7 Ways To Annoy Everyone On Your Next Group Ride  Don't be 'That Guy'! Avoid these 7 Deadly Sins of group ride etiquette.

We’ve all been there. It’s a pleasant weekend Adventure Ride with you and your normal crew. The sun is shining, the skies are blue. The trails are perfectly moist and tacky with a bit of early-morning dew. It’s you and your favorite steed with a fresh set of knobbies and nothing could be more right in the world.

Then disaster strikes. It isn’t the skies darkening and puking rain. It isn’t getting hopelessly lost, running out of gas and having to hit ‘the button’ on your SPOT before resorting to roasting your Pirellis on the fire for dinner that night. Worse than that horror scenario is the emergence of That Guy™ !

You know him well. The one your buddy met on ‘one of the forums.’ He has never ridden with your group but boldly announces his presence with the smell of antifreeze boiling over two minutes after leaving camp or by attempting a gnarly hill climb not even Jimmy Lewis would try.

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No one knows where this guy came from but one thing is certain, he won’t be getting an invite to the next ride. To make sure you aren’t left at home hitting the refresh button on your email for that ride invite that will never come, read on to learn about seven deadly sins of group ride etiquette that wash out with riding partners worse than a bald rear tire in the sand.

1. The Ego

He only wants to ride the sections that he likes. He is quick to tell you what you could do better to improve your riding. ‘The Ego’ knows no wrong and is always going on about past exploits such as the time “…back in ’87…” when he raced Baja with Chuck Norris as his teammate.

Sure, he is fast and knowledgeable to some degree. But his pride has a larger displacement than his 998cc big-bore bike and he will never own up to his mistakes during the ride. When he gets passed or stumbles on a tricky section, it is the fault of whatever bolt on farkle arbitrarily captures his wrath that day. You’ll be hearing all about why his next ride will be so much better once he gets a new rear tire or when he finally ‘dials in’ his ignition mapping.

2. The Motormouth

Like a bad case of monkey-butt, this guy starts off benign but gets old quickly. His heart is in the right place. After all, he is just trying to fit in with a new group of riding companions who before today’s ride were just an assortment of username handles on a screen.

The Motormouth comes in two strains. There is the comedic motormouth who makes jokes incessantly on the Bluetooth intercom during the ride. And his behavior continues during longer breaks in the ride when the helmets are off. There is also the expurgating motormouth who belches in the headset mic and for some reason screams in terror, even when the terrain is about as terrorizing as a Starbucks parking lot. All motormouths make you want to disconnect your headset so you can enjoy your ride. But then you might miss a key direction and take a wrong turn, getting separated from the group, hopelessly lost, ending up cold and alone roasting your Pirellis on an open fire for dinner while waiting for rescue.

3. The Anti-MacGyver

The Boy Scout motto of ‘Be Prepared’ doesn’t resonate within this individual at all. This guy has never heard of a tool pouch and thinks a tire spoon is for eating soup. Your journey takes you deep into the wilderness, hundreds of miles from civilization, where anything that goes wrong could lead to a rescue mission, but this guy never has a contingency plan.

He will use your last inner tube, all your compressed air cartridges and hit you with a ‘Hey man, can you help me fix this flat real quick’ and watch as you do everything from breaking the bead to spooning the tire back on.

4. The Jackrabbit

This guy rides skillfully. But he never waits for the rest of the group and is on a ride of his own. Look out, because he will put an aggressive pass on you like he is competing for a podium spot in the Dakar Rally.

The jackrabbit just goes on ahead, never considering the plight of the other riders in the group. He flies right on by when someone has had a particularly hard crash, never checking to see if everything is okay or lending a hand to pick up the bike. When the jackrabbit is out, he doesn’t wait at forks in the road or turns in the trail, leaving everyone behind him wondering which way to go.

5. The Nitro Bro

A long time dirt-bike addict, the Nitro Bro gets his name from the episodes of Travis Pastrana’s ‘Nitro Circus’ he watches nightly for life inspiration. He loves his ROCKSTAR ENERGY tank top and assures you that he has a MONSTER ENERGY tattoo under his Rockstar tank because the Nitro Bro doesn’t discriminate when it comes to awesome.

Although he grew up shredding Ocotillo Wells on his YZ 250, the big-bore adventure bike he rides now is a bit different. But the nitro bro does not know the limits of his new machine and is eager to ride way over his head on a bike with several times the horsepower of his old dirt bike. He also knows nothing about throttle control, so stay clear of his deadly roost! It will do more damage to you than emulating his daily intake of six ROCKSTAR ENERGY drinks before noon and a Monster Energy-laced whey protein shake before bed.

When you are hours out from civilization on a ride, the Nitro Bro is liable to take his bike up a climb that shouldn’t even be attempted on his beloved quarter-liter dirt bike, much less a 500+ pound Adventure Bike. Of course, he tears a hole in the engine case when he hits a large rock shaped like a giant figurative middle finger directed at your ride. Now you have to bail him out in the middle of nowhere, and what had the makings of a great ride is summarily curtailed.

6. The King of the Hammers

This hotshot knows the quickest route from Point A to Point B. The crow takes directions from him before it flies. A genuinely talented rider who, unfortunately, neglects to think of others in his group. If there is a 10-mile trail back to camp you can take to avoid a 50-yard section of asphalt road, he is all over it. Even if said trail looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland that not even Mad Max or a Nitro Bro (with two cans of Rockstar in him for fortitude) on a Christini two-wheel drive KTM could hope to navigate.

He has a masochistic streak and will take you down trails that are black diamond-rated for dirt bikes, way beyond the skill level of many of the riders in your group. Bodywork gets scratched, brake lights burst, rear view mirrors crack and skid plates fold under the auspices of “The King of the Hammers.”

Back at camp when the rest of the group is exhausted and broken, he is ready for more; a night ride down the gnarliest trail in the national forest just might do the trick.

7. The Monkey Wrench

Courtesy Sharif Massoud

Always the first to chime in on forum posts, but the last to show up to meet in the morning to get going; the monkey wrench is always throwing the proverbial, well, monkey wrench into your plans, normally due to habitual tardiness, unawareness and lack of tact.

The monkey wrench was mostly known for fooling around with his carbureted machine for two hours trying to figure out why it won’t run, never thinking to check the gas petcock. With the advent of fuel injection, the monkey wrench has been able to hide but can still be easily identified by a few telltale tics. Maybe he brought two right-hand gloves in his gearbag. Or he left his goggles at camp in the morning. It’s always something.

He is just as likely to forget to gas up before he rides as he is to prolong a ‘quick’ trailside break by automatically taking off his helmet and bringing out an assortment of Power Bars, nuts and beef jerky that could feed a small Eastern European nation for a week.

Group Ride Etiquette Basics

Being a good riding buddy starts with being considerate and aware of the other riders in your group. Avoid emulating any of these rider types and you are likely to get invited back to ride with every group you set out with. Heck you may even make a few friends along the way.

Chime in below in the comments if you’ve come across other ‘sinful’ group riding behaviors that should be added to this list, or if you’ve been guilty of one of these seven deadly sins yourself!