Funny how those little words of encouragement always help. I no longer race, but I used to enter just a local clubs races, just to boost numbers, and give the others someone else to beat. My "Competitive riding" is now the enduro mountain biking and still participate in the long off road events that take place in our part of the world
Now lets get onto the "Reverse" encouragement. A friend and I decided we were going to do a 100mile ride, offroad in 1 day- believe it or not- just for fun. 6 am start and we had been going for 4 hours when we had a group catch us up on one of the hills. Must have been about 10 of them.First one to catch us started talking, and mentioned that he was doing the same ride as us, then another couple caught up with us and a general discussion started, about the ride. Eventually it got round to what sort of riding do we normally do, and we said that we do longer distance XC as our main riding. Started to go quiet, and one asked "Where did you start from"? Eastbourne was our reply. "Where will you finish"? Winchester was our reply-( in other words the start and finish of this 100miler) and "What time did you start"? Then they all seemed to go backwards from us.
Next thing that happened was that one very attractive-ultra fit girl caught us up laughing her head off- she was the leader of the group behind us and Yes the group behind us were doing the same ride as us- but over 3 days. They had just left their overnight stop point and were full of the achievements that they had managed the day before. Then they came across a couple of "Older" riders on Fully rigid bikes, that were obviously not the latest models, That were doing the ride as it should be done- 1 hit in 1 day, so you can guess where their enthusiam and bravado went.
As a Post script to this, 3 years later we did the ride as an organised ride, and that Girl leader was also there. One of the lads on that ride enjoyed it so much that he had taken up Long distance trekking and she kept in touch with him. Last she heard of him he was in India, en route to Singapore, By bike.