I've said it before: I am most definitely not interested in a commuter race, especially not on a crowded mixed-use pathway.
I'm still astonished at how many people continue to "race" total strangers. And it gets even weirder when you consider that people still want to "beat" me when I'm riding the Dahon—dude, it's an 8-gear, 20-inch wheel folding bike! It's not a speed machine, we're talking Food Chain Number of 12 here.
In truth, many of the people who want to beat the funny looking bike with the small wheels are riding a department store MTB/BSO, pushing their platform pedals with feet in tennis shoes. [I'm not sneering—for many, many years my cycling footwear of choice was the Dunlop Volley.]
Of course, many of these bold racers go out too hard, too early—I think some of them put in an extra hard effort to bury the rider on the funny bike. And that's a mistake because what they don't realise is that my funny bike is powered by Audax legs. Sure I may not be fast, but I can keep up my pace all day if necessary, so if you want to bury me on a short ride to work, you'd better be able to keep up your pace for a long time. Many wacky racers can't, and they're usually easy to spot.
But yesterday's 'challenger' was priceless. I was just tootling my way home when I saw him coming up from behind: the full department store MTB stereotype, he was riding with head down, elbows out, mashing those flat pedals for all he was worth. The veins were standing out on his forearms. He practically had a big neon sign over his head saying "I'm red-lining!"
A monumental blow-up was on the way, and with a wicked taste for schadenfreude I wanted to see it when it happened. So I picked up the pace a bit, just enough to keep him within sight without getting close enough to egg him on. He was the full wacky racer, riding erratically and selfishly, darting in and out, recklessly overtaking, squeezing pedestrians…you know the scene. At one point he cut another rider at an intersection of the path, I slowed up to let the other rider in, remarking that this loony wasn't going to slow down for anything or anyone, and confidently predicted his meltdown within two minutes.
As it turned out, I over estimated by 90 seconds. To this point the trail had been flat riverside pathway but when the path made a minor bump up to the old road level at Morrell Bridge—a barely noticeable hillock—Wacky Racer couldn't handle the incline and dropped speed like he'd just ridden into axle-deep porridge.
I rang my bell as I breezed past at my easy, steady pace. Wacky Racer disappeared backwards and I never saw him again.
Bike path racers shit me.
Brilliant!
Mike / Raleigh, NC
Fantastic post. How I loved and miss the Melbourne the commuter races, doing 40km/h to pass a bloke on a mountain bike in sandals. As you mention, the best tactic is always to sit a few metres back and force them to hold the pace. It's risky, because they could end up with a heart attack, but it is fun. Love the food chain number too. Mine is 12 most days, which is fine. The beard doesn't help.
Ha! It's soooo funny when that happens! I was riding my fold up home a couple of weeks ago and a similar thing happened. I know they're not super fast but once you sort out the gearing and settle into a steady pace they can be deceptively quick!
What I've found is that you can't ride them fast like you might another bike... what I mean is you can't put a lot of pressure on the handle bars... at least not on my bike. So to go fast I have to maintain the same casual upright seating position, which I find quite comfortable actually. Then it's just a matter of gradually building up the momentum and selecting a suitable gear that doesn't cause you to strain. You can keep those little wheels rolling along at a constant rate with relatively little exertion! And then Wham! Mr Speedy Gonzales is puffing and panting along side the old lady he nearly knocked over...
What's more he's embarrassed as hell because he just got beaten by someone riding a bike that looks several degrees whimpier than a girls dragster with a banana seat and a Hanna Montana basket!
Comments
Sounds like he was doing some serious sprinting! At the expense of others! I wrote about this recently and got a huge number of comments. I asked everyone what they thought about overtaking other cyclists and whether they feel it is rude.