10/12/2026
“I have been leading rides for 29 years,” he said. “And the question I get asked most is how you decide who rides right behind you. The honest answer is that I decide it long before anybody starts an engine, and it has almost nothing to do with how well they ride.”
“The riders I trust at seventy miles an hour are the ones I watched at a fuel stop. Skill matters less than people think. What a man does when nobody is watching the formation tells you everything.”
After more than 1,000 group rides, he explained the pattern.
Rule 1: They showed up early and checked other people’s bikes. The riders he trusts walk the lot before a ride, glancing at tires that are not theirs. A rider who looks out for the machine next to him will look out for the man on it.
Rule 2: They held their position when it was boring. Anybody rides a tight formation through a canyon. The riders he trusts hold their spacing on three hundred miles of flat interstate at the end of a long day, when nobody would notice if they drifted.
Rule 3: They passed the signal back every single time. A road captain sees the gravel first, but he only protects the whole line if every rider repeats the warning to the man behind. The riders who skip it because it seems obvious are the ones he moves to the back.
Rule 4: They told him when they were not okay. Tired, cold, a bike acting strange, a bad week at home. The riders he trusts most say it at the fuel stop instead of pushing through, because pride in a formation puts twelve people at risk instead of one.
“People think leading a ride is about the front,” he said. “It is about knowing every man behind you would stop for the one behind him. When you have that, the road captain is almost unnecessary, and that is how you know the group is ready.”