When I post my rides to be published in the AMC mag and on line, I use average speed. But as was said before, some people lie or have no conception of what that means, so i get very specific with them when they call to sign up. I do mostly rides where we screen people and I had a really bad experience with a woman on the last ride we led. One of the problems is that we get a lot of people who live in or near Boston and they are not used to hills. So even though we do social rides and regroup, we ride at a good 15-18 mph pace on the flats but we tell the people that we do slow on the hills a lot. They have no conception of what a 5% or 10% grade means. So even if I tell them "strenuous climbs of a mile," they think they can do it. None of the riding I do is flat; it's mostly rollers and some big climbs thrown in. AMC uses 10-12 av is easy/beginner, 13-16 av is intermed. and 16 plus and/or over 50 miles advanced. We are leading our "new members" ride next Sat. and we are breaking it into 2 groups, one easy and one intermediate. Last year they didn't do this and one woman was so slow she was behind the sweep! It's a show and go ride and i am worried about the weirdos that might come out...