I’m around 3.3w/kg, but ftp is under 200. When I end up in a group of 5-6 guys at 80-90kg, they don’t make me pull (what good would I do them anyway? No draft!), and I’m okay with that 
Find a group you can hide in.
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If that’s the only group ride around, I guess you deal with it. But that sounds like the worst group ride culture ever and I’d be looking for any other option. Even in ruthless “race simulation” drop rides where everyone is trying to rip the group apart, there is no reason anyone should take criticism for “not doing their share”. A good group ride should be just the opposite. The strong/experienced folks should be giving pointers to the weaker/less experienced riders on how to stay attached. That kind of crappy attitude is a big part of what’s wrong with recreational cycling and makes it intimidating for newer riders. My first advice for anyone dealing with that kind of crap is to go find another group if they can.
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Keep on keeping on !!
Better to have a challenge in front of you than have things easy. Where’s the fun in that ??
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or maintain my FTP and gain weight by a different kind of huge amount lol.
This is not a thing, gaining weight, i.e increasing muscle mass will improve 1sec-1minute power and may have a small influence on VO2max. Muscle mass/strength is not a limiting factor in aerobic fitness.
From all that you have written it sounds like you are chronically underfuelling your workouts, which is why you’ve seen little to no increase in FTP over the last couple of years. Ask me how I know.
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This behavior by the group is almost certainly counterproductive.
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This x1000. Incremental gains have their place, but fitness (along with experience) is going to be the primary factor in whether you can hang in a particular group. No short cuts there, can take years to build up depending on how far you want to go. With better fitness, the experienced rider on the old gravel bike running slow tires it going to drop the less fit guys running new s-works tarmacs every time. The bike/equipment just doesn’t matter that much until you have the fitness to be “in the game” at the end. I’m not saying all the other stuff doesn’t matter (particularly the aero side for a lighter rider), but I think most of us can benefit from changing our horizon. There are very few things we can do in 6 weeks to get significantly faster (maybe an e-bike?), but sticking to a 6-12 month plan can result in some pretty dramatic improvements.
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Assuming it’s an option, drop back to a slower group for a while? My club has multiple different speeds groups. I can struggle around with the race group (generally no drop), but it really isn’t that much fun a lot of the time!
In Ireland at least, total watts trumps w/kg most of the time.
Some good advice here about tactics, nutrition, and equipment.
The issue I’m seeing isn’t your size, but just not having enough watts for this particular group. It sounds like the group is comprised of some pretty accomplished riders with the watts to back it up.
In my cat 1 days, I was only 63kg, but had a 320w + FTP, and I never had issues on the flats with the right positioning. 325 weekly TSS isn’t very much riding to be honest - lots of low hanging fruit for you FTP by just riding more.
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I cant argue against the poor nutrition, but would poor workout fuelling when all rides bar 1 are over 60 minute (and occasionally longer) really make that much difference ?. Given I don’t lose or gain weight, I cant feel like my overall nutrition is that far off overall sustenance.
My point regarding either increasing FTP at 62kg or upping the KG and maintaining my current FTP ratio is based around the fact that most routes around where I cycle are flat and mostly windy. Literally worst conditions for a light rider 
There are other various groups, rides and routes (e.g. after that hard effort last week, on the sunday I done a 1hr 30 ride at what must have been averaging 90W to suit the slower/older guys. Even CX sessions which is nice & ive got tonight.
Agree with the wattage beating w/kg though, especially with the topology and wind here.
320W at 63kg is awesome and whilst id love a 5+ w/kg, at 39 and never having been there I think those days are behind me lol.
Spot on with the TSS though, whilst I think my opportunities for catching up between now and the start of October are few and far between, getting myself into a better place before they restart next May is certainly a better carrot to chase.
As others have said , build a bigger engine, z2 is your best friend here.
Just a couple of aspects tactically, which have worked for me.
Use the club ride as a main interval session and don’t over due the weekly intensity. One of the lads I ride with is much fitter and at least 20 years younger. Looking at his strava feed he rarely if ever has a rest day….
Have a plan and execute accordingly. Prior to the ride, establish the wind direction and what sections are down wind. Pick a spot at the beginning of the ride to time your turn on the front when you are going down hill or down wind.
Minimise your turns on the front, don’t burn your matches
Stay off the front at the start of the ride, some people may have had a bad day or whatever, they need to burn off their frustration early on .
If your enjoying the group, persevere, it’s a great way to drive improvements/fitness.
There is a ton of good info on this thread already, but I’ll echo some and add what I can.
First, there will always be a group somewhere that any one of us can’t hang onto. Don’t get too discouraged if you have a hard time hanging with this group who sound like they’re all really strong and accomplished cyclists. I’d agree with the others and say that if there is a “B” group that rides a bit slower, maybe hop in with them for a while. If there isn’t one, create one! You might be surprised by how many people who aren’t interested in trying to hang out with the A group show up.
I personally wouldn’t focus on your weight at all. It sounds like the route you’re usually riding is more of a power and CDA > type of ride. I also wouldn’t focus on gear too much as those things make pretty minor differences, but as others have mentioned, good tires can help quite a bit. Positioning on the bike also helps when catching a draft, but a bit less so if you’re not at the front pulling.
Power would be my first focus here and you could certainly get your FTP higher with a bit more consistent training. It looks like you ride your bike really often, but you’re not consistently getting in a lot of structured training. In my opinion, that’s the best way to get faster. I’ve been using TrainerRoad for a few years now, and to be honest, I really only stick closely to a training plan for half the year (winter is long over here) and I usually come out of training in the spring with an FTP ~290 at 64kg. This is with a mid-volume plan, some strength training & running, and a lot of focus on good nutrition (quantity, quality & timing) and recovery (minimum of 8 hours of sleep each night). Obviously, we’re all different, but if you spent a season following a solid training plan, I could see you getting your FTP up and over 250 watts with some dedication and discipline.
I know the feeling of being the little guy out on group rides. There are a lot of much bigger dudes on the group rides here and I’m often really surprised by how quickly they can get around on flat ground. When the road points up though, it’s finally my time to shine. 
I wouldn’t be afraid to let your group know where you’re at and what your intentions are if you haven’t already. Being open, honest, and vulnerable often helps to get you what you need and also brings some respect with it. That way, skipping pulls won’t feel bad and you might even get some people going out of their way to help out out from time to time. Most people want to feel like they’re using their power for good and if they know that you just want to make it to the end, they might be more willing to get you there. 
Ultimately, this could be a group that you could manage to hang with at some point with some hard work, dedication, and communication, but it also could be a lot to bite off right now as a short-term goal. I’d mention again that forming a B group could be really beneficial for you since you’ll have a few people more in line with your fitness that you can relate to a bit more and work together to push each other each week. That A group likely isn’t going anywhere and can serve as a fitness test over time. Don’t be afraid to jump in from time to time, and don’t be afraid of getting dropped. Get in, do your thing, get some good stimulus, and fall back…
Best of luck with your training & shout if you ever need any help with anything! 
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Ha, sorry if that came across as me suggesting you need to be over 5w/kg. My point was that smaller riders by definition don’t struggle on the flats - positioning and power can make up for a smaller stature. I think just adding 20-30w would make a huge difference. Like I said, your weekly tss is quite low, so I think ftp gains are well within reach for ya.
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And it pretty much was the only group, aside from a few unpublished twos, threes rides, and they ran the range too. I wanted to ride a group that pushed me, but there were other extenuating circumstances that I think made the group ‘harsh’. There were guys that would show up and I knew it was going to be suicide to try to ride that day. Those same asses would show up on club rides and bomb the living hell out of them. The carnage would be spread out all over the route. They were eventually asked to stop showing up, but it continued.
What always amazed me was the noobs that would actually try to hang with these jackals. I mean looking like they were going to turn themselves inside out, trying to keep up. I vowed I would not be ‘that’ guy, and would actually ‘drop myself’ just to save myself.
That was what these rides I refer to were. They called them ‘slaughterfest’, and it was funny to see some of the very people that razzed me get dropped the next year when I was stronger. Wonder how it felt. The cruelty from some was just ‘locker room talk’ I’m sure, but I learned who was sane and who wasn’t.
Well, yeah, but no. Some would call it ‘tough love’, and after the first half dozen rides I knew what I was getting in to, but wanted the company (I know) and wanted the need to push myself, which I thought was the only good thing I got out of it. There was one guy that would always ‘critique’ me, and some others that he felt he could get away with it. (I went on to later sell him some used bike stuff, and will never do that again!) The whole group experience was more like a bunch of competitors fighting each other than a ‘team’, so I wondered how their amateur team worked with so much BS, or were they just being asses because they could. I eventually quit ALL the group rides because it just sucked so much. And I had a mechanical, and everyone still dropped me. I had to walk something like 8 miles back to the group parking. I heard that they started a ‘b’ group, but I’m still not sure I’d ever do that mess again.
I mean, I rode a multi-day tour ride and encountered a ‘real’ race team from a state university, and I was able to hang with them, and they shared pointers and stories, and I had a great day. They were friendly, welcoming, still ‘down to business’, but not about to flick me off. They were known to be very competitive so it surprised me, but it was so cool to be riding a paceline with real actual bike racers, rather than that bunch of jerks with a biking problem, but I wanted to be pushed to do better, and survived it, and started my indoor training career.
Rambling a little, listening to Ernesto news, and 106 in Tampa?!?!?!
Keep working on it, and you might be dropping them! Ride on!!
And I knew the group I was riding with was faster than me (or hoped anyway) and wanted to be pushed to be better. I did a lot of other training outside of the group, and did improve quite a bit, but the BS wasn’t worth the benefits I was getting. shrug As with everything, compare the juice to squeeze ratio, and if it’s too much of the later, drop it. In the end, no one will save you but yourself.
And, yeah, loved the ‘you drop yourself’ line. Flashbacks to that group, and hell yes… I wish I knew then what I think I know now. Cheers!!
sounds like classic “big fish in little pond” syndrome. In my experience, the really strong local riders aren’t the ones giving crap to newer riders. They are often humble and helpful. It’s the ones who think winning a Cat 3 race somehow makes them special and gives them the right to bag on weaker riders. They may suck at riding bikes less than you or me, but they still suck in the grand scheme of things. Unless someone is good enough to make a living racing bikes, there are always much, much stronger riders out there.
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Workout fueling really helps in the 2nd and 3rd hour of hard group rides. I have a friend who is generally stronger than me but he doesn’t fuel. He’s actually carb phoboic, thinking that carbs will make you fat. My friend, super strong in the 1st hour, always falls apart like a cheap suit in the 3rd hour of our group ride.
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I might be misunderstanding the execution, but having a rider try to slot in the middle of a group is going to be disruptive and tough to organize. Spend a bit extra time on the back of the group to get the recovery you need and get efficient at allowing others to slot in as they drift back. Don’t just form a gap and then try to close it when they slot in, you’ll burn yourself out.
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Indeed! In my early days of the computer industry, and the internet, I was involved in a lot of it at MSU, one of the early hubs of the infant product that would subsume the world. I remember there being something called ‘anonymous ftp’, and was having an issue figuring out what that meant. I finally asked on an online BBS for a major (at the time) software company, and got a ferocious response along the lines of ‘if you can’t figure it out, your computer is wasting its time and you should toss it out the nearest window!’. The company was, ironically, ‘FTP Software, Inc’. Boy, did I feel stupid, but more felt a near blinding rage and wished I could reach out through my computer and throttle that jackass. I swore from that day on, that I would do everything I could to support people that were trying to learn and become more familiar and productive with whatever they needed help with.
But, to your point, to rip people that are seeking help is rude and mean! If I know something that you need help to understand, I don’t lose anything by taking the time to help you understand it better. I’ve seen people get yelled at for asking questions. I’ve seen many people that sit in ignorance because they are afraid of asking a ‘stupid question’, not realizing that the people putting them down are less than they are!
There are too many people that seem to feel that sharing their knowledge, or empathy, is taking something tangible away from them. In the opposite, it ADDS to all of us.
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You take pulls in the first third of the ride then fade out and get dropped. It seems obv to me that you should check your ego and take zero pulls the whole ride until you can finish it without being dropped. Once you do that, start taking pulls n the last third of the ride, then progress in reverse until you can pull the whole ride, if that ever happens.
The ride is ‘training’, especially if it’s so hard you’re dropped. So just use it as training and work your way up. Nobody who’s opinion matters will be upset that a guy who usually is dropped has not been taking his fair share of pulls, so don’t worry about that
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Cool thread. I’m a lightweight rider too, and in my 20s at my fittest weighed 122 pounds (55.5 kg), so I feel your pain (especially in windy conditions). Leg strength training was a game-changer for me. My thoughts:
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Ride at least 12 hours per week, ideally more. Volume matters. Really.
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This fall/winter, assuming you are not doing group rides, I would suggest two hypertrophy leg workouts in the gym per week while maintaining your mileage and ideally doing a couple of sweet spot efforts as part of the mileage (you’ll find threshold too difficult with the lifting and you want to be able to recover and be consistent week after week). You won’t gain much weight but you’ll find you do gain leg size/CSA. Hitting the gym in this way means high volume, high weight, and high mental toughness. Note: if you do group rides during weeks you are in the gym you will be OTB within the first 20 minutes, so only do group rides during recovery weeks in which you are not crushing legs with weights.
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