What do you need to know before your school enters an organised, mass cycling event? Here are some tips on preparing students for a group ride.

Keeping a group together can be tough when you’re sharing the road with thousands of riders. If you get split up, you might not regroup until your next designated meeting point.

Organising team guernseys can help with spotting each other on the road. Making sure you have similar equipment will also help. If most team members are on road bikes, those on fat-tyred hybrid or mountain bikes will struggle to keep up.

When forming a team it's worth asking whether the group is social or sporting. Does it contain students aiming to set land-speed records as well as those just hoping to cross the finish line alive? The ride will be more fun if team members have common goals and stick to them. Fitter, more experienced cyclists might need to select a smaller gear and ride within themselves to help teammates, rather than disappearing over the horizon alone.

Training
Training together highlights differences in experience, confidence, fitness, equipment and ambition. You might notice, for instance, that a rider who has done lots of training on flat roads struggles when they encounter a hill.

Training should also uncover the best Team Captain. This isn’t necessarily the fittest or fastest rider but the one who is considerate of all team members and takes control of safety alerts, when to ride single file, when to pass other groups, when to take a rest stop and when to decelerate so a slower member can rejoin the bunch.

Drafting
When riding together, practise keeping close enough to the cyclist in front to enjoy the benefits of "drafting", or taking advantage of their slipstream where riding is up to 30 per cent easier. The ideal gap is about 30 centimetres. Get too close and there’s a real risk of collision.

Ride at a steady speed that suits the entire group. Let all riders take short turns at the front to share the workload to the best of their ability.

Practise the way your "train" will function. For instance, does the "driver" drop off to the right or left when it's time for another cyclist to take the lead or do you let the wind direction decide for you like the professionals?

Also make sure all your riders know common hand signals and warnings for passing, slowing, stopping, turning - and obstacles such as potholes and broken glass.

Fuel
Make sure all team members have two full drink bottles and they consume fluids regularly. Snacking on bananas, nuts, dried fruit and sweets at rest stops will also help ensure riders don’t run out of energy before they reach the finish line.

Keeping your team well fuelled and together will improve your overall average speed and make for a much more enjoyable day on the road.

Related reading
Smart Cycling
Cycling Gives Students A Head-Start To Their Day
Seven Tips For Safe Cycling