I had to miss our team/group ride this week because of family stuff, so I tried out a nearby town's group ride. I know a few racers who do this ride, but none of them was there, and it turned out to be not super fun. Very mixed abilities and the ride didn't really have a coherent focus. I was very uncomfortable riding behind some of them, so I ended up pulling the group around for most of the ride. Another guy would repeatedly attack for no reason, then he'd go back into the group and I'd pull until he decided to attack again. During one of those attacks, somebody washed out on a turn and broke his frame, I think because the speed was higher than he was used to.
Then on the last climb suddenly another guy decided to go hard, and it turned out he was stronger than me, or at least stronger than me after I've been pulling for 2 hours. I looked him up afterwards and he's a cat 1.
The whole ride was just sort of confusing to me. I think maybe most group rides are like this. It really made me appreciate my local group.