Most of the day was in the classroom, but we spent 3 hours on bikes. I have 4 pages of notes, but I’m wiped out, so a real post will wait. Here are some iPhone photos from today…
The class will travel on the road in groups, so they learn to ride in a pace line.
Remember the first time you used toe cages? Imagine if you were given roughly 18 feet to get both feet in the cages, and only 3ft of lateral travel. Yikes!
Shoulder check. You gotta work for this one — count the instructor’s fingers.
The class climbs the ramps at the Citrus Bowl. That was fun!
I am SO jealous! I don’t know about you, but I find it harder to make a head check looking to the right, as the guy is that’s trying to count the fingers, than to the left
Are pace lines important when riding only 12 mph while simultaneously doing police work? Sounds like a contradiction in purposes to me.
I wondered about that, too. I guess, if there is trouble gaining enough authority to get their attention, it might be useful, since some fellows can be a bit hard-headed about things they “know all about.”
Or maybe they need some sort of confidence builder?
Many of these cops are inexperienced cyclists. Paceline riding will require them to quickly develop certain bike handling skills — maintaining a steady wheel, efficient pedaling, holding “the line,” etc. — that will help them become more confident and competent solo riders. The BOBbies have put many triathletes through our paceline training program for this reason.
They are riding around town for three objectives: increasing their fitness on the bike; getting experience with riding in traffic (they’re using arterial roads); and going to drill practice areas.
If you need to move 30 people on bicycles on the roads, they need to be in an orderly pace line and act like vehicle drivers. This isn’t critical mass. They break up into groups of ~8 riders and ride in a double paceline. They actually do get benefit from drafting, even at 12-15mph, so they rotate the pulls.
These guys have never ridden in a group (many have never ridden on the road), so day 1 they are taught to ride in a pace line (double and single), to rotate new leads and to merge a group (like this).
Hey, now they know what cyclists in a pace-line are doing! (These guys won’t be writing any “following to close” tickets on cyclists)