Had a guy that would show up (usually late) for a group ride on some Frankenstein e-bike he had cobbled together with parts from who knows where. It was a hub drive, and the control was ON or OFF. He had a huge battery pack strapped onto the frame with heavy external wiring zip tied and taped at various points.

The thing must have weighed close to 50 pounds, if not more. On the ride, he would leave the motor off on the flats and drag everyone down because he couldn't maintain pace, claiming he was "saving his battery for the hilly parts" of the route, at which time he would turn the motor on and blast past us up the climbs without even pedaling. Of course, he refused to use any type of bike computer with GPS, so he would on occasion miss a turn after his electrified sprint and get lost. Inevitably, someone would have to go on a search and rescue mission to find him.

People finally got so fed up that we would announce a ride at a certain time and show up at least an hour early to leave. He would show up, find no one there, and later complain. Eventually he stopped showing at all.

I've ridden with lots of folks, and still do. I can only think of one individual ('T') that I didn't want to be in a group with, as he carried an aura of careless invincibility on rides. T was a highly skilled strong rider, but he seemingly assumed that he owned the road; this was manifested when going through stop signs, riding 2 or 3 abreast on busy roads, entering blind corners, and general risk taking.

This is completely in contrast to my scared little bunny riding style, where my head is on a swivel constantly scanning for and evaluating risks. And riding under the general assumption that I am the lowest form of life on the road and everyone else (cars, peds and other riders) is out to 'get' me.

Anyway, I made excuses not to join rides with T, and was not surprised when my closest riding pal informed me that he had held T in his arms and watched him die in the aftermath of a high-speed collision with a pedestrian. I could have been on that ride.

Going back a few years I was running a team and we had regular Saturday and Sunday morning team rides. They were typically 160-180km with a few mountain passes and such, ridden at pace. Epic stuff.

We always rode one of 5 or 6 specific routes. It just worked out that way because in some areas those were the only roads. Each ride had a designated stop roughly half way as it was physically impossible to carry enough water and we absolutely needed to fill up two large bottles each for the second half of the ride - did I mention I live in the tropics. Everyone knew this and if they got dropped on the first half of the ride, we would take about 10 minutes at the water stop so people would meet back up. It worked really well for several years.

Increasing, we had other riders from the area begin to join our team ride. It was great. Some rides were 20 or more riders which was a pretty big group for what we were doing. We knew them all from other teams and we would see them at some races so it became the go to rides for the more experienced riders in the area.

Eventually, word spread and people began to show up that we'd never seen before. This was fine but it started to be a problem when they began to expect us to change up what we were doing to acommodate them. They would want to adjust the route, or shorten the ride, or slow down or stop at random points along the way for no particular reason, it seemed. It finally came to a head when some of them insisted we stop FOR LUNCH at the water stop. Like, a FULL lunch. We still had 2 mountains to climb and I didn't feel like tossing up that lunch part way up one of the climbs. Since I was leading the rides I made it clear that if you wanted to stay for lunch, fine. Enjoy your lunch. The ride was leaving.

I hoped that they would get the message, but they didn't. They were back the next week and moaning about everything and disrupting the group, again.

Finally, we had to be dicks about it and hammer the first climb to drop the random people who started showing up. It did work out ok, in the end. Those who insisted we do it their way stopped coming and we did end up having a few new regulars join the group as they had the same goals and training ideas that we did so they were more than welcome.

It's not a specific person I don't like to ride with but someone who takes over and forces the group to ride in a way that they want instead of following what the group had already decided.

On our group rides we would stop at the half way point at a bakery for a roll and coffee or whatever. The stops were about 15 minutes. Some newbies would join us and not get the idea that the stop was for a quick lite bite and then we would head off to hammer the hills. It didn’t take long for them to figure out ordering and eating a sandwich was a bad idea as they would have to stop and ‘feed the weeds’. They either learned quickly or didn’t return.

I just don't ride with a PITA. Cycling and life should be as pleasant as you can make it.

Well, I've seen your superhuman Strava rides (are you related to Tadej?), so I can empathize with the poor guy.....

nah I don’t think it’s you. What does stopping achieve? You can easily recover from a climb while rolling along at Z2 for a minute or two.

Thank you for the compliment. I wish I was related to Pogi, this whole riding thing might be a bit easier if I was.

Also, my legs also cool off if we stop and it makes it that much harder once I do get rolling again.

Maybe suggest to him that, instead of stopping, the two of you should simply ride at a comfortably lower speed for a while.

I know SierraRider just a bit, and speaking out of turn, I have to say that strategy is a non-starter. Even his slow recovery days would put me in the hospital.

They're not that bad. If my riding partner(s) are riding slower than myself, I'll just do a hill repeat once I get to the top of the climb. On the flats, I'll just take longer pulls if someone is struggling at the front, or just slow down...actually I don't spend too much time on the flats, so that part's theoretical. I'd rather my riding partners just ride the pace that they can sustain, rather than have to stop frequently.

To be fair, I’ve done that - spending more time on the front - and it ends up me being at 80% and them being at 99 and it doesn’t really have the effect I was hoping for. So I think letting them lead & control the pace is more humane.