Quote Originally Posted by divingbiker View Post
My experience with Potomac Pedalers is that they absolutely will drop you, but they give you a cue sheet so you can find your way back.

I did a "C" ride, 12-14 mph, and in the end my average was 13.7 mph, but I was way at the back of the pack with a few other stragglers. The average of the folks leading the ride and most of the participants had to have been considerably over 14 mph.

It was a nice ride, but I never did another one with PP.
I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with Potomac Pedalers but I think you should give them another chance. While the speed classification system is supposed to work, ride leaders are only human and sometimes a group (or a select few at the front) want to go slightly faster than advertised. This happens more often with the CC and faster class rides.

Go out and try a D class ride sometime. It should be comfortable for you given the pace you've stated above. D class rides are generally no drop. You can also see if the ride leader puts an emphasis on keeping everyone together from the ride descriptions on the website. Often times they will include a "sweeper" to follow from the rear and make sure no one is left behind.

For the OP: the D class rides with Potomac Pedalers should be great for you to start out with. If you feel comfortable with them you can quickly move on to faster rides (as per Tulip's advice above). You can also email "woody lipinski" who is the guy who leads many of the D class rides and ask to be added to his mailing list. You can find his email listed in one of the rides he leads. He will occasionally send out emails with a list of D class rides he hand picks from the monthly ride schedules.