How to Avoid Getting Dropped

• Make sure you’re the only person on the ride who knows the route, that way if your friends drop you they are lost.
  
  

• Ride alone. Always.
  
  

• “Forget” to record on Strava. Ask the ride leader to add you afterward. Claim their average speed as your average speed.*
  
  

• When you get dropped on a hill, remind everyone you are a sprinter not a climber.
  
  

• When you get dropped on a flat, remind everyone you are a climber not a sprinter. **
  
  

• Get slower friends.
  
  

• Blame your turtle pace on equipment, nutrition, sleep, the weather, your significant other, the stock market, or the fact that Mercury is in retrograde***.
  
  

• Buy a more expensive bike. Change nothing about your riding habits. Wonder out loud why you’re still getting dropped.
  
  

• Loudly declare “this is a no drop ride” before every ride.
  
  

• Ride an E-Bike and hope nobody notices. Carry a bluetooth speaker to drown out any E-assist noises.****
  
  

• Fake a mechanical whenever you are about to get dropped.
  
  

• Emphatically declare you didn’t get dropped and refuse to acknowledge anyone who says otherwise. Remain in denial until everyone forgets.*****
  
  

• Switch to a sport where your friends can’t leave you behind even if they want to, like high diving or roped glacier travel.
  

*only works retroactively.

**avoid using both this excuse and the previous excuse on the same ride.

***nobody will check you—nobody actually knows when that happens.

****depending on music selection, speaker could be worse than electric motor.

*****if it works for the Pres it can work for you too.