I commute on a BMX 24", so I realize I'm never going to be the fastest guy around and don't normally even try, except for one section of the commute that is over a bridge and represents the biggest/only hill on the trip. At the start of this hill I try and give it a good run and usually pass at least a few people during this stretch. Really I'm not doing it to be competitive, it's just if I don't get a good head of steam going I'm going to have trouble making it up and over at all. After the initial burst I'll just try and pick someone out in front of me and try to pace that person to the top, gives me the motivation to not give up and walk the rest of the way. Invariably one or two people that I passed at the beginning of the hill will repass me again before we reach the crest, and I always hope that they don't hold my burst of speed and subsequent slowing against me. I'm happy just to make it to the top.

All that being said, there's one exception to not being competitive on the commute. At the beginning of the summer I was on my bike just tooling along and got passed on a gentle downhill by a guy on a skateboard. I figured I'd catch up to him pretty quickly, but he ran a couple of red lights and stayed just out of reach. But then I had mostly caught up to him at the bottom of the bridge. This is my spot, 1 and a half miles of no lights, half of it up a pretty good hill. I hit it all out, and this guy pulls away from me like it was nothing. I swear he was doing 15mph going uphill on a skateboard! Might as well had been Christian Slater in Gleaming the Cube.