School'd on the Greenway

This morning I was totally school by a commuter on the Greenway. For those who dont know, the Greenway is a bike-specific pathway the connects the two cities to the west suburbs.

Anyways, I hopped on the wheel on a commuter heading up the bridge over Hiawatha. He seemed strong and proved to be so as we paced each other into the wind.

But something did not make sense. He was on an upright-hybrid bike. He wore blue-jeans that utilized rubber bands to keep his pant-leg out of his chain ring. He didn't use toe-straps. His yellow rain-jacket puffed out in the wind.

"Wow, this dude is strong," I thought. I couldn't drop him. He kept a safe distance behind me-just far enough away to taunt me. But I had my head buried and was ticking away at a good pace.

I just couldn't drop him.

I'm a big enough snob to let this bug me. But at some point, I had to drop it back down and admit he was strong. "Great pace" I said to him as I went back to suck wheel and catch my breath.

I also had the thought that I deserved such a beating for the lack of riding I've been doing lately.

Anyway I took one more pull and tried my best to cooly, calmly ride Mr. Bluejeans off my wheel. After all, whats a moron in lyrca doing getting beat by a fellow such as this.

Finally, I turned off onto the Cedar Lake bikepath and snuck one last view of my co-pacer. And I got a glimpse of this:



and I felt a lot better about myself.