I'm on the MUP coming home from some hill reps this evening. Now our MUPs are pretty good. Most of the 8 miles of my route home separate into a bike only path with good visibility and 30 yards of nothing but grass on both sides. With half decent handling skills and a little common sense traveling at 20 mph is not unreasonable so as a rule I try not to exceed that. (Another of my rules is - when overtaking little kids always slow down, coast by and toss out a complement like " nice bike" or " wow you really make that bike go")

Anyway, I come to a 100 yard stretch and common sense says " slow down". The path narrows so there is just enough space for on-coming and out-going bikes to pass and there is a 5 ft fence that separates a road on one side and a stand of trees on the other. Also, there's a little 5 or 6 yr old kid following his dad up ahead. Dad happens to glance over his shoulder, sees me approaching and yells in a panic -"squeeze right son , squeeze right !". I answer , somewhat poetically, " no worry I'm in no hurry" and proceed to "draft" the wee tyke about 3-4 ft behind.

We're about half way through when a kit clad, mountain bike riding guy, with a buddy right on his wheel, blasts past at about 30 mph without so much as an " on yer left". When we get to the end of the section I start to coast by when the dad asks his son " how ya doing pal ?" Before the kid has time to answer I look down at my Garmin and say " He's doing great! 11 mph - fast kid". Dad laughs and thanks me for not blowing past.

It was at that point I decided there are exceptions to every rule so I "cranked it up to 400 w" and chased that pair down. I pulled up along side and just coasted while they were panting and hammering away. Then I gave the first guy my best Lance Armstrong stare and kept on coasting beside. He looks at me, looks down at my feet, looks back at me then down at my feet then shifts up and tries to get away. I take one strong rev and continue to coast beside them. He looks at me, looks at my feat and a look of disbelief comes across his face.

Finally he says " What ? ". So I sez, " as you can see I can go extremely fast on this MUP and so can you -but the difference between us is common sense. What would have happened if that weaving little kid veered into your path when you blew past? There's no room to maneuver - best case scenario is some broken bikes and nobody goes to the hospital"

He respondes by telling me where to go and how to get there ( with added helpful finger direction). Then it just came out of my mouth - "You're a MUP-putz ! "

So all of that just to propose a new word for the 41 vocabulary ( if it isn't already) :

MUP-putz: a Fred who rides at unreasonable speed and/or does dangerous stunts on a MUP.