I always enjoyed the ride home a lot more than the ride in. One of the best times I had was playing a joke on a cycling buddy many years ago. My commute was 14 miles one way and I generally always enjoyed the ride home because the terrain was very diverse and I got to ride by a local lake where eagles tended to frequent looking for dinner, but one day was particularly fun.

My cycling buddy and I worked at the same place and he always let me change clothes first and get on my way before he would change and leave. He would always catch me by at least the halfway point. He was a much faster rider than I was and he was riding a really light Cannondale road bike compared to my, then commuter, Trek 930 with bags rack fenders, etc., which probably weighed 35 pounds. I outweighed him by a lot, so, it was just a given that he would catch me.

One day, however, I got to the top of a really large hill and turned around to see if he was behind me yet. He was at the bottom of the hill and not paying attention to where I was. I turned off and hid behind a bush and waited a few minutes for him to get to the top and pass me. I made sure that he was a ways ahead before I started out again. The next day at work he asked me where I had gone to since he never caught up with me. I told him I took the normal route home and that I guess I had just had a really good day or he had had a really bad one. He wasn't just disappointed that he didn't catch me (or so he thought), he was angry at himself for being so slow. I think it was a year before I told him the truth. I had a lot of laughs over that year.