ok, first of all I'm sorry that one of my first posts on this forum started a big e-fight between a couple of sandy vaginas. You two sound like a room full of my 90 year old jewish grandmother with all the kvetching.

To the rest of the relatively helpful posters, thank you for the input. Yes, being in NYC I see hundreds of cyclists every day on my rides. I was simply pacing these guys, not drafting it seems since I was nowhere near as close as you guys are talking about when "drafting". I had a chance to utilize the same route, and the speed increase was because Manhattan is on gentle downward slope going south along the Hudson. The only benefit to pacing these guys from a yard or 2 back was psychological.

ciao!