I take your point Nick. The term 'Amblers' is now a misnomer and has been for a long time. The problem is that the core group of Amblers has developed and grown stronger together over the last few years (which is how it should be) and they should now consider moving up to the Pacers. Alternately, we may need to start a fourth group, enabling the stronger, current Amblers ( the Chasers!) To ride separately at the pace we now find ourselves riding at with the Amblers pegging it down a notch or two to ride at our advertised pace of 16mph. We certainly need to have a better bridging group from the 25ers, as it is currently a huge step up to the Amblers.
It's an interesting point and mostly a positive one, that as the Amblers have got stronger and quicker, so have the Pacers, which makes that step up potentially painful too, hence some of the quicker Amblers being loathe to ride with the Pacers. After all not many people enjoy being flogged every week (Harpo excepted)! I think we need to discuss this at the AGM. However, in the meantime I will brief the 'rules' before the next ride but essentially the team has to buy into the Ambler's group ethos and ride accordingly but if there are 10 guys on the road all capable of riding at a higher speed and want to, their competitive dog will kick in. Don't get disheartened though, you're getting stronger and faster but so is everyone else and some of the guys have 10,000 additional miles in their legs (at least!!).
