Biker / Rider

[Banned_imp]

"Group riding"

Good points, Rotor. Terms are important, though. "formation riding" can mean different things to different people.

Riding in a staggered formation with 2 second spacing is perfectly safe and is probably safer for the riders. Riding either staggered, but with short gaps or side by side is fraught with peril. The key, to me at least, is that the riders in the group understand that they are responsible for their own safety and should view riding in a group no differently than if they just happened to be riding in traffic with a bunch of other bikes traveling at the same rate of speed. That means that a rider would let a motorist (or a motorcyclist) move in just as they would if they were riding solo. I have not seen many (I actually don't recall ever seeing this) drivers that move into the middle of a group ride just to be in that lane; they do it because they are about to exit or to get out of the way of faster moving traffic in the vacated lane. Most of the preceding pertains to riding on 4+ lane highways.

In response to your "question" -- They aren't always morons. If you're on a two-lane and you can't pass them all, I think you should wait until they turn off or until you can pass them all. I am 90% sure that it's technically illegal to pass more than one vehicle at a time in the opposite lane, so your other choice, I guess, is to make 20 passes. That seems more dangerous to both riders and driver than waiting patiently or passing the whole lot.

I'm skipping around here a lot, but I think most ride organizers, with the exception of those organizing charity rides, worry about the pack mentality and some of the other things that concern you. I see more and more where the ride organizer splits the large group into small groups of 5-10 riders.

Of course not. I should pipe down a notch

But to put it in cold, clinical terms:

Travelling in a group, so close to other participants that there is not enough room to overtake individual riders one by one (i.e., by "moving in" the group, to use the term of the original text) is illegal in most road traffic jurisdictions. What is the precise language in the laws and regulations in each of the Canadian provinces and States of the Union I do not know, but anybody with half a brain (in the clinical sense) probably understands that such behaviour is impacting other road users quite negatively, and should thus refrain from doing so.

"Group riding" - as described above - has been a regular feature of recreational motorcycling use in North America in the years and decades past. But the traffic is much heavier today than it was in the idyllic times when this behaviour was common and/or acceptable. It is exactly us, the motorcycling community, that must be the first to fight any behaviour that sheds bad light on all motorcyclists.

(My next post will thus be about those that compensate their lack of other manly attributes by modifying their motorcycle exhaust systems so that its excessive noise annoys the heck out of the general road user public. And I promise not to use the aforementioned objectionable term...

Of course not. I should pipe down a notch

But to put it in cold, clinical terms:

Travelling in a group, so close to other participants that there is not enough room to overtake individual riders one by one (i.e., by "moving in" the group, to use the term of the original text) is illegal in most road traffic jurisdictions. What is the precise language in the laws and regulations in each of the Canadian provinces and States of the Union I do not know, but anybody with half a brain (in the clinical sense) probably understands that such behaviour is impacting other road users quite negatively, and should thus refrain from doing so.

"Group riding" - as described above - has been a regular feature of recreational motorcycling use in North America in the years and decades past. But the traffic is much heavier today than it was in the idyllic times when this behaviour was common and/or acceptable. It is exactly us, the motorcycling community, that must be the first to fight any behaviour that sheds bad light on all motorcyclists.

(My next post will thus be about those that compensate their lack of other manly attributes by modifying their motorcycle exhaust systems so that its excessive noise annoys the heck out of the general road user public. And I promise not to use the aforementioned objectionable term...
I am one of the unwashed masses that rides a Harley but I despise loud pipes, for the reason you mentioned - it annoys the general public and paints us in bad light. I bought the quietest aftermarket exhaust I could find, I used to leave for work at 5:45am, I'm sure my neighbours would have been thrilled with straight pipes. I even stopped riding with one guy because his exhaust was just stupid.