Group Riding Basics

Get this. We’re all of five or ten miles into a B ride in Westchester this morning and already the group of twenty-something riders has split. I’ve noticed this tends to happen on B rides on those mornings when no one’s scheduled a B+ ride. What happens is, all these people show up for a B ride and within minutes, those guys who you know can hold a B+/A- pace just go off the front, and that’s exactly what happened not long after we left the parking lot at 8:30 this morning.

Then, not long after the group split, this one guy decides to hit the gas on a long downhill, so most of us grab his wheel once the downhill turns into a flat. We reach a short hill and still we stay behind the same guy who went nuts going down the last hill, but on the next hill, that same guy seems to be running out of steam, so most of us go right around him. Reaching the top of the hill, I didn’t see much point in slowing down to wait for anybody and neither did the other guys behind me, yet a few minutes later, I hear a voice behind me and this particular voice--it’s a woman’s voice, mind you--is all but yelling at me for dropping so-and-so after he so graciously pulled us all along.

I turn around and there’s this woman behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses and she’s pointing her chin straight at me.

“You mean the guy with the red bike?” I ask. I know what she’s saying and I know who she’s talking about because there’s only one guy in the group who’s gone way so far off the front.

Rather than answer my question, she says, “Now I’m going to sit on your wheel and let you pull me around the next thirty miles.”

I guess this is supposed to be something of a threat, but it’s Sunday morning and I left my anger management toolbox at home. I’ve got half a mind to stop, fish my cell phone from my bag, and give Dr. Rob a call and ask him what “Martha” looks like (I’ve never met Martha, although I’ve heard the name on various SIBA rides).

Considering I don’t really know this woman from a hole in the wall (and I would have been content if she remained in anonymous status), getting on my case because I don’t wait for some guy who likes to blast down hills but can’t hold the pace when we’re going up the same hills sort of brings out the motocrosser / asshole in me, meaning I’ve got half a mind to toss in a brake check just to f*ck with her. I won’t, of course, but one of the things I’ve learned from the Staten Island crew is that if you’re going to go screeching downhill, you might as well have the balls to keep your speed up when you start heading the other way. Otherwise, you kind of look like a jackass (as I certainly have in the past), so glancing back, I extend an invitation. “You want to sit on my wheel, lady, you be my guest.”

“Don’t hit too many holes.”

Now she’s pushing buttons. “I don’t hit the holes--just follow my f*cking line.” And shut the hell up, I wanted to add, but what good does it do to get angry?

A few miles go by, I’m on the front and as soon as we reach the next downhill, guess who goes blowing by? And I don’t mean he charges to the front and gives me a break. If I was in the front doing 20 MPH, this guy goes by at 25 MPH and just keeps going . . . until we get to the next hill.

Eventually the pack slows down as we’re making a turn and I let the little lady go by. A few seconds later, just as we start going uphill again, I pull up next to her.

“What were you complaining about?” Before she can answer, I follow that up with, “What?”

She tried explaining that if Mr. Downhill is going to have the decency to pull us along for a while, we should at least have the common courtesy to wait for Mr. Downhill when we reach the top of an uphill.

“Well, for starters, I wouldn’t call what he does pulling considering no one’s on his wheel,” I say. Mr. Downhill is only a few feet ahead of us, so I’m hoping he’s getting an earful. “Second, no one asked him to go charging to the front. No one told him to put his nose in the wind. He can sit in the draft as long as he likes, but if he’s going to go nuts on every downhill while the rest of us save a bit for the hills and he gets dropped, that’s not my problem.”

Then, just to be a dick, I stayed right on her wheel as she stayed on Mr. Downhill’s wheel. Halfway up the next hill, me and everybody else pulled around them and just kept going, yet sure enough, once we reached the top and started drifting downhill and I sat up to let the rest of the group catch, guess who went barreling past me until the next hill?

From now on, I’m leading my own rides. If I get lucky, all of three or four guys will show up, so I won’t have to deal with the kind of stuff I had to put up with this morning. I looked at one of the guys next to me, this guy Glen I had met a few weeks earlier, and asked, “Why am I getting yelled at because someone else can’t keep up?”

Later, to cap off an obviously perfect afternoon, I drove to the other side of Pleasantville to attend my first-ever session with a mental health professional. I know, it’s hard to believe I’m as angry as I am, but it’s true. Figured it was high time to talk to a professional to figure out what the problem is, so I make the appointment, show up a few minutes early, and when I ring the doorbell, I hear a window slide open and someone say, “What time is your appointment?”

“3:30,” I answer.

“You’re ten minutes early. Wait outside.”

“No problem,” I said. Walking back to my truck, I got in, turned around, and flipped the doctor the bird when he opened the door and waved to me.

I need attitude from some jackhole psychiatrist when there are a million of them out there I can go see? I think not.