The cost of letting people in

There is a cycling group that sets off from the foot of the Mokattam hills before sunrise every Friday, and after a few years it has its own way of doing things.

The regulars know the route without being told. They know who sets the pace, where the group stops for water, which jokes are old. They wear a kind of kit that marks them out, and they ride close together in a way that takes months to trust. None of this was designed. It built up ride by ride, and it is the reason the regulars love it.

It is also the reason a newcomer turns up once and does not come back. She is slower, she does not know where the stop is, the jokes go past her. Nobody was unkind. The group simply has an inside, and an inside only means something if there is an outside.

Every club, every fan base, every small brand with a loyal following reaches the same fork. One road keeps it as it is: tight, fluent, a little closed. The other lets it grow, and growing means the pace slows, the route gets explained every week, the old jokes stop working, and the regulars feel that something has been diluted.

That dilution is not a side effect of growth. It is growth. A group that wants new members has to want what comes with them, a looser and less perfect version of what it was.

Most groups say they want both. They want the warmth of being insiders and the size of a movement. I have not seen anyone keep both for long. Sooner or later the group has to decide which one it would rather be.