Why am I always out front in AV?

Grrr, the AV rant just keeps on truckin'.

Ok, picture yourself in the little cave waiting for AV to start. Playing Alliance.

Sometimes its pretty silent, no strat being discussed. Sometimes you've got somebody with a macro telling party 1-4 to go to RH and 5-8 to go IBGY then Galv.

Bottom line, whether you're following a strategy or just winging it as 30 individuals plus 10 afk'ers, what's the first thing you do once that gate opens?

You run forward a couple yards to clear the cave and you mount up, and start running in a generally southern direction.

The large majority of Alliance heads pretty directly towards Galv. Sometimes one or two branch off to the left to run up that giant hill to cap the GY up there (Snowfall???). Lately, a couple people branch off to the right and head straight to IBGY rather than going to Galv and then redirecting towards IBGY. And even better, sometimes some people keep running past IBGY (either direct or going past Galv first) and ride down to RH.

But there's on thing in common......

No matter what is going on, unless I deliberately try to NOT be first, I am always out front of the pack.

Why is that?

Lets take a look at what contributes to my speed.....

1) Epic Land Mount. Ok, everybody's got one also, so this really should not be the reason I'm out front.

2) Riding Crop. 10% speed increase. Do people really not have this? Its not super expensive, but its also not super cheap, so I wouldn't expect the entire team to have it, but only one or two people? I doubt this is a factor.

I use the Outfitter addon to swap my Riding Crop and my Hourglass of the Unraveller when I mount/dismount. So perhaps lots of people have the Riding Crop but they just don't equip it because they don't have automated trinket swapping? Maybe, but again, I would think there's more than 1 or 2 out of a group of 40 who do this.

Those are the only two things I bring to the game that make up my mounted speed. Sometimes you get Crusader Aura that pushes you further, although I don't know if it stacks with the Riding Crop. Sometimes a Pally does get out front past me.

But why am I always. ALWAYS. out front of the pack?

Do people just not want to be out front so they delay? Hoping to follow others because they don't know where to go? Maybe. When I first started out, I didn't know the map or strategy and I would sit back and follow the pack. But if this were true, then you'd think there would be droves of players following me to RH, which is just not the case.

COWARDS!!!!!!! lol, ok, so maybe not cowards, but I really don't know what's the deal with this.

Other than the occasional Paladin, nobody is in front of me. I spend 90% of my time in AV as the Ally that's furthest south. Just strange.

Oh, that is unless I get stuck behind the damn turtle and have to play defense. But I'm mostly talking about the initial rush where we all have an equal footing starting out from the cave.

And that reminds me. I gotta try out the PvP trinket to see if I can remove momement imparing effects while mounted without unmounting. That would be a nice touch for getting past the turtle.