« ROYGBIV | Main | Bad Girl »
August 16, 2006
Bike Race
I had about four miles to go on a 36-mile ride and was stopped at one of the re-entry points of the bike path. Another biker was coming up from the west to re-enter.
It was going to be close as to whether or not I'd be up and pumping before the guy was on the path and I didn't want to hold him up, be in his way or have to hurry to beat him ... so I scooted aside. As it happens, I could have easily beat him and ended up pedaling just a second or two behind him.
I am not a great cyclist. When I'm out riding I'm not trying to go a certain speed or set a new personal record. Mostly I'm just trying to stay in shape -- I have this feeling that I'm going to live a long time (barring a bus or old lady running me over) as the men in my family seem to go on forever -- and I figure I may as well be healthy if I'm going to be knocking around for years and years to come.
But, I do have a pedaling comfort area. Too slow and I feel like I'm creeping along. Too fast and I can't breathe. The comfort area is not speed or cadence related but more the whole-package related. Yada yada yada. Into a headwind I might be cranking out 12 mph ... with a tailwind maybe 25 mph with, what appears to me to be, the same effort.
Anyway. The cyclist was in front of me. I was doing 16.6 mph and creeping up on him. And the pace was slower than I wanted to be doing. I kept expecting him to pick it up as, well, he had a better (more expensive, lighter, newer) bike than I had and, in addition to the dorky bike shorts, he was also wearing the dorky jersey -- I was simply wearing the dorky shorts.
I think it is in bad form to pass someone only to not be able to maintain a speed necessary to stay in front of him. It's bad in a Buick on I-75 ... it's bad on a Trek on the bike path. So I waited a bit giving the guy a chance to pick up some speed so I wouldn't end up passing him and then being in his way.
He didn't seem like he was going to go any faster so I announced, "Passing left" and swung around him. I was cranking out just over 20 mph and I made sure I continued to crank out 20 until I was well past the guy at which point I maintained something over 19 to something bouncing around either side of 20 mph. At no point did I fall below 19. Even the math impaired will recognize any of these numbers as being greater than 16.6 ... the speed at which I was creeping up on the guy moments before.
About a minute later I noticed someone coming up on me. I wasn't sure if it was the same cyclist or another guy -- the jerseys all start to look alike after a while. He went by me at a reasonable speed. That is, not like the person who passes you on the highway when you're doing 70 ... you know, the guy who comes up on you and passes you 3/4 of the way at 90 mph to the point his rear bumper is even with your driver's side mirror and then slows to 70.001 mph seemingly forgetting that just moments ago he was in a hurry. The guy, that had he been approaching you at 75 mph was far enough back that you would have swung around the semi you're about to rear end but you decided to wait as the guy was obviously in a race with the devil and would easily pass you and the semi before you had to deactivate your cruise control.
So the guy passes me fast enough that he should continue to pull away from me; and it is the rider I passed as 16.6. He's followed by another guy who does the same and for an instant I think they might be riding buddies. I continue to crank out about 20 mph.
Neither guy continues to pull away from me. As a matter of fact the second passer sort of slows and will eventually sit up in his saddle, take his right hand off his handlebar and shake it out a little as if a tired hand is what got the best of him and not the fact that he didn't have the legs to make this thing work. FWIW I believe I was about 20 years older than this guy. I was about one-bike length behind him.
The lead passer must have slowed as well. He was about 10 bike-lengths ahead of us which is where he'd stayed after passing me. Even as the second guy slowed, causing me to slow.
I don't know what is wrong with men. And when I say 'men' I mean me and, well, most men you know. But the whole thing was starting to irritate me in sort of a playful way. I knew I could get around the second passer without any problem ... hell, I just needed to get back up to 20 mph ... and I was pretty sure the first passer wasn't going to let me get by him no matter what I tried even if it meant he'd eventually be pumping so hard his thighs exploded.
I passed the guy ahead of me at something just over 20 mph and started closing on the other guy. I had no intention of racing him -- I wasn't going to try to pass him at 22 and then settle back to 20 just to be in front of him. Like I said, I was sure he wasn't going to let me no matter what I tried.
And, I was tired. Part of the reason I felt as energetic as I did at this point was due to the irritation-induced adrenaline rush I was getting.
As I understand it when you draft behind another biker he sort of 'pulls' you along. I don't know if he is actually pulling you in a manner that takes a toll on him or if it is just an expression. In any case, I felt like I 'pushed' this other guy down the bike path.
And, for whatever reason, I took a bit of impish pleasure from it.
Like I said: I don't know what's wrong with men.
I know these aren't exactly Tour de France speeds (well, maybe they are up-the-mountain speeds, I'm not sure) but I assume as the first guy who passed me slowed -- that is, he didn't continue to pull away and didn't speed up until I started closing -- that it wasn't his goal to end his ride down the bike path doing 20 plus or minus.
Posted by delmer at August 16, 2006 6:47 AM