A wonderful ride with nice people (both cars and cyclists!)
 

Just wanted to post a little anti-doom-and-gloom, as my wife and I had a great experience on Sunday.

Sometimes it seems to be a rarity- to run into a single nice, non-self-centered stranger while going about life. The last few months have been filled with close calls (and one crash) with drivers, and frustration with humanity as a whole. Well Sunday, was one of those days that I needed to help restore a little faith. :)

My wife and I were out on a 50 mile training ride, with our fully loaded touring rigs (testing out the load, 35+lbs of gear- good news was, if we ran out of juice, we could have slept out and waited until Monday to go home ;) ). Of course with all our gear, we were going quite slow, and me being the genius I am, unintentionally plotted about as steep/hilly a route as you can get around here (I think we did around 3k feet of climbing, most shortish, less than a mile, 8-12% grades). It was a beautiful day out.

The first group of cyclists we saw were some "roadies" in matching jerseys in a pace line, pushing hard. We were slowly chugging along up a hill, and they were coming up fast, so we pulled over as far as we could. They slowed down when they got to us, and each of them said a few words of encouragement as they passed, and were giving us thumbs up, etc.. Very nice guys. :)

A little while later, while climbing the longest hill of the route (again, chugging along slow- amazing how much 35lbs can slow you down!) a couple was coming the other direction, and both yelled over to us "Keep it up guys!" and "You got a ways to go but you're looking good!"

Towards the top of this hill, 2 guys on mountain bikes passed us, then waited at the top, and asked us where we were headed, interested in how we were cycling with all the gear, etc.. We talked for a good 10-15 minutes (nice break at the top of the hill) then went our separate ways.

The icing on the cake, was as we were getting close to home, there was a somewhat twisty, rolling-hills type road. I noticed a pizza delivery car come up behind us. I have usually found pizza delivery cars to be quite pushy. Well this guy waited for about a minute, until he had a very clear shot of the road, and saw that no one was coming. He then passed us, giving us the entire lane, and waved to me and smiled. I took note of the pizza place's name, and we'll definitely be ordering from them in the future!

So all in all, it was a wonderful ride, and we encountered a bunch of very good people. This is one of the many reasons I love this sport!

It always amazes me how much of a "rush" I still get with every "good" encounter while out on the wheel! It really does boost your outlook on the human race. Sounds like a great ride!

I am still waiting for good encounters, its been a while. Typically I just get empty beer cans thrown at me by passing pickup trucks. Oh the life of a roadie in the country

Kinda reminds me of my short tour I took a couple weeks back. On this one stretch of byway leading into this city I was approaching in the morning, I must have met about 15 cyclers going the opposite direction, which I assume was probably a club ride. We said 'hi' and 'morning' to each other and some older guys were like "alright! Good!" as they passed my LHT loaded with 4 panniers. It was really cool to see a bunch of other cyclers out and served as a great mental boost to my ride and tour overall.

i got off a ride today out in the country on the hilly sections. i was riding mostly on the paved shoulder so i wouldn't be yelled at for my slowness (forgive me, i'm out of shape).

a pick up truck slowly passed me on one of the hills, and this kid (maybe 17?) popped his head out the baskseat passenger side window and shouted "yo man, high five!" and stuck out his arm to gesture a in-the-air high five. then the truck picked up speed and disappeared over the top.

:) made me happy.

I was visting some friends in Alabama about 5 years ago. I was out on ride and had a couple cigarette butts flicked at me and a couple people more yelled at me. I was in a pretty crappy mood after I climbed this big-assed hill and was resting at the top. So I'm standing there drinking water and this ratty-assed pickup stops with 3 guys in it. Great now I'm expecting the worse ! Then the bubba by the passenger door shoves a cold can of beer at me and said "Boy,You must be one tough Sonofa***** to climb that hill on a bicycle! have a beer!. Then they just drove off! I stood there a long time enjoying that beer!