Originally Posted by
BlazingPedals
My general rule is, if you're gonna pass someone, you should be ready to 'make it stick.' By that I don't mean you have to stay in front of them no matter what; but you should be prepared to continue at the pace you used for the pass rather than immediately run out of gas and make him re-pass you.
Sometimes, if the passees take exception to me passing them and try to run me back down, I'll give them what they want. Depending on my mood, I'll either string them along *almost* letting them catch me, or I'll let them reel me in then squirt off the front, and repeat until they give up. "Ooh, I'm running out of gas... FOOLED YA! Oops, now I really am tired... NOT!!! I give up... NO I DON'T!!! and so on. Once in a great while I'll let them catch me, only to discover they can't rest up behind me because there's no draft. That REALLY irks them.
That's my thinking too. Every once in a while I come up behind someone going a little slower than I'd choose but not sufficiently slowly that I can comfortably pass and maintain a speed fast enough to make it worthwhile passing. Those times I just settle behind the other rider, far enough back that I'm not crowding them, and see what they do from there. If they slow down I'll pass, if they speed up I'll stay put.
Things that annoy me on the road and on the trail is when someone passes as if to make a point but almost immediately loses the extra speed meaning I have to either slow down or pass them right back again. On a clear road it's no big deal but when there's a lot of traffic about it's just an extra hassle. A while back I had a guy pass me, presumably to make a point that his rattly bike could pass my sleek mountain bike (which at the time wasn't all that old and shiny as I'd recently cleaned it), only to leave me stuck behind him as the trail was too narrow to pass for the next couple of miles. Needless to say when it widened out again he got left in the dust.