I can offer my own experience, riding with the club for about five years (maybe more?).
A bit of background – I’ve been riding my whole life, but never competitively and never in groups. Most importantly, I’ve never raced (or, really, wanted to) I just liked riding – I wanderered around on my road bike, then was a three season commuter for about a decade while living in Toronto. Moving to Waterloo was the first time I’d ever regularly ridden with other people. So, I came to the club a bit more like a new rider, even with a lot of time on the bike.
The LTGR was great. I’d done the track training at Milton, so I was comfortable riding in groups, but the LTGR was an excellent primer to know what to expect on WCC road rides.
But, for people like me, there is a lot of additional knowledge that gets passed down informally, or gets learned from racing and training in groups (or doesn’t). I came into group rides very much riding each ride the same way. I felt like I needed to take a ‘decent’ pull at the front no matter what the pace was; I’m a bit introverted, so my communication was (sometimes is) lacking; and I let whatever the group pace was determine my pace. If I couldn’t find the right group, my ride suffered (as did I).
The first time we hit Middlebrook, I literally had no idea what the heck was happening. I remember being on the front, fading a bit on an uphill, while a bunch of folks passed me like I was standing still! I still suck on the sprints, but at least I know what’s going on now …
I did try the Tuesday ride once. Everyone was really welcoming, but I got dropped pretty quickly and just had no idea how to approach it differently for future rides. I just felt like I was way, way out of my depth, so I tagged it as ‘not for me’.
Three things changed for me that made my WCC experience a lot better.
First, I bought a gravel bike and started riding gravel. The gravel rides feel a bit more casual and less structured. Sometimes we ride like a road group ride – in a pack, moving. Other times, we spread out and regroup. The whole thing felt a little less intimidating and I was way less stressed about riding. The vibe, for lack of a better word, was more relaxed and I think that @JimDaley and @KevRidesGravel deserve credit there. That got me riding with the club more.
Second: I got to know more people. I started more regularly riding with the Track folks in the winter, which meant I got to know more people over breakfast. I then got on a bunch of gravel rides with people like @Francqlife and started to absorb some ‘instituational knowledge’ about how to ride with faster groups – and how to change the way I ride depending on who I was riding with.
Third – threads like this! Understanding more about ride culture, what to expect from different rides – all of that is impossible to communicate before and during a ride. I’ve learned a ton just reading threads like this – super helpful.
All of which to say, for some of us, the more challenging rides can be a little intimidating. But, there’s huge value for having them available when you are ready … which is probably a great arguement for giving the Tuesday HIIT ride some breathing room to grow.
FWIW, you’ve almost convinced me to do the needed maintainance on my road bike and come back with an expectation that I’ll once again get dropped, but with a much better understanding of what happens next (it doesn’t get easier, you just get faster). We’ll see!
Saving legs for Thursday.
). Our gravel specialists should be doing the same.
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