The different NYCC rides levels from which to choose all depend on the individual ride leader, how familiar/comfortable/safe you are with riding in pace-lines, and how stringently each leader desires to maintain a pace-line.

For NYCC rides, I suggest e-mailing the leaders of the rides listed for Sunday. Some of these Sunday rides will probably pop up on the home page of the NYCC web-site over the next day or two. One of the two road-bike rides listed for this coming week requires rsvp & is limited to 6 people, probably since it requires taking an early commuter train out to the starting point. These rides may last a considerable portion of the day.

For further questions, the E-mail for the leaders of the 2 road-bike rides listed for sunday include (with symbs spelled out to avoid spam):

a(hyphen)rides(at)nycc(dot)org

kgunn(at)ndci(dot)com [limited to 6, rsvp req'd]

There is also an organized century ride out on the North Fork of Long Island that has a bus leaving from Manhattan very early in the AM to transport bikers / bikes (don't know if the bus is fully signed up, so this may be a limitation) and returning afterward in the evening:
www.northforkcentury.com

There is another organized ride by the Major Taylor Cycling Club listed at the Transportation Alternatives site
(http://www.transalt.org/info/ridesandwalks.html) starting from Newark, NJ Train Station at around 6 am on sunday and there may be a group leaving by an even earlier NJ Transit Train to Newark from the NYC's Penn station.