a race type looking bicycle. I was on
a road with a narrow shoulder and riding near the white line. I
saw a pack of cyclists bearing down on me, maybe at least 20
strong. My first mistake was to ride inside the white line
instead of taking the lane, but then again, I was not sure how
they would react and did not want to cause a pile up. They passed
me without any warning and were perhaps 6 inches away from me.
There was a sewer drain in front of me. Rather than move toward
the center of the road to allow me to avoid it, they ran me right
into it. I was able to slow enough to get over it. (One of those
sunken-in type drains with oval holes, not bicycle friendly.) As
all this was proceeding, the combination of surprise, fear of
dumping the bike, and just consternation that a group of cyclists
would treat a fellow cyclist like this, I said, quite
clearly...A**h*les. (How hard would it have been to move to the
center of the road? How hard would it have been to alert me to
their presence.) It was dumb move on my part. Not taking the
lane and then allowing my emotions to get the best of me.
(Nothing happened after that....fortunately, they were too much
into their ride and keeping pace that no one stopped or challenged
me back.) I confession is in order for today I guess.
It is an unfair question as this group was not there, but would
you have taken the lane? Would you have trusted them to react
accordingly? If I had more warning, I would have stopped and
dismounted an went onto the sidewalk until they passed; however
they really were moving. I saw them in the distance in my
rearview mirror, and the then they were on top of me.
Jay,
Demarest, NJ
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