Originally Posted by puddinlegs

In my experience while racing and training a lot way back when, it never made me or anyone I knew feel one way or the other about passing a non-racer. A quick 'hello!' was pretty much the norm, though that seems to have fallen by the wayside with more bikes on the road (and folks who seem to worry about what others are thinking/doing) these days. Folks on interesting bikes always got a couple of questions. Saw a guy on a 7/11 Huffy one time and asked the rider about it... it was Jeff Pierce's dad on the bike that Jeff had won the 1987 TdF Champs final stage on. Pretty cool bit of bike history all for the price of some social interaction. Sort of sad, but time marches on, with civility or not. The OP's riding in a very lovely part of the country. If any of you have the chance to cycle in Grand Traverse and Leelanau Co. in the pinky of Michigan's LP, do so. The experience is way more important than the type of riders we are.