OK, someone else must be riding here, in addition to me.
On Saturday, we led our club's annual new member ride, which is not really for new members. I think this ride traditionally used to be the "start" of the season, before high tech winter riding clothing, although for some of the riders it still is the first, or one of their first rides of the year. We've been leading this ride for 5-6 years and have modified the route once and split it into a faster and slower paced group. When it's a sunny day, we can get 40-60 people.
This year, the weather forecast made it difficult. It's a show and go ride, no signing up or screening. The listing says "rain cancels," but not "threat of rain cancels." It rained Friday night, and was wet early Saturday morning. Although it was cloudy, we studiously studied 3 weather sites, NOAA radar,a nd the local TV weather people who seem to get it right. I had received several ridiculous emails ("Are you going to email everyone if you cancel?" Huh? There's no sign up) and a few calls in the AM. At 7:30 we decided to we were on. It was a good call. 23 people showed up. I'm the sweep for the faster group, and while everyone chose their group appropriately, one woman wanted to challenge herself and I encouraged her. She was a slow climber, but a good rider, and also lives here in town, so no fear of getting lost. Another woman apparently had no idea how to shift her bike, despite the fact it was her 2nd year on it. The upshot was woman #1 went back on her own, after the snack stop, and woman #2 fell further and further behind, as she was in her hardest gear going up small rises. She looked like she was spinning on the flats and just struggling on the climbs.I tried coaching her from behind, until, when we were actually in my neighborhood and the others were out of sight and gone, we stopped. I wasn't sure if her derailleur was messed up or she didn't know what to do. Then, oh no, she had SRAM. I remebered something about double tapping and taught her to shift the front. We made it back to the start, where DH checked her bike, and then I taught her how to shift. The LBS had given her no instruction, she had no idea if her bike was a compact or a triple, or how many gears in the back. This was a smart person, who was clueless. It's not her fault, though.
So, while I had a slow ride, I got 2 nice thank you emails from both of the women. And that's why I'm a leader.