This answers your question. You’re a similar weight to me. You’ll never be fast on a climb no matter how fit you get but you’ll be a juggernaut on a flat run.
Oof. That’s a hell of a group
To be fair, at the moment I’m giving up 25-30W on my 38mm training tires. Life is definitely better for me drafting a 113kg Tongan dude or another guy of similar build, but even with faster tires there is a fitness gap to close. I’ve got 20 years on those guys too, not sure I’ll ever close the gap but hey it’s a goal. The smaller slippery guys are putting down 230-250.
They must be on e’bikes 
Ah, gotcha. Now it’s a bit more what I have seen on the fast rides! I’m a 68kg long skinny build dude, and 250 or 260 is pretty much my benchmark to be able to hang on the back
Not sure if OP is in the same boat but I’ll explain from a Southern California group ride perspective.
Saturday group rides can have 100+ turnout. Usually breaks down to (in order of speed Desc.):
A - 20-30 riders
B - 30-40 riders
C - 20-30 riders
D (Development) 1: 20 riders
D2: 10-20 riders
D3: 10-20 riders
D4: 0-10 riders
A, B, and C all drop riders and D1 picks up the dropped. d1 is a no drop and will bring everyone back. The top 4 groups ride the same route while the D2-4 ride alternate routes.
The hard portion of the A route is 17 miles and ~40 minutes at ~26mph on good night. Our Wed night leader looks about 63kg and 168cm (a little help from Strava leaderboard). A taller guy with power data is about 183cm and 75-80kg. Our ride leader is really aero and getting some good drafts from the bigger riders, a couple weeks ago they did that 17 mile section together at 193W (~230 ftp) and 266W (~280 ftp) average power. Big difference.
and picking up on kbro, Wed rides usually start with 20-25 people and break into self organizing A-D groups after the group warms up together. And a regroup at the edge of town.
200w NP is very low for a fast ride.
My riding group is generally quite small, so not a lot of riders to share the work. I’m 175cm and 72kg and on a good day ill do 300w+ NP, around 260w avg on our fast group ride on a Friday morning. We alternate between a crit track for 30min + 2 laps and a ~32km out and back (45-50mins). Can be anywhere from 39-44kph depending who and how many show up.
Quite often have a few just sitting (hanging) on, and thats fine by everyone, dont see why it wouldnt be
Train less. Do more group rides.
I’m in the same boat, early spring I hung with the fast group but now they’re pulling away and I’m getting dropped a few miles from the end. They’re Ironman athletes so they have huge engines compared, and I’m one of the the tall/bigger riders in the group (they call me “the wall” and fight to be behind me for the draft). I’m blaming my slower cornering as my primary problem - accumulation of vo2 efforts after every turn is a killer, but one big thing that makes or breaks me is carbs/hr. We’re burning a ton of calories compared to the little guys, make sure you’re doing 60-90gm carbs/hr on these rides and keeping up on it. I take a liquid carb bottle for when I’m in the front half of the line and don’t want to fumble with gels, and eat gels/bananas when I’m in the back half. If I don’t keep up or fall behind on 3-4 items per hour (around 20-24 carbs each) I’m starting to feel bonk-ish by the final hour. Even if you don’t feel like you’re full-onbonking, if you’re <70gm/hr of carbs I’d bet some weakness is from that.
I can totally see 200NP and being fried in a decent size group in 2.5hrs if there are neutralized sections and hills. You’re noodling around in z1 in the neutral sections and descents but flat out on the non-neutral climbs, but one can only go so hard during those short periods of time.
It would be interesting to see a power file for the ride and TiZ chart. When I do group rides its like 40% Z1, 10-20%Z2, 15-20% Z5+ and that Z5+ time is what smokes me. What is going on only really pops out when I look at the TiZ chart.
There is a lot of good advice in this thread, but probably none as simple and accurate as this.
There is a dynamic to group rides that no amount of intervals can teach you.
Not sure this has been said already: If you are getting yelled at for not pulling enough, find another group to ride with.
Im closing in on 50 and elect to only ride with friends. Life’s too short to deal with jerks. On one ride I probably pulled the group 50% of the time. Still better than when I ride alone and pull 100%.
…but Short Power Build can get you close!
Maybe, maybe not. It really depends on what’s going on. For example, I’m about as mello as they come, but did yell at a guy for stalling every time he hit the wind pulling through. This after many attacks (which is fine) but, clearly one of the stronger in the group. The resultant stalling at the front, not being expected, caused guys to hit brakes, cross wheels etc…behind. I had enough as it was dangerous and told him to “cut that **** out”. I had to pretty much yell due to the speed/wind noise but, also, sometimes when someone doesn’t know they are doing something dangerous it gets their attention. I chatted with him after to make sure he knew what he was doing was dangerous. It’s all good.
Riding these rides on the road isn’t like trail riding or even gravel. When in a group whether a race, a drop ride etc…you do need to think about what you do on the front and how it affects riders say 30 positions back. Be a jack ass and you should get yelled at. I realize this won’t be popular here but, having crashed many times and even sent to the hospital due to dangerous moves (in group rides) by riders who didn’t know any better, it’s important for the experienced guys to teach/speak up. Sometimes that includes yelling.
Sorry if this gets taken or blown out of proportion. I see guys yelling for no reason and that is to not be tolerated either.
Oh sure…some interval training is beneficial and even necessary. But on a group ride your hard efforts and recoveries are not neatly timed out and sometimes you have to hang on / suffer longer and other times you have to go again before you are ready.
Intervals can help prepare the body for that, but there is a huge mental component to it that you will only get in actual group rides.
Not out of proportion. I totally get that. If you need to skip a turn do it in a way that’s safe and doesn’t stall the group—or worse, is unsafe.
But there are clearly ways of how you can ride safely with a group and still take only very short pulls or none at all, right?
He’s a jerk. Ignore him.
Thanks for this post.
I had a tough time on an aborted 100 km ride over the weekend. Started out fatigued, dragged the whole way, poor fueling, underhydrated, etc. Slogged though 54 miles and at the end made me question why I’m doing all this work if my long “fun” rides just make me miserable. It ruined my weekend and had me questioning whether I need to reframe my expectations.
Reading this post this morning helps me see a different perspective. I’m going to try to keep this in mind.
That’s still 3.3 W/kg. Most group rides I’ve seen aren’t normally any better than that on average. Sure they exist, but you typical bike shop ride, or public group ride isn’t typically going to require better than 3 W/kg to hang.