How to Avoid Getting Dropped

Fake it til you get good enough at faking it that you don’t need to get any better.

• 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.
  

• “Forget” to record on Strava. Ask the ride leader to add you afterward. Claim their average speed as your average speed.¹
  

• 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.²
  

• 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.³
  

• 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.⁴
  

• 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.⁵
  

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

1. only works retroactively.

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

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

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

5. if it worked for the President of the United States it can work for you too.