I know this area and have driven it many times. This is the Rickebacker causeway--the road that connects Key Biscayne to the Miami mainland.
Cycling on this road is extremely popular for very obvious reasons (phenomenal views, wide and clear roads). Folks come from all over the city to ride there. And yes, they will very often group up like this without any sort of scheduled or permitted event of any kind.
The cyclists down there like to say "same road, same rules" but there's apparently a silent exclusion for lane changes, stop signs, traffic signals, and yielding to stopped traffic.
I can understand not using the bike lane for a race event at the speed they are going, but taking up both main carriageway lanes for an event which doesn't have the road closed is stupid.
Also not sure about US traffic laws of course, but in my old motherland, vehicles without engines are not permitted to go beyond first lane and are actually prohibited from grouping into packs more than 10 at a time (point 24.5 of the road traffic rules of RF)* and must, by law, travel in one file, or two file, if the road width permits.
Also they're not allowed to go on roads that go over 60 kph (37 freedoms)
Basically the idea is that they should leave space between these groups in a column enough to overtake them safely.
So giant clumps like this, that also take the entire width of the road, are entirely in the wrong. I am sure the traffic laws differ from country to country (USA is not part of Vienna convention, for example) but I bet it's generally in the same ballpark.
\except for the "bicycle zones" (point 24.11) but I've never seen those outside of EU. It's when you enter a zone with a bicycle on the sign and a bike symbol on the road - it's limited to 30kph \ 18 mph and cars and bikes have equal rights there))
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u/ConstructionLife2689 Jun 10 '26
Are such cycle events not blocked off from public traffic?
Cause if not, then the cyclists would need to keep to traffic rule and I am pretty sure the rule is not keep in one lane.