Personally, I'd be more comfortable and likely to go if the slower rides *were* drop rides, because I've been the person holding a group back and I won't do it again, so I basically don't do group rides. (I actually am in Boston, but I'd to leave work early AND sprint 15+ miles to get to the NEBC ones. And I'm not actually interested in racing, so I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be at them.)

People keep trying to convince me to go to other rides, where they're going 14+mph, which I just can't do over anything with hills, since a 14+mph rolling average translates into 16-18 on the flats. Which I can do for ten or twenty miles but after that I'm blitzed. (I can hold 14mph on the flats all day, but that translates into a 11.5-12mph rolling average. I was thrilled to clock 12.1 over ~80 miles this past weekend.) If they'd drop me, that'd be fine -- I have good navigation skills and don't mind riding solo, and I could hang on as long as I could and then just fall away, but it seems those rides only start showing up when you can go 20mph.