Twice this past week our paths have crossed. First time you were headed towards me, as I said hello on the busy rail trail you spit across my lane of travel.
Second time as you pulled along side me, I nodded and said hello. You kept your steely gaze straight forward as you powered down the bike path in your aerobars.
As you weaved through walkers, joggers, mom's pushing strollers, etc, my curiosity was peeked. I wanted to see why such as serious athlete was using this multi-purpose trail for such an intense workout. I raised my cadence a bit, but alas, you turned down 177 before I could close the gap completely.
The thing is my friend, you weren't putting your money where your mouth was so to speak. You looked all serious in you matching kit, but you weren't really putting out the watts, but if you could really lay down some power you'd know better than doing so on a busy Saturday morning on a popular rail trail.
You did look cool though; I'm sure everyone you passed was very impressed.
Especially the moms with strollers.
4 comments:
i've seen that guy!
Ugh, aerobars and workouts on a bike path. So dangerous.
Those riders that go way too fast on crowded multi-use paths are right down there with habitual red-light runners to me. :oP Not only are they doomed to hit someone, they're always pissing off pedestrians (and a lot of the pedestrians turn into drivers the minute they get to their car... and then a lot of them take their frustration with idiot cyclists like those pathlete on the next cyclist they see on the road... and that could be you or me!). Bad karma...
While I do ride rail trails (on my cross bike as the trails here are all gravel) quickly, I don't do it around people who are also using the paths. Slowing, saying hi, etc is so easy and is just plain respectful. Doing otherwise is ignorant.
I recall one day linking up with a few people - aggressive guys on cross bikes and mtn bikes in their mid 40s (like me, only jerks) - who heaped so much abuse on other trail users that I was ashamed to be on a bicycle in the same post code as them. There was a charity walk on the trail!! Thing is, they were dead slow but thought that they were all that and a bag of chips. One faked cramp later, and I was "dropped" from their ride. I spent the rest of the ride saying hi to hundreds of people and repairing the bad cycling PR that was done by three people who thought that they owned the world. These clowns beat me to the trail head by maybe two minutes and I pissed off no one.
Pathetic.
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