I ride alone. I do shorter rides — 50 to 90 minutes as often as I can — daily if possible. I get the aerobic thing because I combine what I love with what I have to do to keep my BP down. Some local dudes whip past me like they are on fire. Sigh — so what!? I know
my ride. And
their grandfathers may be already on their walkers!
Sometimes I am on the single-speed Simplon, and I don't wanna turn 110 RPM. Nevertheless — often — three or so Kms later, I pass them.
If I ever care to glance back, they seem to have vanished like ghosts. I dunno!?
Then there are the other guys. These are
keirin riders out doing road work. Usually they are on fixies with flip flops. They are very friendly if you can stop and talk to them. They have legs that look like oak trees. Uhh-huh — I can't even draft them.
Oh, there are the Freds riding on the river levee. They put on the show and feeb out. But then again there are riders who no matter how hard I go, I just cant follow. I can see that they they doing the same cadence, but they are in a taller gear. I've almost passed out trying the trail these people. Are they pros who are training? Just better, faster, younger? They go so fast I never get a chance to even see what they are riding. I just hear shift clicking behind me and they are accelerating away from me like Chuck Yeager's X-1 leaving the B-29 mother ship.
Then there is yet another rider. He may be on a bike even older than mine. I get up beside him and his face tells you he is 105 years old. He looks at you for an instant as you creep up beside him. His eyes look like those you imagine in Coleridges
Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. They don't even seem to see you. And he just keeps cranking on and on and on and on and on — not giving a damn if I am beside him, behind him or dropping him. I get the idea that if we rode in the same direction long enough, he'd just be grinding away in the same gear, in the drops — and I would be dying.
As a school boy I was pretty fast in the 100 yard sprint by the standards of the time. The 440 tortured me, no matter what condition I was in — and I trained bloody hard. The 800 would have killed me stone dead, even though I played rugby all winter. I know my ride
I love cycling, and I don't know what I would do without it. I keep saying this to my wife as I come back from a ride. By now, she doesn't even roll her eyes!
