OK, I'm not really an organizer for this ride -- but I go to most of them and usually ride sweep, so I'm "associated."

Actually, nobody "organizes" this ride. We send out emails near the full moon and we all just get together in the parking lot and ride out to the town 10 miles away where there's a drive-through ice cream shop.

We've had as many as 100 and I'm hearing from enough people saying "Yes, three of my friends are going to try it!" so this Friday's might be just. plain. huge.

What can we do to keep this from being a major hassle & hazard?

I'm thinking: break up the start ... find some somewhat arbitrary way to break things into groups... definitely "paceline people go first!" -- maybe just arbitrarily divide things up... or as people start heading out, just stop them every once in a while as if it were a traffic light and pretend to wait for an imaginary green?