Heavy traffic

Cyclists are used to being at or near the bottom of the food chain out on the road. I'm more comfortable there than in the confined space of a path with multiple user types and lots of slower riders.

I seldom see other riders on my commute. When I do, it's usually another lone rider or a very small group of athletic adults. We sort out by pace with little or no conversation unless it's someone I already know, or a particularly loquacious stranger. That is one weird thing about riding: you're not in a sealed capsule. I'm no more inclined to get chatty with someone on my bike commute than I would be in my car. Mind you, I have a lot to say, usually profane, about the other drivers I'm stuck with, but I consider it a good thing that they can't hear me. The reverse is probably true. On the bike I care more about keeping my breathing nice and steady while I focus on safe maneuvering around tons of steel piloted by idiots and psychopaths that I'm trusting with my life. We casually throw great masses around at speeds no human could achieve 200 years ago unless they fell off a cliff. And road cyclists go out there throwing elbows with them. It's just another normal day.

On my way home last Wednesday, a rider I hadn't seen in a while was coming southbound as I headed north on Route 28. We exchanged waves. A little further north, near the top of a climb, I passed two other riders stopped on the side of the road. A man and a woman, looked to be in their twenties, wearing please-don't-kill-me-yellow vests, stood astride flat-bar hybrids, talking about something. I grunted a greeting with what breath I could spare as I made the last few pedal strokes to the crest. On the flats beyond, I saw two more riders, similarly kitted and equipped. Once I passed them, I saw two more another couple hundred meters ahead. Okay, nice summer day, and there's a small surge in touring interest.

Past the height of land I geared up and bore down a comfortable amount, relishing the tailwind. For an old fart, I was hammering. I had to laugh, though, at my memory of Tom (Thomas) Prehn looking over and saying, "You've got a higher gear still" as I tried to hang with him during time trail training in 1980. He was kind enough to ride with us local dubs for his long easy rides and the kind of interval training where we would quickly regroup. This was the first -- and only -- time I tried to stick with him when he was putting on a serious burn for ten miles. I was able to stay on his wheel, but he never bothered to let me pull through again. Rising through the grades in bike racing, the steps are exponential, not incremental.

The descent from the peak of 28 to the circle at Route 171 is about two miles. It levels off for a while, but the trend continues helpfully downward. A tailwind makes it even better. Coming off of two rest days, I felt about as good as someone my age can feel. Decades of habit propelled me. Habit maintains momentum on the flat quarter-mile approach to the circle. I back off a little so that I have reserves to deal with any motorist hassles going through the circle. Intersections are very stressful for a road rider. The circle has four of them.

From a quarter mile back I saw a thick congregation of please-don't-kill-me-yellow vests and helmets on what looked like about twenty riders heading through the circle. They extended from the inrun all the way to the exit continuing on 28 north. I saw no motor vehicles. I entered the chute at about 22 mph. The tour group was hugging the right line. I stayed well to the left and coasted down to about 18. Even at that, I passed them like they were standing still. I greeted the first few as I caught them, and said hey to what looked like the leaders at the front, before accelerating gradually away. At my age, acceleration is always gradual. But from the exclamations I heard from some of the tourists I must have seemed fast.

I usually hammer through the circle as fast as I can. Get to it, get through it, get clear of any motorist conflicts. This may be more or less stressful depending on how many motorists are actually there. They can arrive abruptly, speeding in from any of four directions, sometimes multiple directions. Then they might travel around a quarter, half, or three quarters of the circle at the best speed they can manage, because no one likes to linger in it, no matter what their wheels and propulsion system are. I might even be holding one back because they caught up to me too late for me to send them ahead of me.

The first riders to see me expressed astonishment at my pace. I'm no top tier athlete, but normal people are slow. On a competitive scale I'm solidly mediocre at best, but normal people don't care about the competitive scale at all. I don't either, anymore. I just have the residual benefits of having cared about it in the past.

I wasn't trying to prove a point. I was just trying to escape from the embarrassment of socializing and the delay of being stuck in their clot. I'm very happy to see people claiming their space on the road. I still want to maintain my pace and get home. Or to work, depending on the time of day.

Almost every other time I've encountered other riders on my route, they have been competitive cyclists, even if they weren't in their active racing years, or experienced tourists. Their pace and bike handling reflect that. Even when I've passed casual riders they have not been in large groups.

This group had an advantage at the circle because their large group clearly held the territory. That could enhance their safety or it could inspire the kind of violence we hear about all too frequently, where a road-raging driver rams a group of riders with murderous intent. On Wednesday, however, the circle seemed miraculously deserted. I don't know if their luck held, because I resumed hammering and didn't look back. I generally figure the less people see of me the better.

At home, the cellist told me that she had seen a similar group headed north on Elm Street in the morning. She had hung back until they reached a straight enough stretch to allow her to drive past them safely. She thought one of the kids flipped her off. They seemed like camp groups.

She also asked me if I'd announced I was passing on their left or anything like that. It never occurred to me to do so. I don't talk to other road users in the course of a normal ride. The only talking that went on in road races was trash talk for the most part. Who had the breath to speak when launching an attack? I'm crap as a racer, but I'm in race/combat mode on the road, unless I happen to merge with one of the very few people I know, and our schedules and strengths allow for it. She said that the school where she works holds group ride training before their spring overnight tour, including communication. They also do much of their route on well-developed paths in the Wilmington, Delaware, area. They have to follow path protocols for courtesy and safety.

Courtesy and safety when riding among motorists is almost entirely nonverbal. I do my best to ride a smooth, controlled line that allows drivers to get by me and go bother somebody else. I figure the longer they have to stay behind me the more they'll hate me. Things go pretty smoothly on that basis. However, I can't control the drivers who for whatever reason feel obliged to hang back there for a ridiculous amount of time. It tickles the vanity to imagine they're admiring my power and expertise. How likely is that? Maybe they're just groping under the seat for the 9mm that slid inconveniently out of reach so they finally say "fuck it" and drive past me. I have no way of knowing.

I seem to have one secret admirer on Elm Street. Two or three times last year, a minivan hung back literally for miles, creating an unwilling audience of drivers caught behind them while they shadowed me through the dips and turns. I was feeling frisky on those evenings, doing a pretty good job, but hardly challenging motorist speeds for the entire distance that they stayed back. Then, last Friday, there they were again.

It started with a sense of presence. Their vehicle is not loud, and they don't follow closely. After a couple of minutes I heard someone laying on the horn, but it wasn't right behind me. I was riding fast, but hugging the right line, even in some rough sections. I didn't hammer any of the short climbs that interrupt what is basically a series of fast little downhills for three miles. I eased up on the sort of straight parts, hoping they would get the hint. Finally, they came through, followed by all of the unwilling participants. To their credit, none of them took it out on me. That has not always been the case.