From Bicycling.com......
The daily Emmaus World Championship, which leaves every noon from the loading dock ofBicycling's Pennsylvania office, had been suffering for weeks from one of the most insidious maladies in the sport: ride creep.
We all knew the noon ride left at 12:05, to allow a grace period for those of us caught in meetings or on phone calls. But as our internal clocks calibrated to the idea that the official departure time was 12:05, the grace period shifted to 12:10. You know where this is going: Pretty soon the noon ride left at 12:20; more than a third of the one-hour window we try to stick to was elapsing before the last straggler was in the parking lot. Rides were cut short. Frustrated people were sniping at each other. Some of our best riders stopped showing up. A bad case of ride creep can kill the best weekly traditions, and ours was in critical condition.
It was time to recalibrate. I announced that the next day's ride would leave promptly at noon, as signaled by the chiming of church bells down the street, and tardy cyclists would simply be left. You know--teach 'em a lesson.
The next day at 11:59, straddling my bike in the parking lot amid five or six other regulars, I was the one who learned a lesson.
My wife wasn't there. It's not just that Beth takes pride in being organized and neat and never late--it's a central part of her identity. This was bad. As the bells tolled, I was faced with an awful dilemma: leave my wife behind, or hold up the ride for her, effectively gutting the recalibration we needed to save the noon ride. We left.
The noon ride started leaving at noon after that.
And, after a mere four or five months of tension and evasion, Beth and I could eventually recount the story to friends without bitter recriminations and broken plates. That's when I remembered the first of eight important ways to handle ride creep:
1. Don't be the savior. You will be hated, ridiculed and, if you ever happen to roll up late for a ride, dismissed as a hypocrite. Instead, work behind the scenes to inspire someone else to take on this onerous role.
2. Use an impartial source as the signal to roll out. Take a survey of everyone's bike computers and you're likely to find clocks that vary by as much as six or seven minutes. Leave at noon by your clock, and someone will roll up to an empty parking lot two minutes later at 11:58 by their clock. Church bells are perfect. Clocks on bank signs or on cell phones are good.
3. If your routes vary, try to let everyone know what ride you're doing--this gives the no-account, latecoming losers a chance to short-cut the route and catch the group, or chase on.
4. Make it a policy that the ride will start out slow enough to allow the tardy to chase on. This also ensures that you do an actual warm-up instead of sprinting out of the parking lot.
5. Exchange mobile numbers among regulars--in case the route varies, or to track how far the group is ahead of the late leavers.
6. Cajole a few of the stronger riders into playing domestique for the chasers. This lets the ride keep rolling while giving a harder workout to the best cyclists and eventually bringing the entire pack together.
7. If you show up needing a repair, you're on your own. The group can't sacrifice itself for the one guy who habitually has a flat or a wobbly wheel.
8. Never, ever, leave your spouse behind.
