Had a "Silly Commuter Racing" moment on the way home tonight.

I'm in what's called "Tech week", which in the theatre means a series of "10 out of 12's"- days where you work 12 hour days with 2 hours of break just before the show opens. It's an exhausting time and given that I just finished a semester teaching full time at a college concurrent to my other work I'm feeling like I don't have much ooomph on my bike rides this week.

So tonight as I left the theatre around 11 pm I vowed to "take it easy" on the way home and just smoothly and gracefully make my way home. But as I was riding along a hidden section of road running parallel to the Mass Pike that leads to the back side of Fenway park I'm moving nicely along the flat quiet stretch on this windless night and pass a couple of guys on single speeds. (I'm on my big old hybrid with milk crate, 26" wheels and carrying my usual ton of crap.)

As I pass one of the cyclists, I had "dinged" him with my bell because his erratic riding style led me, wrongly, to believe, that he was about to cut across the road and turn left suddenly. Instead, as I pass, he yells out, "Oh! So this guy wants a race!"

Actually, it was the last thing I wanted tonight but old instincts die hard and as this kid thrashes his bike up to speed and starts to gain on my back wheel I feel my upper body relax, my elbows drop and my legs start to spin, and spin, and spin until I'm cranking at about 110 rpm in a pretty substantial gear. I wound it out to I don't know what kind of rpm and as I felt him dropping off I clicked into one more higher gear and turbo'd away at what felt like warp speed. The satisfaction I felt as I heard him let out an involuntary groan and sigh as he fell further and further back was worth all the effort.

I know these things are stupid, especially when you're as out of racing fitness as I am, but they can be fun. I'm awfully glad he didn't totally humiliate me.