Short intro: Our Tues eve club ride is typically the best attended ride of the week. During the prime cycling season 40-60 riders is not uncommon. We have A, B & C groups. Usually A shells a handful of riders and B sweeps them up. C brings up the rear, but there is pretty sizeable gap between B & C groups. Anyhoo..... Not to brag, but I am one of the stronger B riders. Always take my fair share of pulls, pick up the slack for some that like to ride but not pull, lead out for the sprint at the end. Also on occasion when a rider gets dropped due to flat/mech, having a bad day or maybe new person to the group I am one of the few guys that goes back to help fix it, pull them back to the group or ride in with them if they've hit the wall. Been told by several that I'm considered one of the better guys (strength & attitude) by the rest of the group. Last night was my first ride back after being off the bike for 2+ weeks due to bad weather, head cold & a gall bladder attack late last week. Wind's blowing 15mph steady w/gusts 20-25. Figured I would struggle but long as I kept my nose out of the wind and wheel sucked as much as possible it would be manageable. That's how it usually goes in these situations in the past. First half of the ride is all good. 2nd half I notice I'm working harder than I would normally but still hanging on. With about 10-12 miles to go guys at the front drills it and pulls the rest of the group up to 22 mph straight into the wind - on a section of road that is typically used for recovery, as we just finished a very hard/fast stretch. They finally rode me of their wheels. B group is re-group and typically re-groups in this exact vicinity. So I wave bye-bye to them and slog it out on my own. Not a good feeling to be at the mercy of the group and unable to do anything about it. But it gave me a renewed sense of empathy for those that have a bad night, or maybe a new rider to our group (jumping up from C group) and struggling to hold the pace. Gotta admit I was a little disappointed tho that NO ONE even bothered to check on me, knowing that I was clearly struggling and below my normal form. I was hoping one person would drop back to ride w/me but that never happened. When I got to an intersection where I could either turn right and head back to the start/finish area or turn left and head home, I turned left. Couldn't even see any riders ahead of me by then, they were so far up the road. Hindsight told me I prob should have went with the C group. Sorry about the long post........