FWIW I think much of it comes down to personal abilities; - whether believed or perceived.
As a lone cyclist my measure is what I have done before and the cycling I have undertaken recently. And I wouldn't want to embarass myself, nor uncessarily hold up a group on a ride I wasn't ready for. - Having been on some rides, (not CC ones), where there were riders who were clearly "out of their depth"
Did they drown? If not, then they weren't out of their depth IMO
I'm only an infrequent organiser/wayfinder for my local freewheelers but I feel overcoming that attitude is probably the biggest challenge we face. When we put "all welcome", "no rider left behind" or something like that, we mean it and we're not going to ride along hurling abuse about the low speed or pushing people to go faster than they're comfortable with or stuff like that.
Why worry about embarrassment? We all started somewhere. It's not holding us up - it's quite rare that I won't welcome a chance to stand around and look at the landscape while we regroup and then allow the last riders to have a breather. The recumbent riders usually like a pause after a climb, too. I can only think of two rides where my local group needs to arrive by anything like a deadline (start of someone else's event) and 7mph would be enough to meet it - and we can often take a shortcut if needed, instead of the usual prettier routes.
About mechanicals: there's usually been at least two of us out of the six most-frequent riders who carry pretty full toolkits - and first-aid kits, come to that. Many punctures, some snapped cables and at least one buckled wheel have been fixed on our rides - not always by the afflicted riders.
I know there are a few nobber groups that advertise "no drop" but still go like bats out of hell, but I think you can now spot them pretty easily if you look at their past ride feedback (on facebook or RideSocial or whatever they use) and it contains either people complaining they got dropped or gushing about how wonderful it was to be pushed to average 20mph.
As it happens, I'd have joined
@ColinJ 's June ride, but for helping run a snorkelling club on a Saturday. Sunday would have been better for me, but it seems from posts elsewhere, that Sundays are not a good day for others.
Yes, the usual problems with Sundays are public transport starts late and is less frequent; there are fewer and fewer country lunch stops that haven't gone all roast dinner; and shops are open shorter hours (or not at all) for buying more food/drink. However, Sundays have less other commitments for many non-church-goers, so about half of the rides are still on Sundays (about half on Saturdays and the third half are on Thursday or Monday evenings).
I've always found riding with others of similar ability the most rewarding (or ideally with those slightly quicker).
Good for you, but I haven't... I like being able to have a chat... and to breathe
I'd also note that I found a friendly group ride (not mine) where we basically agreed to do 14mph (actually, just agreed to ride quicker than usual - the speed wasn't known until after) was more enjoyable than a group that did 11/12mph where people were being verbally encouraged into it.
Most of us probably have Garmins, Cateyes etc. and will have a good idea of our own pace over distance. It would seem straightforward to have 2 or 3 groups based on average speed.
Very few new-to-group riders seem to have measured their speed, or at least few tell us it. I'm happy if riders want to form faster groups and see us at the halfway, but my hands are usually full wayfinding or tail-ending the no-drop group, so it's up to them.
Going back to the top: can we do anything to reassure people that no-drop means no-drop and there's no shame in riding along next to the tail-ender, to attract people out to ride? There are fabulous routes which I would probably never have discovered on my own.
) North contingent to converge on.
