Peter riding solo is the way to go right enough, i had a guy bending my ear this past year
i also was on the audax he was on his super handbuilt road bike he was killing me on hills,but when i sold the audax to Neil my buddy lent me his spare road bike ,the difference was mega ,no more did my so called friend drop anto on hills nor flat.
moral of the story if you want to stay with your friends on rides buy the same bike as he's riding.
im not just a pretty face ya know.
anto