Off-Roading 101
Tips for wheeling with groups: The rig behind you.
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Off-roading in a group is all about the buddy system. You are responsible for your buddy behind you. When wheeling with a group or club, a basic rule of thumb is that you are responsible for the vehicle behind you when traveling the trail or even in convoy to or from the trail. You should try to keep that vehicle in your rearview mirrors as is reasonable. If they move slower than the group or stop, you should slow down or stop as needed for them to catch up. The driver in front of you should see that you slowed down or stopped and do the same AS WELL. Letting the trail leader know of longer delays on the radio can help, too.
At a fork or turn in the trail, wait until the person behind you can clearly see the direction the group is going. This way, the group stays together, help is always close, and nobody is left behind.
Good radio communications make it so we can be a little more relaxed in maintaining that view of them, or some turns, but the idea is always: **Nobody Gets Left Behind**, and good trail practices remain important.
 Richard Hiltz 2024
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NOW THAT WE DISCUSSED KEEPING TRACK OF THE RIG TO THE REAR, THERE IS MORE: Be a good fellow wheeler.
If you're that "rig to the rear," remember you have responsibilities, too. The idea of a team is not that everyone else is responsible for you, but you don't have any responsibilities. Like everyone on the ride, you are responsible not just for the rig behind you but also, in some ways, for the one in front of you.
Club rides are a team sport, so there is more to doing your part than just looking in the rearview occasionally. Everyone, including you, is ALSO responsible for reasonably trying to keep up with the group as the trail, their rig, and your experience allow. Are you being a good team member and doing YOUR part? Ideally, the rig in front of you should not be having a ton of trouble keeping track of you. It would help if you were trying to keep up when & where you can, and they should slow down when and where you need them to. TEAMWORK!
We all understand wanting or needing to go slow, maybe even really slow, on challenging obstacles. This is especially true if you are new to this hobby or it is a really rough trail. Though some seem to forget it occasionally, we have all been "NEW", too, so we all should have some understanding with this. This is not about when you NEED to go slow.
But, when the trail gets better, you should be working to keep up and not make everyone else wait on you just because you can. Then, of course, go as slow as you need to again on the next obstacle.
Being new and a bit unsure of yourself or your rig is one thing; clubs & groups always need to take that into account and slow down for you and offer to spot for you if needed. This is more about purposely seeing just how slow you can go because you "feel like it" " That will quickly make you a bit unpopular, and you may find people will start forgetting to tell you about upcoming trail rides. (Amazingly, I have seen that many times.)
If, after some time and experience, you still can't keep up with the overall group, or they won't slow/wait for you, you may have chosen the wrong group to wheel with. That happens, too.
To be clear, nothing written here should be taken as a call to tailgate the rig in front of you. That is a whole other problem and quite dangerous to boot. And, when following up or down steep obstacles, not tailgating, and even waiting at the top or bottom for the front rig to clear the obstacle, it can be important. Everything in moderation, my friends. Not too close and not too far back.
When everyone in the club tries to ensure everyone else has an enjoyable trail ride, our hobby can be amazingly safe and downright fun. When even one wheeler won't play well with others, it can be a very long trail ride and not a lot less fun.
I already see ways in which some will likely try to spin this one way or another, but this is a straightforward concept: If EVERYONE tries to be a good neighbor, ALL will assuredly have a better and safer trail ride and
NOBODY GETS LEFT BEHIND.
Richard Hiltz 2024
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ADDENDUM: There is a reason for these old "tried and true" rules.
This post is thanks to a comment to our previous posts (above) about keeping track of the vehicle behind you on a club trail ride.
This post was more specific to the part about waiting at turns or forks in the trail until the rig behind you can clearly see and follow you.
Matt Ion, a Wheeling Wisely Trainer with the Four Wheel Drive Association of British Columbia (4wdabc), related an experience where a club was not visually maintaining track of the "rig behind you" because they were relying on their radios instead.
As I understand the story (I am paraphrasing), the group accidentally got split up on a new trail system, and some lost visual contact with the rig(s) in front of/behind them. But, they (some of them anyway) were comfortable relying on their radios instead, so they were not particularly concerned about it. Well, as often occurs, What I assume to be the trail leader called out they were to "take the next right." I bet you already see where this is going. The "next right" was not the same for those way back in the middle or the end of the group. They only realized they were not on the trail when radio comms started failing due to the separation distance, and the front group had to turn back to locate their lost flock.
Many of us are, at some level, guilty of this very mistake: That is, relying too much on new tech, instead of following the hobby's tried and true "rules of thumb".
Face it: some of the new technologies we use when off-roading are pretty handy.
The currently available radio technologies are just one small example. However, as is true for almost all (if not ALL) of them, the long tried and true rules for off-road, like being responsible for keeping the rig behind you in view and waiting at turns or forks, are still just as important as they ever were.
Thanks, Matt.
Richard Hiltz 2024
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