What kind of rides are we talking about? Protocols will differ depending on whether we are talking about small morning club rides or multi-day tours of thousands of participants. Are we talking about rides on bike paths, or ones in the same traffic stream as cars? Are the riders young and fast racers, or is this a social ride mixing retirees and working folks? Let’s consider small club rides of no more than one or two dozen.
Even micro-managing small club rides is like herding cats: it is just hopeless. Instead, where I live, we self-segregate into groups with similar group ride customs.
For example, consider helmets. Most but not all riders agree that helmets are good. The local bike club mandates that all participants on official club rides must wear helmets. This lead to the rise of a weekly unofficial club ride, to accommodate helmetless riders.
All cub rides are rated according to degree of difficulty, which is a function of distance, pace, and elevation gain. In this way riders can self-segregate according to how fast they wish to ride.
Club rides are also designated as “drop” or “no drop.” If you can’t keep up with the group they either periodically wait for the slowest riders to catch up, or those that can’t keep up need to be completely self-sufficient with respect to route and repairs.
The idea of controlling intersections is almost completely foreign to me. Bicycles are considered vehicles for most purposes. Therefore, we all need to obey the rules of the road and stop (or at least roll slowly through) and wait our turn all stop signs, pretty much the way that motorists do in their gasmobiles. Only on the rare very large ride do I see intersection control, where both motorists and cyclists benefit from quickly getting hundreds of bikes through an intersection in a single shot.
Generally, my advice is to not do joint rides with another organization unless your riding customs are compatible.
Gordon Hamachi