Thanks for all of the comments (mostly face to face) about the articles that I have written in the newsletter about ride classifications.  Nothing is more gratifying to a writer than to find that what he has written has been read.  Here is a reply that I sent to someone who did not understand the concept of self-paced rides and wondered why a ride leader had to say anything about whether or nor a ride would stay together.

    You must not be very familiar with B and C rides in our club.  There is no tradition of rides staying together.  Many people just grab a cue sheet and fly.  I have had the very unpleasant experience of being a leader dropped by his entire ride.  I have thought about this a lot and decided that if that’s what people want to do, so be it.  I do not favor imposing rigid rules on anyone.  But I do think club members have a few rights that should be protected.  They should be able to tell from the description in the ride schedule what to expect.  If the ride is likely to break up into individuals and small groups, they should be forewarned.  And anyone who joins a club ride should be guaranteed that someone will come to their assistance if trouble arises.  Hence I would like to see it become a regular practice for leaders to announce beforehand whether or not they intend their rides to stay together.  I also want to be able to say with assurance that, no matter what the ride description, the leader has an obligation to support the slowest legitimate participant in a ride – either personally or with the help of a sweeper.  In order to make this possible, I think that definitions are needed of who is a legitimate participant.

    There is one thing to be said in favor of self-paced rides.  Ride leaders are becoming harder to find and our ride schedule has become sparser and sparser in recent years.  A self-paced ride can make it possible for a very large and very diverse group to participate in at least a semi-organized ride at the same time.  Rides of this type can be “led” by fewer people than if the ride were separated into individual categories and so the need for leaders is lessened.  It does not make any sense to me to call rides of this type A, B or C.  I would like to point out that we have a tradition of doing rides of this type for many years in the Friday Fling.