How do you tell someone you don't want to ride with them anymore?

Tricky....

Go for straight forward and honest (but gentle). Thank him for getting you back in the saddle, and just tell him that you need to ride on your own or with some tri folk for awhile to help you really excel on the bike portion of tris. Reiterate that he helped you get back on a bike, and if you are still interested in some lazy day rides to keep your friendship (in addition to those other activities). I think this might be taken better if you tell him this separate from an invitation to go ride.  "I really love riding now.  I am going to focus my tri training on riding to try and get to an average xx mph.  I know you are more of a leisure rider, so we will have to save our rides for leisure occasions, like (going for icecream?)."

I am still in the mentality of "don't push to hard on the bike, you have to go 500 miles this week" since doing RAGBRAI last year got me into cycling.  But, if someone doesn't want to ride me with, I'd want to know it.  On the contrary, I actually worry about being the slow one when I ride with other people, but then I figure they wouldn't invite me if that was the case...

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Sarah

Thanks, guys.  I knew I'd get some good responses.  And just to mention a couple of additional things.  It's not that I don't have fun riding with him because he is naturally slower than me (he is).  I don't enjoy it because he very frequently goes out drinking (heavily) the evening before we have rides planned and therefore, we can't get started until like NOON (the hottest part of the day),  he is tired and hung over and struggles with the riding to the point that we average about 10 miles an hour (if that) and have to stop at every available venue.  Before RAGBRAI I kept asking him to ride, telling him he really needed the saddle time, but he probably had 100 miles logged, if that, so he struggled mightily just to do his three days.  And I also told him that his bike needs some serious maintenance and tires replaced before RAGBRAI, but he has this very bizarre anti-bike maintenance policy that I really do not understand, and would not do it and so on RAGBRAI he got two flats on the same dry rotted tire and if I had not  basically forced him to buy two new tubes and CO2 before the ride by saying "I will leave you by the side of the road if you are insisting on being that irresponsible for your own care", he would have been stranded. And I had to talk him through changing his tire because he did not know how. Also, whenever we go for even a leisure ride, he drops his chain almost every time because it is so loose. My husband has looked at his bike, because it makes this constant, hideous noise, and turns out he has a serious problem with his derailleur and his cable, but he simply refuses to acknowledge it.  He says "Ahh, it'll be fine". So what is going to happen is that at some point, we will be out for a ride, and he will break down and I'll have to rescue him.  And (nitpicking here) he only wears his helmet half the time, and I do not approve of that at all.

Maybe I am still being unkind about this, but I just didn't' want it to appear that I would drop a riding buddy simply because he is slower than me.  That would have been an easy fix with just the occasional leisure ride.  This is a situation where I don't want to ride with him AT ALL. 

Thanks again for your input.

An alternative approach

Be mean

Hammer and drop him on every ride, then wait for him to catch up. Repeat

Okay, it sounds like you have some more issues with this guy than simply riding with him.  If he is not accepting your kind and gentle explanation of why you can't ride with him anymore, then if it was me, I'd probably have to say something along the lines of "If you want to get together and ride once a week, that's fine but I have some concerns that need to be addressed."  And then, make it YOUR issue, not HIS issue.

In other words, YOU are too freaked out by bike accidents to ride with someone who will not wear their helmet.  Not, HE needs to wear his helmet.  Something like, "You need to wear your helmet, and if you don't, I can't ride with you.  I don't want to be the one who sees what happens when you fall off your bike, and hit your head with no helmet."  (Can you tell that this would be MY hot button?)

As far as leaving on time, YOU have other commitments, so you must go on the bike ride by 9:00 am, and YOU're really sorry but if he doesn't make it by 9:15 then you'll have to leave without him.  Not, HE is always late, etc.

Then it's all up to him whether or not to do the things you want him to do.  Not because you told him he's a dork, but because you have problems with it.  People, in general, accept things better when you tell them it's YOU not THEM. 

I don't know if I'm making sense here, but if you can phrase things in such a way that you get your point across while (kinda) laying the blame on your own shoulders, then he won't feel like you're attacking him. 

Good advice, Shellee.  Something along the lines of how when we first started riding together, I kind of saw things differently as a total novice than I do now, how it's not that he's done anything wrong, it's that I have changed in my approach and committment to riding, and this is going to be the way things need to be from now on if we are to continue riding. That way it  a) puts the "blame" on me (for lack of a better word) but also b) puts the decision about whether or not we continue riding together on him.

It's the kinder, gentler version of "My way or the highway"   Yes?

It's the kinder, gentler version of "My way or the highway"   Yes?

Exactly.

I like that method!

I did that already, on our last "practice" ride before RAGBRAI, because he was so hungover I thought he was going to puke while riding, and I got pissed beyond measure.  Felt like a total bitch later, though. Not that there's anything wrong with that!