big john

In 1990 I toured for 6 weeks with 3 guys from my club. I had done a lot of day rides with them prior but after that trip 3 of us couldn't wait to get away from the other one.
None of us ever rode with him again.

Bob Ross

Y'know, far be it from me to disparage or dismiss what others do* but fwiw I could never only ride alone. I definitely appreciate the times when I do ride alone, and I could never not ride alone some of the time... but group riding is the thing that actually got me excited about road cycling, and so I have to make it a part of my weekly diet. Mixing it up between solo and group rides, that's the shiznit.

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*-- wait, who am I kidding? this is the internet! -- YOU'RE ALL DOING IT WRONG!!!

OldTryGuy

1:43AM and ready to head out for a solo ride right now with me, myself and I.

staehpj1

Is that an early morning or late night ride for you?

Jimriides

All my Riding Friends have either Died or Moved away. It is both an Old thing and a California thing. I ride alone, every other day.

OldTryGuy

Night rides begin before Midnight and can continue until after sunrise with Morning rides starting after Midnight to 1AM called a Midnight Madness Ride and after 1AM they are simply Morning Rides. Today's ride of 25.52 miles was a Morning Ride.

Jimriides

I’m in Anaheim Ca. I have 3 rides I do often. Lincoln to Green River and Back on SART. Lincoln/St College to Irvine Park and Back. Those are morning rides. Lincoln/ St College to Disneyland, then Anaheim Stadium to catch both Fireworks shows. That is my Night Ride. All are great in their own way.

boozergut

I much prefer riding alone. Riding with others typically involves:
1) People who forget things like water.
2) People who want to talk during the entire ride about all the things they've fixed or worse "political chat".
3) People with ADD who crash on a regular basis.

I'd generally rather work a full day than to ride with someone else #getoffmylawn.

Milton Keynes

I ride alone 90% of the time, but I wish I had a riding buddy here who I could go on long rides with. I don't mind the solitude but sometimes it would be nice to have someone to ride with. I do ride on some group rides with the local cycling group but it's not quite the same.

rsbob 

Since I ride solo the majority of the time, I use a right ear bud and either listen to pod casts or music. Depending on the ride type (brisk, recovery, etc) I select matching music tempo.

MinnMan

As for riding early, that doesn't mean you have to ride alone, necessarily. Here in the Twin Cities I know two groups that ride early in the summer. one begins around 4:40 AM, the other around 5:45 AM. Neither of these are official clubs, they are groups of friends who started something and the groups have grown by word of mouth. I'm sure this isn't the only place where this is happening.

As to riding alone versus riding in groups, I do both and wouldn't want to do 100% of either. They are different experiences, both of which I value.

Sometimes less-mentioned virtues of group rides are that they take you on different routes. You learn routes or pieces of routes that you wouldn't have otherwise known. Riding alone, it's easy to get into a rut riding the same handful of routes over and over again, which can get boring. You can learn new routes in groups and then incorporate those into your solo repertoire.

Bob Ross

Jeez, I wish I could hook up with folks who want to have a "political chat" while riding! I would much rather have a knock-down drag-out Left vs Right political argument during a group ride than have to listen to yet another knucklehead talking about his new lawnmower, or how his [insert name of body part] hurts all the time, or the weather, or "Hey, How About Those Yankees?"

But I will agree that a silent group ride is better than any conversation regardless of subject matter. Save the chit-chat for the rest stop, or post-ride beers.

pbass

I ride alone 99.9% of the time. In my case, I work at home and my schedule is a little all over the place, but also because of having worked alone at home for the last 20 years, I simply don't meet many new people, riders or not! But compounding that is, a) I'm naturally a bit of a loner, and b) at 63 the other riders in my age range in my locale are typically roadies, which I am not. I ride two different steel gravel bikes - geared and singlespeed - and ride almost entirely off-road on singletrack and fire roads, y'know, "underbiking". Pretty tough conditions here, actually. It's the kind of riding that gets me stoked and keeps me strong. The other folks who ride my style are typically much younger--30's maybe some 40's. When I do run into another geezer like me out there on a similar rig I always try and strike up a conversation!

rsbob 

Would prefer to find some riding buddies, but being retired, it’s extremely difficult to meet other people with a pretty open schedule mid-week. To compound the issue, finding someone who rides around my pace (am always willing to ride a couple of MPH slower or maybe one or two faster on average), and isn’t afraid of doing some climbing. I am finding there are fewer people my age who are so dedicated. There are those so years my junior who are dedicated but they do centuries with insane climbing (one group last week climber 10,000’ over 100 miles). There needs to be an app or website like Match.com for cyclists where they can state their ability and find similar in their area. Any web developers out there?

polyrhythmia

Ridden almost entirely alone for more than 40 years now. That said, I will often break my pace to ride for a time with someone I meet. I don't think I will be able to do a century without someone or a group to keep motivation like I did when I was young.

big john

That's an advantage of doing club rides for so many years (34). I have met people who are happy to ride my pace and are also now retired. My Tuesday ride group is usually only 4 or 5 riders but we are comfortable with each other and have no problem shortening a ride or reducing climbing if one doesn't feel up to it. We also enjoy a coffee stop and chat on our short-ish 40 mile rides. If it's windy we have a route which is somewhat protected by the mountains where we stop for a slice of pizza.

On Saturday club rides if the Tuesday riders are there I know I will not be dropped. In fact, most of the Saturday club rides lately have been staying together.

MinnMan

I'm surprised to read this. Seattle and western Washington are areas with many organized clubs and rides. I would have thought surely there is something in the area that would suit.

Here i the Twin Cities, there are a ton of group rides going out on weekday mornings, populated mostly by retirees.

From the TCBC (Twin Cities Bicycle Club) calendar, color coding is ride pace

rsbob 

You are right about the clubs in the Seattle area. There is Cascade and the Redmond Cycling club to name the biggies. I live about 45 minutes outside of Seattle so getting to rides is doable, but finding ones that match my speed (18 on flats and distance of 50-30) is tough. There is a lot of great places to ride in the area, so maybe I should quit my whining and be happy with that.

Pics from today’s solo:


Lake Sammamish

Non-dirt

Dirt

JustaJoe

I was aching to ride with others, until I did - now I have 0 interest in it.* My rides are about clearing the head, getting exercise at my pace, exploring new routes, stopping to talk to dogs and maybe their owners, observing wildlife, and sometimes just stopping to stare off into space / chase a thought / watch an activity at the park (soccer, baseball, etc.).

The couple of groups I joined were very accommodating, but their objectives and styles were very different from mine. And one group turned out to be religious zealots (no offense, but praying before a rough section of trail ain't my thing).

*My lovely bride has recently started riding, couple of modest rides per week. I enjoy going at her pace, chatting, laughing. Strengthens our relationship or something.

MinnMan

More power to you - do it your way.

There is a local Sunday ride called "Bike Church", but the advert for it has a disclaimer "No actual religious worship will take place during this ride."
The bicycle ride itself is their sacrament.

Bob Ross

Kudos to you for recognizing that having one's own agenda (e.g., getting your own desired workout, exercising at "my pace") is almost always antithetical to what makes a Group Ride work.
A Group Ride isn't just a bunch of cyclists going in the same direction in close proximity; to truly be a "group" every individual in that group needs to share a set of common goals...and one of those goals is "work together to make this group better than the sum of its individuals"
Having your own personal exercise agenda never works towards that goal.

plumberroy

I ride alone 100% of the time. I have only rode with a group a few times. I used to live an hour and a half north of here. My route crossed with a club ride at a place everyone has to stop they invited me to ride with them for the 3.5 miles our route ran together 10-20 bikers kitted out on modern road bikes and Grizzly Adams in cargo shorts and a tee shirt on a vintage steel road bike in the back half of the pack. Not really my thing. I tend to ride at a speed on the local trails that around half of the riders are slower than me and half are faster having someone to ride with once in a while would be nice
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Hondo Gravel

I ride to get away from people. Very peaceful.

curbtender

So did this guy...

thehammerdog

I ride alone 97% of the time just easier. However I often will go in NYC to ride among other humans which I like. I push harder if among others..