Riding in groups is very much a personal preference. For our trip we rode in groups of 2's, 3 and 4's and one rider rode on his own. So that worked very well for the day to day ride.

On the trip there were 14 riders and that also worked well as you always could find someone to talk to in the evening, and if you had enough of your small group you could ride with some others for a day.

Sometimes we had a larger group coming into a busy city and that proved a challenge trying to keep everyone together.

As for the cat , we had the standard cat. We had a lot of dubious fuel and the only thing we needed to do in Mongolia we had to raise the idle speed.

With the MM lowering link on the rear wheel did bottom out on the cat a fair amount over rough roads at a fairly high speed and with fully loaded panniers.

The shock is fine but if I did this again I would get a stronger spring