mjr wrote:Well, I got a reply from British Cycling about their down=from-the-back and up=from-the-front advice and was told:
BritishCycling wrote:there are variations in the calls you will hear when cycling in a group, both between groups and in our experience regionally. In the Insight Zone article we have tried to make it clear that these variations exist. 'Be aware there are local variations of these shouts, so use your eyes too.'
Unless there's some sort of estimate of how many groups use which directions, I feel that I don't know how to answer that might resolve this, and so CTC and BC are doomed to contradict each other, leading to the conflict and confusion discussed above when riders move between groups.
Any suggestions?
I'm not sure that this should be a CTC v BC issue - there's another thread on the forum wherein someone has suggested that it would be better for cyclists generally if BC and CTC could find actively common ground and campaign together - sing from the same hymnsheet, so to speak.
Being specific to the issue under discussion, I have to say that generally when I ride in a group I ride with cyclists from West, North and South Yorkshire and very occasionally I'll find myself in a group from North and East Lancashire; when I've done Audaxes I've ridden in company with cyclists from many parts of Britain - but mainly northern England. More to the point, very many of the cyclists that I find myself in a group with are also members of local "Road Clubs", or racing clubs and without exception BC members - most of them never ride with CTC groups. We all know each other of course, and there is never an exception to the "car up yer......er, er,er...." and "Car down yer throat" convention.
A couple of years ago I was at Lands-End and by coincidence, a large group of cyclists arrived - they were obviously 'club' cyclists and they told me that they were from the Thames Valley, just west of London. As they entered that shopping and café complex there an open-top poser sports car roared up behind them, and one of the backmarkers shouted : "Car
UP!". They told me they were all road type club members, doing a sponsored ride for a local charity - some of them were CTC members, but the "car up yer......er, er,er...." and "Car down yer throat" convention was clearly theirs as well.
The "car up yer......er, er,er...." and "Car down yer throat" is the only convention I've encountered and everyone seems to understand. From the number of people who have posted on this thread I conclude that such is the accepted national convention.
Congratulations for seeking BC's view of the matter, but their response is fairly typical of those who have 'proclaimed' and then discovered that their proclamation may be wrong - they waffle and fernackerpant around the issue rather than being bold enough to admit that there may be more in it that they were aware of.
BC's advice : "
'Be aware there are local variations of these shouts, so use your eyes too.'" is really good, sound common sense, but why not say so in the first place rather than make a rule which is at best controversial and at worst could be dangerous. I'd say that a short term answer, on a personal level, would be that if one is riding with a group for the first time be aware and take note of the facts surrounding a "Car up" or "Car Down" shout - or better still, ask first.
If you (mjr) are going to go back to BC on this, perhaps you could ask them to clarify where one's eyes would be when complying with the proclamation : "............use your eyes too." in spotting cars coming up from behind?.........embroidered on the backside-cheeks of our shorts?
