The peloton didn't smell like a laundromat

Only rarely do I encounter another rider on my commute, especially in the evening. It's an awkward time of day and an unattractive route for riders who can put together any loop they want for their day's training objective. When I do encounter someone from the racing crowd, it's usually cordial but brief.

"How's it goin?'

"Good."

Racer zooms away.

Once in a while, a friendlier one will pull his pace back and hang for a while, until they realize how late they'll get home or how far below their target heart rate they will fall if they plod along with me for too long. I'm on a linear run, while they're on a loop. So off they trot. But one thing has stood out: they all smell like fresh, chemically-perfumed laundry products.

I did most of my racing in the wool era. Lycra shorts and "skin suits" were just coming in, but in mass start races and on training rides you saw mostly riders wearing knitted fabrics that had to be hand washed and hung to dry. If the peloton smelled like anything other than sweat, it was Woolite, and whatever people had smeared on the vicious shark skin of a newly-dried chamois to turn it back into something you might want in contact with your testicles for a few hours.

I haven't been on a group road ride in well over a decade. I did do a charity ride a couple of years in that time, but the group was small and very dispersed, and there was a sea breeze for much of the time. I also don't use scented laundry products, so my own garb has very little odor until I apply a fresh batch of sweat and road grime.

On Friday, I was trudging along, entertaining myself with a stream of consciousness soliloquy, when I heard the smooth grind of a bike drive train behind me, and a voice announcing politely, "on your left." It was a rider I know.

"How you doin'?" he asked

"Just ploddin' along," I said. I'm careful with racers and performance roadies to avoid throwing down any gauntlets. Not that they're necessarily super sensitive to a challenge, but I don't want to look like that sad old bastard on a touring bike who thinks he can show the racers a thing or two. I want to establish right away what they can expect riding near me: a steady pace, probably considerably slower than they will enjoy, and no illusions.

We were on the very last little rise to the height of land on Route 28 northbound. The lead rider, and the younger man drafting him, passed me as quickly as I expected they would. They didn't whoosh past, opening a huge gap and buffeting me with turbulence, but they didn't linger, either. That was fine with me. Really. I settled back into my thoughts as I reached the crest.

Down the slope, I saw them, still riding a nice tight formation. The gap was more than a hundred yards. It was probably well over a hundred yards. I shifted to my usual gear for the descent and accelerated as I usually do. It's basically two miles down hill from there, and essentially down hill all the rest of the way to my house. I'm headed for the barn, so I don't waste time, even on my heavy bike, and carrying the weight of years.

The gap diminished. This was interesting, I thought to myself. I knew that in previous years the lead rider had been going out with one local ride group famous for killing the wounded and eating the dead. I really didn't expect him to be idling. The two riders seemed to be in pretty tall gears, and were pedaling at a respectably high cadence. They were on fancy road bikes.

Whatever the shortcomings of a fully-loaded Surly Cross Check as a climbing bike, it plummets nicely under the influence of gravity. I utilize all that the forces of nature offer me to make my trip faster and easier. On that long descent, there are places I pedal and places I tuck, little grade variations I seek, and rough, speed-robbing strips that I avoid. If there's a tailwind, I'm surfing it. I've ridden the route hundreds of times. I'd left work late that day, and was eager to get home. At a high but maintainable cruising speed, I was up with them in a couple of minutes. Awkward.

"I tried to get left in the dust," I said to the young rider. He grinned. I stayed in the back, but that's where I really started to notice the smell of laundry products. It's not really pleasant, regardless of what the advertising tells you. All I had to look forward to was more of the same, or possibly a fart or two from one or both of them.

They weren't coasting, but I was actually holding back from my usual pace to avoid making a move around them. I didn't want to look like an old geezer beating myself up to pass the racers, but they were -- surprisingly -- costing me time.

One feature I aim for on one of the steeper bits is a weird hump in the pavement, that always reappears not long after any road work. It never forms a sharp peak. When I ride over it, it always launches me into a higher speed bracket. It's worth a gear, at least. And the speed carries well down into the next section, where the grade levels out a bit. I call it The Speed Bump. They didn't use it, and I coudn't get to it. Even without it, I had to make an effort to avoid making a move on the outside.

The lead rider was doing all the pulling, which is silly. The two of them should have been trading leads, and with three of us we could have had a little pace line. Instead, the lead rider yawed somewhat, but never made a definitive move to pull off, and I wasn't going to blow myself up to get to the front. Where the shoulder widened, I winged out a bit to the left, both to use the wind to check my speed and to get out of the cloud of fabric softener swirling in the slipstream.

On the last drop before the road levels out approaching Route 171, I always tuck tight until I get to the bottom and resume pedaling in top gear. Depending on how fresh I feel, I'll start shifting to lower gears right way, or within a few seconds. In any case, bombing down in a tuck is faster than pedaling.

The racers pedaled. They pedaled and pedaled. I had to use the brakes to keep from running up on them. What the heck, I figured. I'll pull left and tuck, and see what happens.

In a tuck, coasting, I accelerated past the pedaling pair, toiling manfully.

"Guys, I'm not even pedaling," I said. "Tuck! Tuuck!"

I pulled clear ahead. Where the road leveled, I followed my usual shifting pattern. I expected them to come ripping through any second.

They never did. I passed through the intersection with 171, grunted up the little rise to the next level bit, and glanced back. They were gone.

Most of the performance riders in town have no use for my technical advice. Most of them don't even shop at our store anymore. These guys don't, although they used to, back before the turn of the  century. It's all friendly enough. If I didn't work in a bike shop I would probably seldom go into one.

Funny thing about modern technology: when I was telling another local rider about the encounter as a funny story, he told me that those guys posted a 20 mile per hour average for the ride on Strava.

I always forget about Strava. Even having just been reminded, I'll forget again soon. I'm not sure what sort of technology you need to own to get your stats uploaded and verified by satellites, but it's not important enough to me to find out. I do know that a 20 mph average would probably kill me. If the climb had been longer, those guys would have opened a gap I couldn't cross, and that would have been totally fine. But maybe they would have averaged 22 mph if they'd worked the descent a little better. Never underestimate the power of an experienced commuter on his way home for a shower and some food.