When I started riding to work, I was one of the slower ones out there. When stopped at a light, there was little doubt who would be pulling out first when it was time to crank. After a while, though, there were a few other riders where things were not so clear-cut. I started to look for clues while stopped, to know if I should be getting out of the way, or working to get in front while it was safe.
A couple of lessons I learned: 1) some of those fat-bottomed girls pack a lot of muscle down there; 2) don’t even think about trying to pass someone on skinny little racing tires.
But there is one category I feel pretty comfortable pushing ahead of: guys wearing sweatshirts who are riding bikes with fat tires. Most of them are commuting, like me, but they’re just not in as big a hurry — if they wanted to go fast, they’d have equipment designed for that. I assume they are not going as far.
On yesterday’s ride, however, as I pushed up Willow at (for me) a pretty good pace, a dude in a sweatshirt riding a bike with fairly wide tires passed me in style. I looked at his receding form, his near-effortless cadence as he pushed his pedals, and was impressed. He would have shamed a lot of the spandex crowd.
The Gods of Traffic favored me, and I caught up to him at the next light. No ambiguity about who should be at the front of the pack here. I waited behind him, and when the light changed he moved out effortlessly.
I mean, literally effortlessly. He didn’t pedal at all. His bike had an electric motor. He could go faster than cars do on that stretch, and he had the go-to-the-head-of-the-line benefit of the bike lane at traffic lights. Not a bad way to travel.
