Notes From the Bikepath: Schooled

[mizarchivist]

There's nothing quite like getting passed at twice your speed by someone only using one foot. Effortless. Obviously not going at speed. Before she was out of eyesight, she switched over to the other foot for a while. I bow to your skill, madame.

Comments

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I also find getting passed by someone easily twice or more my age (between 60-80) to be a somewhat humbling experience. Especially when their bike looks about the same age.

Also, in PR, the old guys riding children's bikes carrying HUGE bags of something or another in one hand held way out and away from the bike... feats of balance I'll never achieve, methinks.

[srl.livejournal.com]

That's a training exercise for people who are trying to make their pedal strokes rounder. Good at any speed.

[mizarchivist]

Ok, good to know. Still- she was in another universe of skill set. It was clear bicycling wasn't just a fit way to pass the time.

[lightniing.livejournal.com]

Have ridden a lot & have legs to prove it, and I bike to work at least once a week (but it's just a few miles.) I mean, I can RIDE... and there I think I'm good or something, and then someone passed me last month on the way to work going what seemed like twice my speed, on an slight upward incline near Bunker Hill bridge. Silently like a submarine, or a secret agent, no shifting or clanking, not one sound from the bike and it wasn't like I could hear the rider breathing hard. Totally beat me by far to the far-off light which was long-red as I approached and they were gone, gone, gone.
-- rather humbling.

Now I don't ride fast to work (I do on the way home) so it shouldn't have been any issue, but what was I feeling there - was it was jealousy? Do I pine to be an even faster rider? -no. Yet I remember that I really looked to try to discern the gender, the age group, the personality type, of the rider. Why this seemed important at the time, I don't know.

Why did I speed up a little?
Hmmmm.