I only compete with myself and this drives me to go faster and faster. I've never been passed on my commute and do end up having to pass others quite a bit. (only by chance of my route and who else rides it at those times, there are obviously faster commuters out there) Often I need to sit behind a cyclist until there is a break in traffic to let me pass and as soon as it is there I take it. Most annoying is getting a red light shortly after the pass and having the slower cyclist re-pass me my inching forward to my right at the light. Its quite common and I am sometimes much less courteous on the 2nd pass (i.e. don't call it out, use a smaller gap in traffic to get by) I did have great fun one time when I passed a cyclist going quite a bit slower, he grabed on my wheel and a few miles later a third cyclist did and we had a very fast paceline going for a few more miles. But compete with others? Never possible as we are going different places and for different distances and never even agreed that there was a race going on.

Al