The past weekend I was invited to ride with someone I work with. He claimed to be an avid cyclists and owns 5 or 6 bikes. We picked up another rider who was solo and embarked on a 30 mile route. Ten minutes into the ride I discovered that my pace wanted to be faster than my partner and had to continually slow for him to catch up. On the way back the other rider decided to join a group that passed us while I held back not wanting to abandon my fellow worker. He claimed to be out of shape but I have to find a nice way to avoid riding with him in the future. The ironic part is that I'm new to the sport and asked that they take it easy on me. I don't want to hurt his feelings but that may be unavoidable. How does one do that?

Next time he asks to ride together I would gently say, "No way, lardass".

I would avoid longer or faster rides with him, but still share a few short rides that are more social in nature.

Drop him.

I ride with people that are slower than me. But we have such a fun time I don't want to "drop them". Nice thing is, I can ride 15-20 miles with them and then bomb the last 5 miles and no one gets their feelings hurt.
To ride with people my speed I'd have to jump in with the "slow" group on the club rides and they take themselves too seriously...ie: no fun to joke around with.
I'd rather ride with fun people

Just say politely that you don't think the two of you are a good match of pace right now. Like Barrett said, go out for some more social rides with him. What kind of pace are you talking about?

Exactly. If I am on a group ride and there is someone slower than myself, I will usually hang back with them and enjoy the ride. They appreciate it and I have someone to ride with. Better than burning myself out trying to keep up with the fast kids.

I don't think that's really the question - you aren't asking us how to gently brush off your co-worker are you? I'm guessing that the crux of it is, how can the avid cyclist be a slowpoke compared to a new cyclist and a random cyclist?

He might just be slow and won't admit it to himself, but I'd be cautious about that. He may actually be out of shape as he said. So don't worry about it - if he is really slow he probably won't ask to ride again, except for maybe a casual, social ride as someone mentioned. If he's just out of shape, he'll probably catch up with you and it could turn out being good rides.

^This^

His brakes might have been rubbing.

I'm no fun to ride with

Avid cyclists can be slow. It has no bearing on anything. My friend is slow but he can out-ride me any day on long rides in the mountains.

Ride with him. Help him get back into shape, or faster or whatever.

Thanks for your post and description. You ask a question - ok if I ask one back?

Why avoid riding with him in the future? Was it awful? You were, if I've read right , the invitee.

Maybe, if you're a bit quicker but he's a nice fellow, how about a pre-ride itinerary agreement? " Let's do the first 20 together, then whoever's strong can do the xxxxxtown loop and we'll meet for coffee where we started"

I like and enjoy rides with both faster and slower pals

I used to think people were making up their average moving speeds until Strava came out and I discovered I truly am really slow. Slow folks realize when they are holding people back. When I'm in a fastish group ride, I announce that it is OK to drop me, although nobody seems to need permission.

Right now I found a mellow group who are slower than I am, and I'm never sure how I'm going to ride on any given outing. Occasionally I'll charge ahead and try to catch the "fast guys", which means I end up going solo. Too fast for the slow folk, too slow for the fast guys.

Oh well.

I'm a slow avid cyclist.

Doesn't this "avid cyclist" know how to draft? My spouse used to cruise the flats at 28 mph. No way could I even come close to that speed on my own, but we rode hundreds of thousands of miles together at his pace with me on his wheel. He had to back off on hills, but he would just make up for it on the next flat stretch.

It is possible that you're not going fast enough for there to be much of a draft. It is also possible that one or both of you are too squirrelly to be part of a pace line. That's fairly easily fixed. Just buy some rollers (the kind without the bumpers on the side) and you'll be a good wheel in no time.

On Wednesday and Friday I ride with a group of guys who used to have to wait on me and now most of the time they don't ` On Saturdays I ride with a group that drops me but not as soon as they used to and on Sunday I ride with a guy who puts in a lot of slow rides. We ride 60 miles or so and I wait for him at the top of the hills (it didn't used to be that way) All in all I put in about 150 miles a week with some people I enjoy being around and yes part of the secret is drafting but some times when my fast friends come back to get me and pull me up to the group I plead with them to just let me die in peace

I like this answer.

I am the reverse--I keep getting the faster riders wanting to ride with me. I tell them that if I do ride with them- it will be slow and it might be better if they ride with someone else.

Must have been the avid part of you that I had to work to keep up with a few times on Saturday.

I talked to a guy that did the 50 mile route last year and he said we were wise not doing it on roadbikes.

On my Saturday club rides, there are several "avid" cyclists that can't hold a 15 mph pace for any length of time. There are even some who can't even get to 15 mph, so we all ride at the pace of the slowest rider; which many times is 10-12 mph. These rides gives us all a chance to socialize during the 22 mile ride. Some of these riders have been riding for 20+ years and commute to work but never found the need to haul butt or just don't have the right bike for speed.

Nothing wrong with an easy ride now and then. You can always add some solo miles to the front or the back of the ride, especially if you meet him somewhere. Or just go out the next day and clobber yourself.

I found the truth in this just yesterday. My wife joined up with me on mile 44 of my ride (I was doing mup loops), and we did eight or nine miles together at half speed. Not that I could have bragged about the time anyway. But after we were done with that I was well rested and finished up at a stronger pace than at the beginning, coincidentally my first 65-mile ride. It's all good.

Developing a riding buddy sometimes takes time. we don't all start out at the same fitness level and it can take time before we can gel into a group. The way we work it today is someone will always fall back to ride with someone who gets dropped. The A and B riders will start out together and at what ever point the pace picks up past the ability of the B group we break up. If the B group gets too fast and we drop someone then one of us will drop back to pull them up or ride with them till we get to a regroup point or the coffee shop. I can't remember ever dropping someone I invited or agreed to ride with no matter what pace they set. And it has paid me back on those long climbs when it is all I can do to keep up and they have to wait for me.