Road Cycling Skills

Road Cycling Hand Signals and Calls for Group Riding

Learn these road cycling hand signals and calls to make your group rides safe.

Heading out for a group ride on your road bike, or joining a club ride? Group road rides are brilliant for improving your speed, fitness and stamina. Road cycling in a group also requires its own set of skills, techniques and signals.

As well as the usual signals for indicating that you’re going to turn left or right, there are a range of additional road cycling signals that are essential knowledge if you plan to road ride in a group.

Alongside calling out, these road cycling hand signals are one of the main ways of communicating. Once you learn them, you’ll understand when others are warning you of obstructions, hazards and speed changes, as well as being able to warn others yourself.

Group Road Cycling Calls

These calls are often used in addition to the hand signals above and are another essential way of ensuring the group stays safe and avoid hazards on the road.

‘Car Back!’ or ‘Car Up!’
Means: There’s a car coming up from behind the group, or towards the group from the front.

‘Loose!’
Means: There’s loose material such as gravel on the road surface.

‘Clear (+ direction)’
Means: Usually called at a junction, it indicates that the way is clear and no traffic is

approaching. Each rider should still check for themselves before pulling out.

‘Below’
Called out when indicating an obstacle or hazard on the ground such as a pothole or drain cover. Used in conjunction with the appropriate hand signal.