Originally Posted by
rower2cyclist
This is proper advice but incredibly hard in practice. There's nothing more satisfying than being a part of a good paceline where everyone's on the same page. I found out over the years that you need at least a dozen riders in a fast rotating paceline. Also, quality improves even more if everyone has similar fitness levels. My biggest pet peeve is someone less fit than the group average shows up to our Sunday group ride. That person drops like a rock on the slower side as soon as he completes his pull since he's likely on/over the limit. What happens is that creates a mess in the back of the slow lane people yoyoing. Is it a bad thing to ask that guy to stay off the back?
The main thing is to not upset the cohesion. If you have a rider who's strong enough to hang on to the group, but not strong enough to pull through, it's better that they hang at the back of the rotation and allow the rider who's dropping back to slot in ahead of them.