Wheel Easy Guides
Guide for Backmarkers
This guide is based on best practice and recommendations from Wheel Easy members, Cycling UK and others.
Your responsibilities
To ensure that you act in a manner which is a credit to the club and cycling in general:
- by supporting the leader and by backmarking by example;
- by maintaining a high awareness of road conditions and features, and other road users;
- by riding safely and following the Highway Code, and
- by helping your leader to control the ride for group riders’ enjoyment.
Please also make yourself familiar with the Wheel Easy Guide to Riding in a Group.
Guidelines
- Your ride leader will ask for a designated backmarker to help ensure that slower riders and riders with mechanicals, etc are not left behind. Consider volunteering.
- Swap mobile numbers with your leader.
- As backmarker, you will be in a unique position to see all of the group riders and their related cycling behaviours. If they are unaware of other road users and are causing a problem for them, in particular to vehicles behind the group, then you should take action to resolve this. For example, in busy areas such as Harrogate/Knaresborough, and whenever it is difficult for vehicles to overtake a long line of cyclists, request riders split into smaller groups of 3 or 4 riders. They should leave a large gap (10 car lengths) between the groups for vehicles to slot into.
- Tell your ride leader if a rider has a mechanical, is unwell, or if the last rider is falling behind.
v4 April 23
