How to Set the Pace at the Front of a Group Ride

Every club has had this ride. The front pair swear they "never went over 25", the café computer says 24.6 average, and two newcomers quietly don't come back. Both things are true. Averages hide the pace riders actually feel: the 30 km/h out of every roundabout, the 15 km/h up a 5% drag that only the front two found steady.

Setting the pace on a group ride means holding the effort the slowest rider in the band can sustain: a steady speed on the flat, a slower speed on climbs, a controlled speed downhill and smooth changes in between. The ride leader checklist gives the four habits. This piece gives the numbers, the instruments and a pace card for each group.

The pace is a promise to the slowest rider, not to you

A rider who signed up for C, 22 to 27 km/h on flat-to-rolling roads in our series bands, planned their morning around it. Your job at the front is to keep that promise for the weakest rider the band admits. Call them the floor rider. In C, that's someone around 2.5 W/kg of FTP, the bottom of the band's typical range in the A, B and C pace groups guide. That's why you lead in the bottom half of the band: 23 to 24 km/h on a C ride. Your wheel won't feel 24 versus 26; the floor rider, nine wheels back, feels nothing else.

For a group you don't know, coach Darryl MacKenzie describes a calibration (Selle Anatomica, 20 April 2022): lead for the first 15 to 20 minutes and watch the group; ease off by 2 to 3 mph (about 3 to 5 km/h) when someone struggles, then build back in steps of 1 to 2 mph (about 1.5 to 3 km/h). The speed where nobody struggles is the day's ceiling. Sandra Fletcher of the Saddle Sisters put the other half plainly to Bicycling SA (20 July 2022): "So if you pick a pace, you have to stick to it as the leader."

Say the number before you roll: "I'll sit at 23 to 24 on the flat, slower on the climbs. Shout 'easy' if it's too much."

Your instruments: speed, power, heart rate and the talk test

Each number on your screen lies differently.

• Speed is honest on a flat, calm road. Into a headwind it asks for too much effort; on a climb it only means something against the gradient (the pace card's climb columns).
• Power is the front rider's best tool. Show a 3- or 10-second average; the raw number jumps too much. Calibrate it each ride: on the first calm, flat stretch at the flat target, read your 10-second power. That's your band for the day; hold it into the wind.
• Heart rate is too slow to pace by. Hunt and colleagues (PLoS ONE, 2019) measured a heart-rate time constant of about 69 seconds on a cycle ergometer, with wide spread between people. That's over three minutes to settle. By the time it flags a hard corner exit, the back has already chased. Its use: a slow drift upwards over an hour without the speed rising means you're tiring, hot or riding into more wind than you think. If it's happening to you on the front, it's happening sooner to the floor rider: ease off.
• The talk test needs no device. Persinger, Foster and colleagues (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2004) found that the point where speech first becomes difficult sits very close to the ventilatory threshold. That isn't FTP, but it's a firm line: if you can't talk in full sentences on the front at C pace, the floor rider is likely at or above it. The heart rate zones guide covers the zones either side.

The flat: why 3 km/h of creep costs a third more

Power to beat the air rises with the cube of speed, so small increases cost more than they look. In our model (inputs under the climb chart), the front rider of a C group needs about 33% more power at 27 km/h than at 24 km/h. Drifting up slowly, the fresh front rider doesn't feel it.

The wheel protects the floor rider less than people think. Blocken and colleagues (Computers & Fluids, 2013) found the second rider's drag about 25% lower than the front rider's at a 1 m gap, upright. But rolling resistance doesn't shrink in the wheel, so in our model the second wheel saves about 15–20% of the power at club speeds with Blocken's figure, roughly a quarter to a third with the larger savings older wind-tunnel tests found: useful, but far from half. The draft hides least in slow groups, which often carry the widest spread of fitness.

Into a headwind, hold the effort, not the speed, and say why: "Headwind, we're at 21 till the turn." The other way the flat pace creeps is half-wheeling (see the group ride etiquette guide): name the number and hold it; don't race your partner.

Corner and junction exits: the 15-second rule in watts

The club ride playbook explains why a small kick at the front becomes a sprint at the back. Taking an 84 kg rider-plus-bike from 15 back to 24 km/h adds about 1,140 joules of kinetic energy. Spread over 15 seconds, that's about 80 W on top of the riding effort. In 3 seconds it's about 390 W extra: roughly twice the threshold power of a 75 kg C floor rider (about 190 W).

The front rider does the 15-second version. The tenth rider, who braked later and lost a few metres, does the 3-second version and closes the gap too. So the floor rider does one hard effort per roundabout before the café.

• Roll out at exit speed until the sweep calls "all through", then count fifteen.
• Count "one thousand, two thousand…" to fifteen before you're back at band speed.

Junction technique: leading a group through junctions and roundabouts.

Climbs: ride at the floor rider's speed, or don't lead the climb

On a climb the draft disappears. In our model, on a 5% climb at 12 km/h, air resistance is only about 4% of the front rider's power. Sitting on a wheel saves almost nothing, so everyone climbs on their own power-to-weight.

The trap: a 3.2 W/kg C leader climbs a 5% drag at 15 km/h feeling steady. In our model that speed needs about 2.7 W/kg, about 108% of the FTP of a 2.5 W/kg floor rider: over threshold, so they fade on any climb that matters and reach the top emptied for the restart. At 12 km/h, the same climb costs about 2.1 W/kg, around 84% of their FTP: hard, but sustainable. Three km/h is the difference between a group and a string of riders.

Method: steady-state power model with the structure of Martin et al. (Journal of Applied Biomechanics, 1998), validated against measured road power, without bearing and wheel-inertia terms. Inputs: 75 kg rider plus 9 kg bike; drag area 0.270 m², measured in a wind tunnel, as reported by Blocken et al. (2013); rolling resistance 0.004 (our assumption for training tyres); drivetrain efficiency 0.976 (Martin et al.); air density 1.225 kg/m³; no wind. Blocken's 25% draft saving was simulated for the body only, and we apply it to body plus bike. The authors note their stationary-leg simulation gives smaller savings than earlier wind-tunnel tests (37–49%), so the real draft may be somewhat larger. Club riders are usually less aerodynamic, so trust the ratios and climb speeds, not the watts.

Three honest options on any climb long enough to split the group. Pick at the foot.

• Pace it at the ceiling. A briefed pacer climbs at the floor rider's speed from the pace card.
• Everyone climbs at their own pace and regroups at the top. It fits the French cycle-touring federation's rule "régularité dans l'effort (ne pas forcer dans les côtes)": keep the effort steady, don't force on climbs (FFVélo, Commission Nationale Sécurité, October 2022, read on 21 October 2026).
• The leader goes to the back. Cycling UK's Ride Leader Standards Handbook (version 3, March 2026, p. 35, read on 21 October 2026): "Consider putting yourself at the back of the group on climbs. This stops the group from splitting up."

Short or steady climb with D or C: a briefed pacer rides it at the ceiling; with no pacer, sit at the back yourself. B and A, or any climb over about 5 minutes or steeper than 7%: own pace, regroup at the named spot.

Then the restart: give the last rider a minute to breathe at the top and ride the first kilometre at the bottom of the band. A full-speed restart is a second climb for whoever just arrived.

Descents: the group splits the other way

Downhill the order flips. Gravity pulls in proportion to mass while drag grows only slowly with size, so heavier riders roll faster. In our model, freewheeling on a 5% descent in the same position, a 100 kg rider-plus-bike settles near 59 km/h, an 84 kg one near 54 and a 68 kg one near 49. Allow for the bigger rider's extra drag and the gap is still about 6 km/h. Add nervous descenders braking, and a group that climbed together reaches the bottom in pieces.

Cycling UK's handbook (p. 35) puts the leader at the front downhill "to control the speed and allow more cautious riders to catch up". A report from one of its leader courses (Cycle magazine, 2014) shows why timing matters: the front leader looked back, "but by then we had travelled a fair way downhill."

• On the front, freewheel or pedal lightly at a speed the most cautious rider is happy with. Never brake hard and then sprint away.
• Every rider descends at a speed they control. Nobody is told to go faster.
• Soft-pedal the first kilometre at the bottom and look back before building the pace.

Rotating the front without changing the speed

Cycling UK's handbook (p. 34) lists the trade-off of leading from the front: it "allows you to set the pace of the ride", but it's "hard to keep an eye on the group" and you "can't support slower/struggling riders". So the person on the front needn't be the leader. Brief one or two pacers, give them the number, and move around the group yourself. Briefed pacers only, never "whoever's fresh": the fresh rider is the one who lifts the pace without noticing.

Turn length has no fixed rule. TrainerRoad's guide says anything from a few seconds to several minutes; Active.com's starts at 30 seconds. FFVélo's deck says it in capitals: "PLUS LA VITESSE EST ÉLEVÉE, PLUS LES RELAIS SONT COURTS", the higher the speed, the shorter the turns.

The handover is where the pace jumps. FFVélo puts it best: "Un relais n'est pas une relance", a turn on the front isn't a restart. The rider swinging off says the called number: "24, steady", or into wind "21, headwind". The new front rider holds it.

Riding two abreast, FFVélo's deck says the only rotation the French highway code tolerates is a rolling one ("relais par roulement"): two lines at all times and short turns, never a front pair drifting back down the outside as a third line. The two-abreast rules guide covers the law in each country. A fast rotation where everyone takes a turn is a training session, not a no-drop club ride.

Watching the back while you ride at the front

Cycling UK's handbook warns: "riders may not always say if they are not enjoying the ride or pace". You have to look.

• Look behind after every pinch point: junctions, the top of each climb, the bottom of each descent. Shoulder-check once clear, or ask your front partner to look.
• Give the second wheel a job: every few minutes, "still together?"
• Relay the sweep's call. FFVélo gives the rear riders the job of flagging struggling riders; an "easy" from the sweep travels up the line and the front acts at once.
• Check the average at the café. Over the top of the band means a slower second half; the pace groups guide has the triggers if it keeps happening.

The pace card: one table for every group

Print it, pin it in the club chat, give it to every pacer.

For every group: your watts are your calibrated 10-second power, held on the flat all day, wind included; on climbs, ride the climb-ceiling speed. Talk test: full sentences on the front; if you can't, ease off.

If the group still splits with a pacer on the card, the problem is the group, not the pace: see what a no-drop ride actually promises.

FAQ

What speed should the front rider hold on a club ride?

As fast as the slowest rider in the band can hold all ride: on a 22–27 km/h C ride, about 23 to 24 km/h on the flat, slower on climbs.

Should the ride leader be at the front or the back?

Cycling UK suggests the front on descents and the back on climbs (Ride Leader Standards Handbook, p. 35). On the flat, a briefed pacer can hold the front while the leader moves around.

How long should a turn on the front be?

There's no set length: guides range from a few seconds to several minutes, shorter as the speed rises. What matters is that the new front rider holds the speed.

How do you set the pace into a headwind?

Hold the effort, not the speed: keep your calibrated watts, or full sentences, and call the new number.

Why does the group split on climbs even when I ride slowly?

On a climb the draft is worth only a few percent. "Slow" for a 3.2 W/kg leader can be above threshold for a 2.5 W/kg rider. Use the pace card's climb ceiling, or regroup at the top.

How we made this. Written by club ride leaders, with AI help for research, drafting and translation. The power, speed, corner-exit and descent numbers are our own calculation with a published power model and the inputs stated under the climb chart, not measurements: use the ratios, and calibrate your own watts on the road. FFVélo quotes are our translations. The pace bands are this series' example bands; your club's may differ.