Amir, I'm a pretty fair cyclist. I'm also probably more than 15 years older than you. [Just ask Spire how old I am, he rode with my group this weekend]. I have no doubt that you have more raw power than I do.

On the other hand, it occurred to me yesterday, returning home after a 120 km ride with a couple of my buddies, where we kept up a 28.5 km/h average, that I was totally cooked. One young guy on a shiny new bike shot past us on the last leg. Normally, he wouldn't have gotten past me. But I was cooked.

I probably looked like I was a straining old fart to him.

The moral of the story is that you should never judge a fellow cyclist's strength until you know how many miles he has that day. How fresh were you at that point? How cooked was he? MAybe he didn't respond to you because he'd just done a solo century at 29 km/h, had run out of food and was starting to bonk really bad...

These are things you always have to take into account.

[BTW, after we got into town, we did the Mount Pleasant climb to wring the last bit of energy from our systems. It was stupid, but it was one of those macho bike things. It was beautiful.]