Cycling UK Forum

Bmblbzzz wrote:"Car left" or right, as may be, is the one used for that round here. Or simply "on the left/right" (which I dislike as a call to others warning them that you're passing them, but is fine within a group IMO).

And this is pretty much why I really can’t be buttocked with leading rides anymore. ( not singling out Bmblbzzz here, this is general observation). Arrogance from
People who think ( wrongly ) they know better than conventions that have developed over a hundred ( odd ) years. ‘It’s okay I’ll just make up a call / calls, everyone will work out what I mean’. No, wrong, this sort of thing makes an already risky activity ( group riding ) even more risky. Stick to the bloody conventions. They’ve evolved the way they have for good reason, you can’t make it up as you go along, that’s the sort of thing that causes paperwork.

I'm not sure I agree that that's what happens. Rather than people making up new calls ignoring a hundred years of tradition, we have multiple traditions evolving at different times and places and then evolving in different ways. I've already mentioned "oil up/down" used by the club I rode with back in the 80s. I know that club is still going (I no longer live there) but I don't know if they still use "oi" rather than "car" - even if they do, not many do. So it is with up meaning "up your @r53" (as it was first put to me) or "up ahead", or "front and back" and so on.

I think it's time for xkcd:

All this cobblers about newcomers not knowing what calls mean is daft. They should darn well learn then! So what if clubs vary. As long as a group knows what a call means all is fine If not, see sentence 2 above.
If it works, don't try to mend it.
In my mind, "up" comes from behind. As in " it crept up behind you" .. Down therefore is the opposite. Front and back work but stuff the politically correct, let's include everyone idea and spend time on the bike not in the meeting room.

mattsccm wrote:All this cobblers about newcomers not knowing what calls mean is daft. They should darn well learn then! So what if clubs vary. As long as a group knows what a call means all is fine If not, see sentence 2 above.
If it works, don't try to mend it.
In my mind, "up" comes from behind. As in " it crept up behind you" .. Down therefore is the opposite. Front and back work but stuff the politically correct, let's include everyone idea and spend time on the bike not in the meeting room.

But there is no innate reason for "up" to mean "behind" and the alternative is a mess as ex-CTC use it that way and ex-BC riders use it to mean "up ahead" rendering both "car up" calls pretty useless.

So to avoid the problem and spend more time cycling, we simply switched to "car back" instead. If it doesn't work, change it

mattsccm wrote:All this cobblers about newcomers not knowing what calls mean is daft. They should darn well learn then! So what if clubs vary. As long as a group knows what a call means all is fine If not, see sentence 2 above.
If it works, don't try to mend it.
In my mind, "up" comes from behind. As in " it crept up behind you" .. Down therefore is the opposite. Front and back work but stuff the politically correct, let's include everyone idea and spend time on the bike not in the meeting room.

If you add "behind" then of course it does.