Wheelsuckers

So, update after the Friday
So, update after the Friday ride – he is no longer a wheelsucker.

Came through like a good’un, did his turn and dropped back.

So there you go, all those wise heads who cautioned the direct and polite approach – result. 🙂

Old Cranky wrote:You’ve not

Old Cranky wrote:

You’ve not resolved the problem, you’ve shifted it to another group. :B

Out of interest, what sort of debris do you get on the road in Abu Dhabi?

True, although the other groups don’t ride as fast or as tightly so the effect is diminished.

Debris is our main problem here. The roads themselves are brilliant – mostly new, very wide, big hard shoulders and wonderfully smooth.

But there is so much construction work and freight, and some of the trucks and companies are run without a great deal of regard for health and safety.

So you often get stuff that has just fallen off open trucks – wood, metal, gravel – or that has been scattered around in an accident.

And they seem to shred a huge number of tires – I guess they use retreads a lot – so you can get great strips of rubber lying around, and of course we are riding on the side or hard shoulder where it all gets thrown.

The standard puncture out here is a small piece of metal, a little like a straightened-out staple. I believe it’s from the tires.

And although the roads are generally good they don’t seem to maintain them much. They just build new ones. So there are some bits where maybe some wet concrete has dropped from a truck and hardened or for some reason the road has been deformed and it will stay that way for years. It can be quite a large lump or hole – the sort of thing they would close two lanes and take six weeks to fix in the UK. But generally we know where they are.

Slight anti-climax but I
Slight anti-climax but I don’t think this one is finished.

I spoke to him – nicely. I even introduced myself first and shook hands, at our drink stop.

His English isn’t great so I had to speak loudly and slowly and do lots of little play-acting to help. 😐

I just said that when he was in the line we noticed he often left gaps and that made it difficult for the people behind. So if he was riding in the line – especially with the fast group – he needed to keep close and come through on his turn, even if only for a few seconds.

He seemed to agree and said OK.

But then he joined one of the slower, looser groups after that.

Result for us either way really. For him too – a couple of the Very Fast Riders had come out with malevolent intent until I told them I was going to speak to him.

The test will be if and when he joins the fast group again.

As a reminder of why this sort of thing matters, we had a bloke carted off in an ambulance today – not in our group but one of the slower groups. I’m told he was at the back and hit some debris on the road that hadn’t been signalled by the riders ahead. Basic stuff.

When you ride in a group you ride as a group for very good reasons.