Smoked him! I was passed by another rider this morning as I crossed the 14th St. bridge. No big deal, he signaled with a bell and safely passed. By the end of the bridge I had caught up to him and stayed a bike lengths or two back (I could tell he was a fit rider and thought I'd use him as a rabbit to amp myself up a bit). I followed him down the trail that leads to/from the bridge to the street in front of the Jefferson Memorial. The trail splits in two at this intersection, he chose the first left and I continued to the second (they both dump you out onto the street). He rode directly across the street to the sidewalk while I took the (what was now) inside lane and stayed on the street, as I always do. He could tell that my angle put me in a position to intercept him and beat him to the next segment of sidewalk, where I'd merge with him, and accelerated hard. I saw this and put the hammer down too. We were neck and neck until I shifted to the next gear, passed, and took a position in front of him as we got to the next sidewalk. He responded by yelling something, I wasn't sure if he was mad or excited. I continued to drop the hammer through some S turns and dropped him as well, not even looking back. The funny thing is that I almost lost it on a handicap access ramp-my back tire kicked up and to the right at what must have been 23/24 mph or so, luckily I caught it or my whole "victory" could have turned into a humiliating mess.

Other than this little excitement my ride was uneventful, cool, and dry however. This is my second "all ride week" in a row since March (the birth of our first child), hopefully I'll get back into the rhythym.