Meetup Groups: Your Mileage May Vary

I was interested in finding a way to increase my cycling time, and meet new people.  That's when a friend suggested I look into meetup groups. 
For those of you not familiar, I am talking about the site meetup.com.  This is a site where you look for users with similar interests, and meet up across town.  They have groups on everything from dating to cars to fitness.  But I will focus today on cycling.  I joined a cycling meetup group and waited for someone to organize a ride.  Within a week, another user had posted a 50+ mile ride around Denver.  It was on a Saturday, with planned good weather.  So I loaded up the bike and headed down to Southeast Denver. 

A beautiful scene from Cherry Creek State Park, part of our meetup route.

What Meetup is:
1. A good, low pressure way to meet up for a ride, stick with the riders, talk with riders, ditch the riders, whatever gets you the most out of your experience.  If you like the social aspect of meeting other cyclists, we had up to 15 with us at one point.  It's a pretty loosy goosy organized ride, so if you get tired, no big deal, turn around and go back to start.  At one point we were down to 5 riders.
2. A good way to get some experience riding in a larger group, and drafting. When you train for bigger rides alone, you neglect the impact of climbing a hill in a group.  Consider what it will be like if you have to climb that hill, and you're a little wobbly, with 10 riders surrounding you.  Well good news, now you're in a group, so you'll get that practice!
3. The best of cycling culture.  You will share snacks, sunscreen and tubes with your new found friends. 


What Meetup is not:
1. This is not a recommended dating service (unless you join one of the dating meetups).  Every guy on this ride was married or had a girlfriend. Even for grins, I chatted up the lone lesbian in the group, (hey, in the event I ever wanted to swing that way!) she had a girlfriend too. 
2. A professionally organized tour.  The person setting this up, bless him, is going to organize the best route he can, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily done the route before, or could get confused finding roads or even - eek! put you somewhere that isn't really safe (like on the shoulder of Arapahoe road during rush hour traffic)
3. This is not always the best of cycling culture: Ok Lance, I'm impressed that you powerfully climbed up that hill.  You know what would be more impressive?  Not telling me I needed to ride behind you because I'd get tired.  I passed you and left you behind because I spend a lot of time cycling.  Remember when you told me the biggest ride you did was 50 miles.  Well not to brag, but I've done twice that, in the mountains. Oh and by the way your average 15 mph pace is my 13 mph pace.  But guys lie about size all the time.