Rules of the Road

I've been thinking about the rules of the road lately. That is, the bicycling rules of the road. I've decided that most of them are unwritten, and most are learned by observation, trial and error. There was a guy on last weeks ride who had been disinvited because he broke the off-the-front rule. He rode most of last weeks ride...off the front. The response of the group was ultimately to pretend he wasn't there. If he was interested in riding at a faster pace than we were riding, 18mph, he had the chance to ride with the faster group. He CHOSE to stay with what he knew was the 18mph group. So why then act like we are going too slow for you, bro??
Another unwritten rule was highlighted last weekend: don't ride near a guy with a creaking bike! Chaz bought some high dollar Zipp wheels for his bike, but his front wheel was making an awful clicking noise. It was hilarious to see how someone would ride near him, realize HE was making that noise , then slowly drift back away from him like he had a disease. A wise mechanic decided it was an extra long presta valve stem that needed a little electrical tape to keep it from knocking on the rim.
Never ever ever talk on a cell phone in the peloton! This seems obvious to me but its amazing how many people try to do this. Apart from the huge safety issue, I don't know how you could hear with the wind screaming through your phone.
One of the most dreadful things I have encountered is a dropped water bottle. Especially when you're in a group with 30 plus riders at a good pace. Someone usually screams "Bottle!!!!!" and then the panic sets in and the collision avoidance maneuvers occur. If the bottle doesn't take you down, any number of people trying to miss the bottle can take you down just as effectively. And the WORST case senario is when the person who drops the bottle brakes hard like they are going to hop off their bike and pick up that bottle! Good grief! Dude, there are 25 people beind you going fast: now is not the time toi ris life and limb (yours or mine) to save a $5 watre bottle.
Then there is Dick (a perfect name for him) aka loud talker guy. This guy talks so loud that I know hes a financial planner, he has a lot of doctors as clients (really impressive, right), he is single(I suspect his wife left him) and he is thinking of retiring in the next 5 years and moving from his 2 acre lot to a low maintenance condo. Not that he's ever spoken DIRECTLY to me. He just likes to talk and he talks loud. I am not happy that I know all this about him but its like he forced it upon me. Kind of like second hand smoke.
There are lots and lots of other rules, but I'll save those for another post. Ride on!