on the MS bike tour last year, a friend organized a team of 5 of us. We agreed to stop at the stops, and that we weren't racing. At first it seemed that i had a couple of Lance Armstrong wannabes in our group. They set a ridiculous pace for a 125 km ride (day 1 was 120 km day 2 was 65 km). I decided to stay back. Two of my team mates realized it and helped me along. we ended up losing the other two, and we figured somewhere along the route we would meet up with them again. Which we did. And they were furious, because they couldn't find us. If they took a second to think of things logically...the first rest stop was chaos, and they knew we couldn't be THAT far back, just wait at the second or third stop (which is what we did), until we eventually would meet up again. Heck, they were the ones that took off to begin with.

They made a big fuss, and i said, "look we're all grouped up again, let's forget it and just enjoy the rest of the day". well one of the two did. the other one...well he just went off in a huff. The rest of us enjoyed completing the first 85 km to the "short loop" finish, celebrated making it to 100 km, and jumped for joy at 125 km. the other guy was so p***ed that he cut his ride short the first day.

some people get so focussed about getting upset that they don't use a little common sense to deal with the problem. If your friend really needed a stop, she should have just said so, politely.

my two cents

Han