Club Ride Saturday 27th August 2022

Meet at 0850 for a 0900 depart from the main car park in Brookley Road, Brockenhurst as usual. As it’s a Bank Holiday weekend we’ll take the ride out of the forest and head north for hopefully quieter roads. Route is a 115Km loop with a coffee stop at the Community Shop in Broad Chalke.

Route can be found at:

https://www.plotaroute.com/route/2015631?units=km 

Following last week’s unfortunate incident can we please use this situation to re-enforce the group riding behaviour that we have built an enviable reputation for. The video footage from last weeks has been reviewed and I’m pleased to report that no riders were to blame for the incident and everybody had made a perfect effort to single up and get close to the left of the road.

But there are things we can tighten up on. The speed of the groups has increased this year but that brings even greater demands on rider discipline. This is everybody’s responsibility. Please keep the groups in tight formation and either in a single or double line (not a mixture of the two) as is most appropriate and SAFEST for the peloton. Pay close attention to keeping lines straight as crooked lines look to cars like we’re 3 or 4 abreast and create road rage as we saw on North Road last week. We have to climb at our own speed on the longer climbs which is fine, but regroup as soon as possible at the top and don’t go more than two abreast when climbing (I’ve seen this many times from my position at the back when it comes to hills!). Riders speeding off the front of the group cause the group to fragment, riders then have to make hard efforts to get on and we can quickly look like a rabble on the road. Again, we saw this on the ride last week with a charity ride being all over the road and the net effect was drivers coming towards us making inappropriate overtaking manoeuvres out of frustration. Not excusing their driving but we can help prevent drivers making bad or inappropriate judgements,

Look forward to seeing another strong turnout for what looks like a lovely day for riding

Barry