I arranged a ride recently with a couple of friends, who then suggested that we all join another local ride that I didn’t know. I said yes, on the basis that however old you are, you’re still supposed to pretend to like meeting new people and putting yourself in a position where their almost certain incompetence can cause you serious injury.
In the end I more-or-less enjoyed it. Small groups that ride together a lot usually end up behaving like they’ve been married for years – you know each other, you know the routes, there are few surprises. And a new group can remind you how nice that is.
“Left,” shouted someone in the new outfit as we approached a junction. Then, “No, right, sorry… No, left… Sorry the GPS has reset itself, can we stop for a moment?” We went right, which was wrong, so in an attempt to get back on track we took a route through a housing estate that eventually led to an impassable muddy trail.
It’s important to accept that all group rides that have not yet achieved married status need to have officers. This one was our navigator. On a bigger, more formal ride, it’s a role fulfilled by the ride-leader. The most outstanding characteristic of the navigator / ride-leader is being bad at navigation.
This is because they’re anxious about it, and they’re anxious about it because they are the sort of conscientious person who volunteered to be in charge, planned a route, uploaded it to a GPS that they don’t know how to work, and made wild promises about being able to find the café. They don’t want to mess all of this up.
Michael Hutchinson is a writer, journalist and former professional cyclist. As a rider he won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland and competed at the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and once hit 73 mph riding down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns appears in every issue of Cycling Weekly magazine
Another reason they’re anxious is that they will be at all times undermined by the other chief officer, the sergeant major. This is a self-appointed role. The sergeant major likes to provide instructions. “Change at the front, w*nkers!” “Stop bloody pointing to tiny potholes! Only point at things that you can’t effing ride over!” “Why are you shouting ‘car up’? We’ve just as much right to be here as he does – he can bloody wait.” And so on. It’s a constant stream of slightly too-aggressive instructions.
Luckily, the mortal enemy of the sergeant major is the wrecker. Sometimes he (it’s normally a he) is an innocent who just wants a better work out. Sometimes it’s someone who should know better. But the key is they go to the front on every hill and hit it. Any chance they get, they go to the front and hit it.
They want to ride hard, but they do not want to go on a hard ride – they want to ride hard on a steady ride. They are totally immune to the sergeant major, which is why they’re tolerated by everyone else.
There are other ride regulars, even if they’re not yet officers. My favourite is the gifted beginner. Not every ride has one. At their best they’re like a man called Dan who turned up a couple of times to a fast group ride I used to go on, riding a cheap aluminium hybrid from Halfords. In the run-in to the first hill of the route everyone who hadn’t ridden with him before would queue up to patronisingly tell him not to worry when he got dropped, we’d wait for him.
Cometh the hill, Dan would unleash about 650 watts and steam off toward the summit like he was being pulled by a ski-lift. It was brilliant. (He was very talented, but gave up cycling after a couple of months – I’ve often wondered what he might have done if he’d stayed.)
Me? I’m the quiet one. The one who just gets on with the ride. Although I have a suspicion that if you think you’re the quiet one, you’re probably the wrecker.