Hopefully this is a productive post:
West Point had three accidents out of how many participants?
ENY had three accidents out of how many participants?
Other accidents on our group rides?
Is this a reasonable and acceptable ratio?
How does it compare to other regional clubs?
Are we not doing something as a club or doing something wrong when it comes to safety?
Just wondering out loud.
Ron
(ignore same post to Susan's accident thread).
In my opinion I think if people are riding bikes or skipping rope there will be some mishaps it just so happens that you can be very badly injured if you fall off a bike,get hit,loose control,whatever. Accidents happen with cars or if your walking down the street going to grandma's house and a piano falls on your head.People think cycling is risky.I would agree to a certain extent it's riskier for some more than others however I think that living a sedentary lifestyle is the riskiest thing you can do,again some more than others.
"I generally feel more at risk on a group ride than I do in auto traffic– one reason I do so few group rides.
Other than on rare occasions, I've given up drafting. I have to be absolutely confident in my fellow cyclists to draft.
I know all about drafting and its advantages, but it's just another word for ""tailgating,"" something we safety conscious people would decry in evil auto users.
Sure, I know ""the pros do it,"" but pro auto racers ""draft,"" too. That does not make it ok on the highway. Pro drivers often crash due to their drafting."
I think the biggest problem that occurs while drafting behind someone else is when the person or persons at the front stop pedaling or soft pedal.This soft pedaling causes a chain reaction while everyone is grabing their brakes.This can be extended to a goup of cyclist that vary in strength causing the acordian effect especially going up a hill or rise.Also some people dont know how to maintain a pace,pace is determined by intensity so if we are riding along at say 18mph on the flats and we come to the bottom of a hill and I take off I just increased the intesity or the pace.Then there is the situation when everyone is riding along in a large group and the group turns direction into a strong head wind that wind is going to slow everything down so its up to the cyclist that is drafting to anticipate the resistance and make adjustments to their own intensity to keep everything behind them smooth.Rich
I would suggest that you read this...
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
The page has lots of statistics, which look at things in a lot of ways. The one that seems to answer your question is 24 emergency room visits per 1 million miles. So, one visit every 42,000 miles or so. Which would be one per 420 century rides. So, for a large organized ride, one ER visit is not that out of line. Also, a stat says 70% of accidents do not visit the ER, so you would expect 3-4 accidents in that 42,000 miles.
Or about 1 every 10,000 miles, which is a number Dr Ed mentions every year in the A-Sig. So, for 100 century riders, you expect one accident.
As a totally unscientific A-SIG comparison, an A or A19 siggie rides about 800+/- miles with the group during the SIG. My guess is over 70 people did the two graduation rides this year, so the A-sigs easily cover 56,000+ miles, with Newbie riders riding in close formation. I know of about 2-3 accidents each year, with 1-3 riders going down. So, the accident rate is at or below average for riders as far as I can guess.
The irony is, ...well after you read the Kifer article, go to the home page.
