Competitive commuting is beyond me. Just about tops on the list of why I cycle to work is avoidance of people. I could no longer tolerate the necessary often contemptuous, sometimes stomach turning intimacy of the crammed subway car, where all forms of offensive behaviour, and odors can be found right under your nose, where you always hate the guy pressing against you and chances are he feels much the same. The constant announcements to be watchful of terrorists, hell, the way I felt sometimes, I could *almost* understand wanting to blow up a train.

As a life-long NY'er I thought the packed rush hour train was a necessary evil, since my return to cycling I see it as an optional misery.

I don't know if I am passing others or if others are passing me by, it's likely the former because I feel so damn good, so liberated from the nauseating, infuriating grind of subway commuting, I'm super-charged. If it's the later, or if someones riding my wheel, I'm still smiling to myself, even if I'm threatening to beat the crap out of them.