Squint

I despise this behavior so what I will admit to doing is messing with people who exhibit this kind of behavior. Some people apparently have fragile egos in dire need of boosting and because they use deceptive tactics such as sneak attacks to achieve "victory," this behavior is particularly despicable. In this situation, a stunning defeat will completely shatter their already frail egos.

I will sometimes play games with these people when I'm doing intervals. I'll let them get close and they'll dig so deep to close the gap. But then I accelerate and open the gap back up. Then they give up and the gap gets big. Then I'll slow down and let them get closer and closer until they think they have a chance again. But again, I accelerate away. This is repeated several times.

One place where I train has a large prominent hill. If you're heading towards the hill, you can be seen by riders behind you quite a distance. Riders love to hammer up the hill especially if they think they can nip some unsuspecting rider right before the summit. If I'm doing an easy ride, I'm always watching for riders trying to do this. At first they think I'm way too far up the road to be caught but they'll try. As they get closer, they begin to believe they can catch my "slow" ass and put in a heroic effort. Within a few yards of the top, they're only a few bike lengths behind me and giving it their all while I'm riding easy and pretending to be oblivious. Then I go ballistic and rocket up the remaining part of the climb. Sometimes they get pissed and try to chase me down the descent and across the flats but they fail at that too. After that, they don't want to race anymore. In fact, they ignore me if I say hi to them.