It seems there is a lot of discussion/frustration from some about people not sticking close to the ride leader on group rides. Rather than creating tools to penalize those riders that don’t stick close to the beacon, I think it would be better to reward those that do. I’d like to see a “Close to Beacon” points system that rewards you for staying close to the ride leader. You could give riders points for every minute that they are within a certain distance of the ride leader and show the points/leaderboard similar to the KOM/Sprint boards the scroll through.
This could lead to a whole new category of events with the focus/goal being to ride as close to the beacon as possible. Then if people ride off the front, who cares.