That’s the spirit. You are a fighter. And while you’re not yet ready to fight your way back to the peloton, at least you’re ready to fight for your dignity… by concocting an elaborate lie to explain why you fell behind. Now, being convincing and believable requires practice, so we prepared 7 outstanding ways to pretend you actually didn’t get dropped. These are your tools. Use them shamelessly.
The mechanical ex machina
This is the Swiss Army knife of excuses. When your legs tap out, but your pride refuses, it’s time to pop the hood on your bike and start speaking fluent nonsense.
The key to this lies in ambiguity. Never explain exactly what went wrong, just that it was “weird”. Something felt off. Maybe it was the derailleur. Or the bottom bracket. Or the vibe.
Bonus points if you ask someone to ‘just listen’ for a faint clicking when you pedal. They won’t hear it, but your concern will feel so genuine they’ll nod and vouch for you later.
Don’t forget to look devastated that you have to pull over. It’s time to sell the lie. So, you need to practice the art of interpretive maintenance. Spin the rear wheel like you’re testing wind resistance. Wiggle the derailleur, touch the chain thoroughly, and shake your bike like a 12-year-old whose soda was taken away and replaced with an electrolyte tablet.
You have now convinced them that you’re not slow—you’re just unlucky. You can always blame the bike shop for messing up your gears, and now you must fix them. (Just make sure you’re not riding with your mechanic. They’d know you’re full of it. Remember, confidence is key. The beauty of this excuse is that you get to stop, breathe, and pretend to be a master mechanic while actually recovering from what felt like cardiac arrest halfway up the climb.
The strategic pee break
The road stretches out in front of you, shimmering with heat. The group is in full flow, wheels humming, legs spinning in synchronised punishment. You’ve found your rhythm… sort of. You’re breathing like an asthmatic in a dust storm.
Just before the vultures circling overhead can claim your body, you see it. The promised land. A tree… or a bush. A moment of pure divine intervention. In other words, it’s the perfect excuse to shout for a pee break. Of course, you want to continue. You could push the pace. Lead the charge. Be the hero. But your bladder has entered high-stakes negotiation mode, and you’re not ready to call its bluff. You can’t chase KOMs while you’re dancing the restroom line dance.
The pee break is the ultimate reset button. It buys time. It buys space. It buys you two precious minutes to collect your thoughts and stop seeing stars. No one questions it because nobody wants to talk about it. It’s a social loophole, and you’re diving through it.
You’re not off the back, you’re managing your physiology. You’re in control. And when you rejoin twenty minutes later, after a long solo struggle against shame and gravity, no one really remembers how it started.
Just don’t use it more than once. Even the strongest excuses have a half-life.
The Strava freeze
The group rides off like a machine—smooth, relentless, indifferent. You are not part of the machine. You are overheating, underperforming, and dangerously close to discovering your max heart rate the hard way. You sit up, shake your head with Oscar-worthy despair, and reach for the ultimate modern excuse: Strava froze.
No one really knows how GPS works. It might as well be magic. That’s your leverage.
All you need to do is pause your recording and start a new one. Boom—instant drama. A solid minute or two of guilt-free recovery while you “fix the issue”, and then you climb on at a pace more suited to a person clinging to consciousness.
By the time you reach the café ten minutes behind everyone else, you simply mutter: Strava froze. Heads will nod. No one will mention the fact that you stopped. No one dares. It’s a sacred phrase. A technical glitch so profound it overrides any suspicion of weakness.
You’re not off the back. You’re just following the ancient wisdom: If it’s not on Strava, it never happened.
The domestique
You were never dropped. You chose to fall behind. Because back there—somewhere in the distance, possibly two climbs and one existential crisis away—was a struggling rider. A friend. A comrade. Maybe even a stranger. It doesn’t matter. When someone struggles, you are always ready to help. That’s just the hero you are. So you dropped your pace, your ego, and quite possibly your blood sugar, and fell back. That’s what domestiques do, and every group ride needs one.
You’re not suffering: you’re supporting. You’re the unsung hero, the selfless workhorse, the spiritual successor to every water-carrying, gel-passing, sacrifice-making legend the sport has ever forgotten to put on a podium. Is the rider you’re allegedly helping aware of this? No. They might not exist. But that’s irrelevant. The beauty of this excuse is its built-in vagueness. You don’t need proof. Just a few deep sighs, a noble gaze, and a casual mention at the café.
You’re no longer the last one up the climb. You’re the glue holding the group together. Even if the group didn’t ask. Even if the glue was actually crumbling.
You weren’t dropped. You were serving a greater purpose. And now your quads hurt for others.
The imaginary urgent call
“Yes, Mr President. Of course, Mr President. I’ll definitely save the world, Mr President.”
Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. Even the most gullible rider in your group won’t buy that one. So even if the President does call, it’s better to pretend it’s someone else.
Still, when you’re halfway through coughing up your internal organs just trying to stay on someone’s wheel, a sudden phone call might be the best lifeline you’ve got. Nothing says, “This has nothing to do with my legs giving out,” like answering a call with intense concern mid-ride. It doesn’t matter who’s “calling”. Mom. Partner. Kid. Boss. Doctor. Neighbour. Your cat. You’re a responsible adult. People need you. And when duty calls, you answer. Even if it’s really just your thumb hitting your emergency contact by accident, and your phone is still in airplane mode.
Pull over, pace a little, squint at nothing, gesture vaguely. Don’t forget to look apologetic when the group disappears over the horizon. You didn’t get dropped. You got summoned.
The strategist
Dropped? Pish-posh. How can you be dropped when you’re studying the group behaviour from behind? It’s science, you peasant. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
You’re not off the pace—you’re gathering data. You need a clean angle to observe pedal technique, body position, and who’s secretly dying inside. Yes, having your head down and staring at your tyre isn’t a sign that you’ll faint in the next 2 minutes if you try to keep up the pace. It simply means you’re mentally recording the collected data.
No, you’re not overexerting—your pulse just happens to match that drum solo from Slayer by pure coincidence. You’re just staying behind because of science. But when the sprint comes. Oh, you just wait for the sprint, and then you get to the coffee stop 10 minutes after everyone else. Sure, you missed this sprint. But they’re burning matches. You’re building a dataset. They ride with legs—you ride with algorithms.
The bug ambush
This excuse is reserved for the moments you accidentally release a vocal confirmation that you’re struggling. In other words, when you start screeching for dear life, swearing at the road ahead. Well, if you manage to catch yourself mid-sentence, you can always shift the blame from yourself to those pesky little bugs eager to die in the sweet embrace of your eyelid.
You weren’t gasping—you were choking. You weren’t sobbing—you were dislodging an insect from your windpipe. That wasn’t a painful face; it was a full-blown biological emergency caused by an airborne assassin with wings the size of a B2 bomber. And just like the B2, no one can really detect it. So, you’re safe. No evidence is required.
They’ll just take your word for it while you weep and wipe your eyes. They think it’s because you’re in pain; the bugs think you’re crying for their friend, but you know you’re shedding tears because your calf has just cramped and you’re barely standing straight.
After a few seconds, you wave everyone off to continue, and you enjoy the sweet rest, followed by a slow and steady climb to the top.
Sure, you are 15 minutes late for the coffee break, but no one suspects you couldn’t make it. It’s those damn bugs. Everyone has been in your shoes. Well, not exactly, they actually had a bug in their eye. But who knows, maybe they didn’t. That’s the beauty of the bug attack.
Getting dropped is for the weak (and those without imagination)
Anyone can get dropped. It takes no skill at all. Just bad pacing, poor nutrition, questionable life choices, and legs made of wet linguine. But escaping the shame of getting dropped? That’s where true genius lies. Because if you have the creativity, the flair, the sheer unhinged confidence to rewrite the narrative in real time, you were never dropped. You were performing. Studying. Suffering on purpose.
Cycling is a sport of endurance. But more importantly, it’s a sport of denial. And while others waste watts trying to stay with the group, you conserve energy crafting elaborate fiction. That’s efficiency.
So next time you get shelled off the back, don’t panic. Pause. Breathe. Invent. And remember: pain is temporary, but a well-timed excuse is eternal.
