Before you can ride safely in a group, you must be able to ride confidently by yourself. It is beyond the scope of this website to teach you how to ride. If you haven't already taken a Riders Education course it is highly recommended, regardless of how long you have been riding. Courses are available through a few venues, including Riders Edge® classes from our sponsoring dealer.
One of the most over-looked skills seems to be Counter Steering, also known as Push Steering. To make a motorcycle turn to the right, you push on the right handlebar. That's right, you turn the handlebars in the opposite direction that you want to go. This isn't just a skill used for emergency swerving, it's how you ride a motorcycle. You don't steer a motorcycle by leaning, you make it lean by steering! If you veer towards the centerline making a simple right hand turn, you might want to Google counter-steering and unlock the secret to safer cycling.
 That being said, riding in a group is easy and safe if you know the ground rules and everyone is on the same page. In the St. Paul Chapter we ride staggered. This means the lead bike is always in the left half of the lane, and the second bike is in the right half-about 1 second back. Bike three is in the left half 1 second back. While each bike is maintaining only a 1 second following distance, the distance between the bike immediately in front of you is 2 seconds and each bike has full use of the lane should they need it and in curves. Since there is no one riding next to you, avoid crowding the center-line or pavement edge.
These distances are commonly referred to as the “Two Second Rule” and may need to be increased from time to time, but try to avoid huge gaps that may encourage cars to enter or cross your lane. We used to use the “slide” method to fill the gaps, but Harley-Davidson and the MSF encourage leaving the gap or using the “Criss-cross” method instead. St. Paul HOG has decided that should a gap in staggered formation occur, it would be best to leave the gap and correct it at the next stop sign or red light.
When stopped at intersections it is usually better to pair-up and tighten ranks. Each right-side bike moves up to be beside the left-side bike. If at a stop light, resume the stagger as you move out on the green. If at a stop sign, proceed through as a pair then resume stagger. Take turns as pairs with other traffic. Do not block traffic! As nice as that might be, none of us are deputized, and if something goes wrong you don't want to have to report to state that you ran a stop sign. This can get tricky as sometimes one of the cars will yield to us but the other side may not. Your default position is to exercise caution and follow the law.
We use hand signals to communicate with the group. This only works if everyone relays the hand signals back to the rest of the group. |
