Estimating time and trying to keep a group together

Cut from a parallel thread.

Richard


If it helps, me and Mrs average:

65+ on French Motorways
40+ on French N/D Roads
30+ On Alpine twisties (Black Forest is @40mph on a days ride)

Wannabe racers on Fireblades may be a bit quicker, plodders on any bike a bit slower, it is suprising that someone that seems very slow when your out riding is only average 2-3 mph less than the fast guys, particularly if you all do similar speeds on straights and Mr Racer is not blasting through 30's at 60 - and I think we are all too old for that now?

I average a bit more solo, but in a group of 3-4 friends it starts to drop off as you have to go to slowest pace, allow for guys getting held up when half the group gets past a slow car and the other half don't etc.

These are also "moving averages" taken from sat-nav, exlcuding stop times - which also exponentially rise with the size of group, and also allow for perhaps some bad weather (although often you can shorten route a bit or use more motorway to offset) road closures with shit diversion signage have caused me grief on occasions.

I have several mates I ride with and know which ones need to stop for 15 minutes plus every hour, and those that will happily drain a 200 mile tank without stopping, the former makes a 6 hour ride a long day, the latter I can confidently plan for 8+ hours riding and know we will be sat having a pre-dinner drink at 6PM.

The former also tend to be the ones who cannot possibly be up for breakfast before 8:30am ;-) When hot me and the Mrs would sometime be on the road by 06:30 to avoid a whole afternoon in 40c heat, did a trip one year with a guy who it was bloody hard to get out of bed before 9:00am and lucky to hit the road by 10:00am, which meant a couple of fucking uncomfortable days where we ended up skipping all the good roads and usng motorway just to escape the stiffling heat sooner.

Good luck with it all!

All good observations from Rasher. I agree with his estimations, to the letter.

I have noticed that, when leading a bunch of bikes on Wapping Wander’s, the speeds and general ‘get on with the day’ increase as the holiday progresses. On days, one, two and three, bods can sometimes be all over the place. By day four, it’s a well oiled machine, as everyone gets into the rhythm of things. Sometimes this is down to nothing more than confidence, as some on my Wanders members had not done too much riding abroad (or even in groups) at all.

He is also correct that bikes, no matter what the capacity and speed, all arrive at near enough the same time; their real life speeds all being very close. The only additional observation I’d make is that if the fellow at the front is doing say 50 mph, the fellow at the back is sometimes having to do 80 or more, just to catch up. That though is maybe catered for in Rasher’s observation about speeds altering due to the variable time of overtakes.

One thing I do use on my Wander jaunts, is a GPS device’s ability to show: Distance to final destination and estimated arrival time at final destination. It is often telling to watch the former not change but the latter move out during each stop. Then the latter start to slowly move back towards you as you get going again. Some fellows it seems haven’t quite grasped the simple fact that, when stopped to chew the fat, they are not moving forwards. They seem quite surprised to lean that, what was (at the start of the day) an estimated arrival time of 15:30 is now 17:30, two hours having been frittered away somewhere along the way.

The only other thing I’d add is that some people have no idea how large the fuel tank is on their motorcycle in litres. They just “Fill it up when the light comes on, mate”, when a deep panic overcomes them, often well before the light comes. In short, they have no real idea how far their bike will go. I quite often get told, “My bike shows only three bars left” or some such. I have no idea whether his bike starts with four bars (ie it’s 75% full) or is about to drop to two bars (ie 50%) or starts with 100 bars, meaning that it’s now down to just 4%. This then gets compounded when another bod immediately pipes up, “Well my bike is showing six bars”, as if his bike is some sort of magical reference point. The truth is, a lot of them discover that their bike will go a lot further than they think it will. It’s simply that some of them have never really ridden very far in a day to ever find out. When they do look in the owners hand book to discover that their bike actually holds 23 litres and that it’s a fairly good rule of thumb that it’ll do 10 miles per litre, they seem amazed that it will probably go about 230 miles. No need to start panicking at 150 miles then.

In a group watch out for those with large tanks not filling up when Mr small tank does, at 130 Miles Mr Small tank fills up and Mr Big Tank declares he has half a tank left, but we all know (or should) the fuel gauage shows full for ages on most bikes and drops like a stone later on, so 50 miles up the road Mr Large tank starts flapping his arms cos his fuel light is on ;-) Best to say when one fills all fill - no exceptions.

Knowing your range helps, in my experience all modern 1200's will do at least 10 miles per litre (unless you're cruising at 3 figures with huge panniers) and probably 11+, I have had mates on GS insisting they only do 150 miles, but when they fill up at @120 miles they only get 12L in their 20L tank, or they push the nozzle all the way in and don't fill the widest part of the top of the tank that holds the bulk of the fuel, folk that have never left their own postcode before may need a lot of help to start with.


A plan is critical for longer days (not so much an easy loop out of a Hotel your are based a). Without it you have nothing to deviate from ;-)

If you want you can plan every coffee, lunch and fuel stop in, although hard to know exact but cofee can be any time between 10:00 and 11:00 and lunch a 45 minute slot anywhere from 12:00 - 14:00 so even if external factors throw everything off a bit they tend to work out. I have some fave spots I love to work in as a lunch or coffee stop, but if it does not fit I don't try and force it and if it does not pan out then just deviate from plan a little.


I use the destination time on sat nav, I know how many stops are due (or how much stop time) as we leave I know we will stop for about 2 hours through the day, so I add that to arrival time, after coffee stop I know I need to add 1:30, after lunch 30 mins etc.

Arrival time on Nav normally comes down unless we hit heavy traffic, a diversion or weather turns - but we normally stop less when it rains, and for less time, you can also normally abandon your twisty meandering route and take a faster option.


The biggest challenge can be keeping group together, I tend to use Tracks and routes on sat-nav, a "Track" is just a line painted down the road on the sat-nav screen and WILL be the same on everyones device (Exactly as it looked on computer screen)

A route is calculated by each device between waypoints - imagine hitting the M25 from the M40 with the next waypoint on the M20, one device may send its rider around the norther half of the M25, another around the Southern and another through the centre - with further versions like North Vs South Circular, within 30 minutes you could have six bikes in six places.

The "drop off system" is great if you think it is safe to stop on motorway slip roads to wait for your buddies to catch up, randomly stop half way around a junction etc. - in quiet rural areas it can be great, but is much harder in the real world of a weeks tour, or the "make sure you can see the bike behind in your mirrors before turning" this is also OK, except people forget - I have had days losing people multiple times with both systems.

With a Route and a Track they will mainly be the same, but when they differ the rider should follow the track - well 99% of the time, I have had the odd one where the track pointed me down a very unsuitable "road" - in the Pyrennes a couple of times it wanted to use a dirt track, this is not the fault of the Nav, but mine for not using street view on every single meter of my planned ride, so common sense should be applied to stop one of your buddies driving his Goldwing into a marsh. TBH the Black Forest is unlikely to do that to you.

The route in use also means headset instructions as to when to turn, just a quick glance to ensure the track is showing that turning, where it falls down is where the track turns and the route does not, for example on our M40 run, your Nav wants to go trhough central London, the track veers off to the M25, but the Nav is silent as there is no turning to be done (or it just says traight on and your brain excepts that)


So what next when you look down and see no track? you ought to head back the way you came to you pick it up again, but now do you carry on the way you should be going? head back to the last place your buddies "definately" saw you?

Helps if lead rider(s) have a headset and phone this works well for me and some of my mates, even if I get held up, or they do, a quick call to make sure we are all good, it can save a lot of stopping and turning around, if they have royally screwed up you can just say - just get to the upcoming coffee / lunch stop.

You can also buddy people up, if one has no sense of direction and cannot use a sat-nav, see if he gets on well, rides at similar pace to one who is OK on navigation and say if any pair get split they can just go to next meeting spot if all else fails. Make sure everyone has Hotel post code, worst case they can at least pump that into nav and find their own way.


I always knock up a word document with a screenshot of the route - hardly a map, but can be shown to a local who can point in a rough direction, along with a list of waypoints from the map (Givet - Lunch / Bastogne - Hotel Melba etc) and include the Hotel address and booking reference, email it to everyone, most folk can save it on their phone, or if you don't trust them with that then meet up with printed copes for everyone.

All sounds like a lot of aggro and over-planning, but its not really, think about what may work for your bikermates now, if you can go for some days out together before the trip, or at the very least see if they can practice using a circular route from their home on their nav and play with routes and tracks - many phones are quite poor for nav and cannot display tracks, and are not good for circular routes, make sure they know their tank size / range etc.

Agree a few simple rules:

* How you intend to stick together and what to do when that fails
* Fuelling up at same time
* Make sure guys know how to use their Nav or have paired off with someone who can
* Some people set rules on overtakes, I just say don't follow too close and overtake cleanly on straights, if a bike is up your tailpipe in the bends then don't try and out-drag it down next straight, just wave it past it is often easier to follow a better rider anyway - just don't follow said "better" rider into the hedge.

All of this is very easy compared to splitting the bill after a meal, so don't forget the first aid kit.

Thanks for all your tips Rasher. ……..we will probably be a group of 6, whom have all ridden together for quite a number of years, including several week long trips away in Scotland & Ireland. We all know each others riding ability/skill level and regularly ride out together.
Saying that, I have had experience in the dim and distant past of the Big tank/Small tank problem. On our way to County Kerry, a nameless Adventure rider didn't fill up in Dublin and consequently ran out of fuel in rural central Ireland. The recovery episode had the rest of us waiting around for several hours. On a similar issue you mentioned regarding tank range, we had a HD V Rod owner with us on another trip to Ireland. The bike's small tank range of about 80 miles meant we were always routing via petrol stations!

Fortunately, our group know each other well. Most have bike to bike comms, all have GPS & smart phones and more importantly, will know the plan before we set off. We also tend to ride "in file" where one rider will lead a leg and the remainder follow behind maintaining their place in the line. Being a small group of similar riding style/speed/ability, this works well for us.

Thank you all for your comments, advice, tips and recommendations. They are much appreciated. I am working on a plan now for our Black Forest trip

It's amazing that some riders (usually of a certain age) don't know the capacity of their own bladder.
Within 10 minutes of leaving a services/cafe/restaurant they're signalling for a stop, then trot off into
nearby bushes. Then when he dissappear behind a hedge another one lights a fag. It's not over yet.....
As the bod is halfway down his fag and the chap is back from the hedge row zipping himself up, someone
else decides to phone their bank to check on things. This could take them a while before they even speak to
a chimp on the other end. It's like herding cats. Wonderful.

brut33 said:

It's amazing that some riders (usually of a certain age) don't know the capacity of their own bladder.
Within 10 minutes of leaving a services/cafe/restaurant they're signalling for a stop, then trot off into
nearby bushes. Then when he dissappear behind a hedge another one lights a fag. It's not over yet.....
As the bod is halfway down his fag and the chap is back from the hedge row zipping himself up, someone
else decides to phone their bank to check on things. This could take them a while before they even speak to
a chimp on the other end. It's like herding cats. Wonderful.

Click to expand...

One reason why I dislike riding in groups and prefer my own company or a couple of like minded / skilled riders. If there's a group on tour, I'd always tell folks the final destination and a couple of optional stops and let them get on with it.

I have found that on a 1500 mile Scotland hoon anything over 45MPH average for the trip = having gone bloody fast alot

In the UK I struggle to put estimates in, personally I find B roads or mix of A/B is about 40-45mph in a small group, motorways are impossible, so much congestion, roadworks, accidents, variable limits - all bets are off unless you know the road well and went along it 5 minutes earlier. I just work on a typical worst case of 40mph for rural UK riding and hope we do better on the day - seems to work for my local Cotswold runs and further afield into Worcestershire and Wales.

I have also on occasions whisked along a nice section of road making wonderfully times overtakes - only to end up pulling in and letting a dozen recently overtaken cars by until a bikermate catches up - this sceneario never unfolds in rural France. In the UK it is so easy for a group to get split as some guys are able to get the passes made and others aren't - either due to skill or just luck of the white lines and oncoming traffic.

One of the most annoying things about group riding is the inability of some riders to actually open the throttle and keep up to the prevailing speed limit. Surely one of the joys of motorbiking is to experience the whoosh of acceleration - not drag strip or max throttle, but better than a sedate canter toward the speed limit. In my mind I have an image of a group of riders swooping around the roads in tight formation. In practice it's not uncommon to be strung out over a ridiculous distance. And don't start me on overtaking ....

Blimey, there are some miseries on this forum.

Riding in a group is fine. Even a small groups of say four bikes can, under some circumstances get strung out over a mile apart, front to back. That doesn’t really matter, if everyone knows where they are going.

Larger groups, say up to 10 bikes, works too. Then they might get strung out over perhaps five miles. But again, with everyone knowing where they are going and / or having a good marker ‘drop off’ system running (with everyone knowing how it works) it’s not a huge problem.

The problems come:

A. For the leader. It’s quite tiring leading a group, as you have to look after yourself AND them to some degree or another.

B. Lots of things look like motorcycles in the mirrors, keeping track of what is happening behind you is not always easy, especially if the bod behind has the light of a thousand blazing suns beaming out. You really cannot see a thing.

C. Cafe / lunch stops are tricky, as few small towns can cater for 10 bikes plus maybe pillions arriving to all sit down at once. The leader has to find a place where 10 bikes can park safely, which is not always easy, meaning you have to ride past places that would be very suitable for a smaller group or solo. Not least, contrary to rumour, not every town and village is littered with cafes.

Out of all the Wapping Wanders I ran, making tens of thousands of man miles, there is only one person from this forum in the whole lot who was a complete knob and that is being overly polite. His long suffering wife was fine. We had, over the years, a complete mixture of riders, all of very varying ability. I think / hope (even know) all the groups had a good time, irrespective of the numbers. I only stopped as I clocked up over 24,000 miles one year, all in holiday from work. It was costing a fortune, as I made no money from the trips. That and they had become mentally tiring to do, as described above. The worst thing though is that you start to ride for everyone else, not yourself. That is dangerous.

For those that don’t like riding in groups, there’s an easy solution. Start to lead some groups and run them your way.

Wapping said:

Blimey, there are some miseries on this forum.

Riding in a group is fine. Even a small groups of say four bikes can, under some circumstances get strung out over a mile apart, front to back. That doesn’t really matter, if everyone knows where they are going.

Larger groups, say up to 10 bikes, works too. Then they might get strung out over perhaps five miles. But again, with everyone knowing where they are going and / or having a good marker ‘drop off’ system running (with everyone knowing how it works) it’s not a huge problem.

The problems come:

A. For the leader. It’s quite tiring leading a group, as you have to look after yourself AND them to some degree or another.

B. Lots of things look like motorcycles in the mirrors, keeping track of what is happening behind you is not always easy, especially if the bod behind has the light of a thousand blazing suns beaming out. You really cannot see a thing.

C. Cafe / lunch stops are tricky, as few small towns can cater for 10 bikes plus maybe pillions arriving to all sit down at once. The leader has to find a place where 10 bikes can park safely, which is not always easy, meaning you have to ride past places that would be very suitable for a smaller group or solo. Not least, contrary to rumour, not every town and village is littered with cafes.

Out of all the Wapping Wanders I ran, making tens of thousands of man miles, there is only one person from this forum in the whole lot who was a complete knob and that is being overly polite. His long suffering wife was fine. We had, over the years, a complete mixture of riders, all of very varying ability. I think / hope (even know) all the groups had a good time, irrespective of the numbers. I only stopped as I clocked up over 24,000 miles one year, all in holiday from work. It was costing a fortune, as I made no money from the trips. That and they had become mentally tiring to do, as described above. The worst thing though is that you start to ride for everyone else, not yourself. That is dangerous.

For those that don’t like riding in groups, there’s an easy solution. Start to lead some groups and run them your way.

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Although I only went on one, I really enjoyed it despite the trusty steed giving up the ghost early.
I was most grateful for the effort Richard had put into planning and organising it and am only sorry I didn’t get to go on more!

Thank you.

I learned a lot running the Wanders. In a masochistic kind way I do miss them and I met lots of good bods along the way. Maybe the most spiritually beneficial ones, were those I ran for complete novices, who had no (or very little) experience of riding outside of the UK. Some of they guys and girls (one in particular) have gone on to do great things and organised jaunts of their own. We never went much further than 80 miles from Calais in any direction but took in a big mixture of roads, including a short section of payage (just so people could see how it worked) and a bit of D road, well marked on a map with a number and everything, which would shame a cart track. The latter only to prove that the map can sometimes lie.

Wapping said:

Thank you.

I learned a lot running the Wanders. In a masochistic kind way I do miss them and I met lots of good bods along the way. Maybe the most spiritually beneficial ones, were those I ran for complete novices, who had no (or very little) experience of riding outside of the UK. Some of they guys and girls (one in particular) have gone on to do great things and organised jaunts of their own. We never went much further than 80 miles from Calais in any direction but took in a big mixture of roads, including a short section of payage (just so people could see how it worked) and a bit of D road, well marked on a map with a number and everything, which would shame a cart track. The latter only to prove that the map can sometimes lie.

Click to expand...

Richard: reading this makes me think it's time you led another one.

I used to do quite a lot of group leading. Just small groups, of friends who had known each other for years, decades, lifetimes. My big thing was turn up on time, with full tanks and empty bladders, the rest we can work out along the way. Generally ride for 100-120 miles then a ten minute leg stretch with tank top up. Longer if we were in the Cuds and needed to press on. Some top tips above.

simondippenhall said:

Richard: reading this makes me think it's time you led another one.

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I’m up for that!

I enjoyed the trips I went on with you, Richard. It was nice not being the tour organiser for once! They were both fairly small groups so relatively easy to keep people together although we had one chap who was much slower than the rest of the group and I remember we just went at a comfortable pace and let him catch up eventually. I had to work my Super Ten quite hard to keep up with the K1600 but it was fun in short bursts when you knew we were on a nice stretch of road with no junctions to worry about. I think that was north of Avallon on the rolling D roads. I did go exploring by myself on the spare days though.

For the trips I arrange now, some of the riders & pillions are getting on a bit so we have to keep the daily "as the crow flies" mileage lower with side loop options for the more robust. We use bases for a few days as non-riding days need to be factored in. Hence, my more ambitious or longer trips tend to be solo nowadays. Although, I have my own health stuff to accommodate so some days plans have to change as I have been too ambitious. Being solo makes it easier to adjust at short notice.

brut33 said:

It's amazing that some riders (usually of a certain age) don't know the capacity of their own bladder.
Within 10 minutes of leaving a services/cafe/restaurant they're signalling for a stop, then trot off into
nearby bushes. Then when he dissappear behind a hedge another one lights a fag. It's not over yet.....
As the bod is halfway down his fag and the chap is back from the hedge row zipping himself up, someone
else decides to phone their bank to check on things. This could take them a while before they even speak to
a chimp on the other end. It's like herding cats. Wonderful.

Click to expand...

Totally agree last time I went away in a group it was one needed fuel at 120 miles , would the others fill up nope, ending up having to stop 30 miles later because another needed fuel and then 30 miles after that another needed fuel, every stop 40 minutes rather than 15.

They refused to carry maps or sat navs so 2 got lost when they followed the wrong bikes, another riding at the back of the group decided to turn back to go to a garage and the one in front didn't realise, only found out at the next fuel stop.

Some drinking until 2am and being barely able to stand never mind ride their bikes the next day , it took us 9 hours to do a distance that I would easily do in 5 1/2. an utter and absolute nightmare

When we used to do the winter rallies which usually involved blasting across Germany on motorways the first day we all knew the route and destination but the agreed method was to stop at the first services after 100 miles then regroup, reset and do it again. That might mean stopping after 101 miles or it might mean stopping after 130 miles but it never meant 99 miles and we never lost anyone. If you were quicker you had more time to warm up, if you were slow you filled the bike, necked a quick hot drink and got going again.

There was no reset of the trip overnight, we just set off together and stopped at the first services 100 miles after the last one the previous day and the same worked on the way home. It was a remarkably hassle free way to travel and as long as everyone followed their sat nav it didn’t matter if you got caught in traffic, filtered like a girl or rode like a total idiot, you never got separated by more than 1hr because even if you broke down the others would be stopping before too long.

Neil W said:

Totally agree last time I went away in a group it was one needed fuel at 120 miles , would the others fill up nope, ending up having to stop 30 miles later because another needed fuel and then 30 miles after that another needed fuel, every stop 40 minutes rather than 15.

They refused to carry maps or sat navs so 2 got lost when they followed the wrong bikes, another riding at the back of the group decided to turn back to go to a garage and the one in front didn't realise, only found out at the next fuel stop.

Some drinking until 2am and being barely able to stand never mind ride their bikes the next day , it took us 9 hours to do a distance that I would easily do in 5 1/2. an utter and absolute nightmare

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I’ve not got the patience to deal with that kind of aggravation so we’d be going our own way the second day

I remember it, Wessie. Good jaunts all round.

It doesn’t really matter if someone or several are a bit faster or slower than anyone else, providing nobody takes the piss over it. Nobody wants to see anyone crash, that’s for sure and everyone wants to arrive in the hotel in the evening to have a beer with everyone else.

The big things are, as someone said above, starting the day at a decent time, wheels rolling, with full fuel tanks. Not too much faffing about at fuel stops and coffee breaks. A realisation that an hour lost in the morning, always translates to two hours in the afternoon.

I like to factor in non-riding days, too, if possible, for those that want to not ride their bike. No shame in that, as it’s not a legal requirement. That generally means finding a decent sized town and maybe one with a train station or a half decent taxi service. Similarly, if I can factor in a cheap hotel (still one that is reasonable) and then use the saving on one more expensive (but not the George Cinque) to even out the cost a bit, great. Hotels are sometimes the biggest headache, as a big group might sometimes dictate one of the generic chains. This is not so much a problem in Germany but in France it can be, simply as I prefer the smaller family run affairs. But if it has to be the Accor, so be it.

The other thing I like doing is picnic lunches, as it makes stopping somewhere (particularly in unknown areas) much easier. Most places will have a small supermarket or just a sandwich shop. It doesn’t need to be the full Fortnum and Mason whisker basket job…. Though it would be good!