Okay, I don't know why someone passing me on the bike path spurs on my competitive side, but it turned out pretty funny last night. I left Corporate Woods, crossed the bridge over I-435 and took the hook to go into the Antioch tunnel when I saw that two other riders were coming up behind me. Once in the tunnel I powered up a bit to get more of a lead and quickly settled down to my normal pace. I guess it's pride that makes me mention the problems I was having with my chain and derailures - for some reason (yesterday's cold temperatures?) my rear derailure stopped picking up the slack whenever I stopped pedalling so my chain would droop & if I shifted to the big ring in the front, the chain made a loud rattle -- yes, I'm taking it in for a tune up. Still, I was probably running around my normal, average MPH.
Anyway... a couple hundred yards later I was passed by the first rider - an attractive younger lady decked out in spandex riding a very nice road bike. The other gal passed me in about another 100 yards. They were pedalling at a pretty good clip at this point but I knew that a steep, curving, pedestrian-ridden stretch was coming up so I just took my time. Sure enough at the bottom of that hill the gap had closed to about 15 yards.
Now, here is where the competitive side of me kicked in; at this point the trail forks off two directions -- to the right takes you up to the street, to the left you stay on the trail and curve left, go over a bridge and loop left to go under the bridge and continue looping left to get back up on the path. I know that if I go to the right I can just cross the street, go over the bridge and save myself some time. So that is what I did, putting myself solidly back in the lead.
I stopped about a mile later at the bike path detour at Metcalf. Here we go again...
Can we please get a detour for this detour? You have to step out into the road to get around the barrier to the crosswalk signal.
As I was standing there waiting for the light to change the two young ladies pulled up. "You cheated." I guess I wasn't the only one with a competitive streak. I slowed down after crossing Metcalf, waited for them to pass again and wished them a pleasant ride. I caught up with them again when I took the short cut for the next loop under a bridge; we just laughed.
5 comments:
It's a law. N bicycles are ALWAYS racing when N > 1 and direction of travel is the same.
Oh Warren, you know you're getting old when you're bragging about beating a couple of girls (fer cryin out loud!) on the bike path.
No, you know you're getting old when an attractive gal in spandex rides by and you notice how nice her bike is...
Uh...no pictures of the girls? What good is that camera anyways? Are you sure the bike didn't make her more attractive? Yeah...that's what I thought.
And do we still call it Spandex? A pic would has avoided that ancient lexicon ;)
I wanted to avoid being Creepy Older Guy.
"Hello ladies, mind if I take your picture?"
[Actually, I took the picture of the detour the next morning, which accounts for the glare from the sun. I couldn't reach my camera without taking off my backpack and fishing for it. I didn't want to loose the time; that competitive streak again.]
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