Originally Posted by
big john
There's more to it than power or power to weight ratio. If I ride in the mountains for weeks, I have trouble keeping up with the fast group rides when I go back to the flatter club rides.
You have to learn to go fast and to go fast with others.
I have the opposite effect. If I want to really do some damage on the local group ride, I do more overdistance and overelevation mountain rides than exceed the parameters of the group ride, and then when I rejoin the group ride, I can hammer with them with much better effect.
At the non-pro levels, you raise your FTP by whatever means possible, you generally ride faster both solo and group. Yes there are group tactics that have to be learned in a group, but that's a somewhat different issue than just riding faster on a flat than you typically do as the OP asked, for which raising FTP is generally the answer (outside of an egregiously bad bike fit.)