More Orange spin troubles!

While most of the Sunday spins have been working fabulously there have been a run of complaints coming back from the Orange groups. The complaints include pushing the pace too fast and messy group riding, which would include overlapping wheels, failing to hold the wheel in front, failing to keep to two tidy lines, random accelerations and braking and various other careless or dangerous behaviour.

This is all typical stuff from inexperienced riders, and would typically be handled with a shout from the experienced riders in the group. The problem we seem to have is that there are just too many newer riders of that ability, and not enough experienced riders. It is great to have so many new riders coming in who are clearly very capable, but we do need to get a handle on this rather than spend a Winter full of accidents.

What we would like to see happen is
1) For everyone in these groups to re-read the ettiquette and technique page
2) For the few who are driving the pace to move to the Red group- if the pace goes up every time you're on the front, or people are shouting at you to slow it down, then you are in the wrong group.
3) A few of the more experienced riders who are going out with the Orange groups to step up as leaders of the groups they find themselves in over the next couple of weeks. We have a few volunteers for this role already, but I would like to see a few more people taking control of the groups.
4) If you are on the receiving end of some friendly advice please do take it in the spirit that it is intended- we don't want to spoil anyone's fun, just keep a bit of order to make the spins better and safer for everyone.

First orange group from the park today was good - steady pace, no one dropped, safe riding. Probably helped that we had Arthur cracking the whip and a solid core of experienced riders to keep things under control.

If you find yourself in a group that's too slow there are a couple of things you can do...

1. If going up a hill - change into a harder gear. This will make you work harder - but at a slower pace. This is good for building leg strength (increasing power) and will benefit you later.

2. On the flat - put your bike into an easier gear, so you will need to pedal at a higher cadence to generate the same speed. This will develop leg speed and give you a better cardio workout.

Above advice given to us by Scott MacDonald who coached the A4 newbies last season!

Hope it helps.

PB