What types of cyclists overtake you on your commute?
There was a post here 2 days ago titled “They didn’t know it, but we were racing and I won.”
This inspired me to share my experience with racing other cyclists while commuting.
I ride a ca. 4k EUR bike, which cost me close 10k EUR to assemble (parts, bike service). I love my bike, just after my family.
Sometimes I get competitive on the lane and mostly I loose. It really hammers home that what makes you fast is not your gear but your conditioning.
Here are the types that pass me:
The old lady on the upright tracking bike with double fenders and rain gear. She’s clearly on it every day.
The teenager on his old MTB racing in his highest gear.
The dude with with e-bike that does not respect red traffic lights.
The road cyclist that waits for the up-hill stretch to overtake me with 24 km/h while I make 22 km/h and then disappears into the distance.
You young lady (20ties / 30ties) , on fenders, no luggage, aero clothes. Can’t catch her.
Just for fun , I was wondering who was overtaking you.
Edited typo
by LOLyouLOLme
15 Comments
“The old lady on the upright tracking bike with double fenders and rain gear. She’s clearly on it every day.” *who i aspire to be*
Speed pedelecs, always those bloodly speed pedelecs ;-).
If I’m having a good day, just the ebikers and some really big egos in Rapha team jerseys on their S-works that can’t stand to be caught & dropped by a guy on a budget steel bike with dual panniers.
We get a lot of motorcycles disguised as bikes in our lanes here, like they don’t even pedal the thing to make the pretence..
I’m often overtaken by women on e-bikes with heels and super nice clothes which always throws me lol
Time for 20k bike
Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I cycle a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop cycling into work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not getting overtaken, Skyler. I am the overtaker! A guy cycles his bike and gets overtaken and you think that of me? No. I am the one who overtakes!
(But seriously, you almost certainly overtake me)
That’s a sweet ride.
Beware those that ride with mudguards and panniers everyday… They’ll smoke you if you’re not careful!
I ride a heavy hybrid daily, full mudguards, rear pannier rack, front pizza-rack with a shopping basket ziptied down… Frankensteined together from various parts… it rattles and clanks when I roll… Mechanically sound and well maintained, but looks like a total shitbox…
Full lycra carbon frame commuters are my favourites to overtake!
I remember turning up to a sportive in all the gear and in the line waiting to depart I got talking to an older guy wearing jeans and dress shoes who was straddling a Ridgeback tourer. I thought it was great he was joining in but I’d need to politely shake him off. Anyway, never saw him after the first 3km when he glided up the first climb. I learned a lot about myself that day.
Blokes wearing jandals seem to pass me a lot.
I have a few hills on my commute and for most of the year I ride a 15 kg hybrid bike with panniers in everything from blizzards to summer sunshine. I always enjoy the looks I get when I overtake the fair weather riders om their expensive road bikes or e-bikes. On a good day the only people that can overtake me are people on unrestricted e-bikes which aren’t legal. A few times a year I commute on my road bike and then I feel unstoppable.
With all that said I’m a very law abiding cyclist, so in parts of my commute I get overtaken by people that ride recklessly and run reds.
I frequently get passed by an old guy in full Castelli outfit that really digs in to overtake, pulls back in and then slows right down. This cycle is repeated at every single set of lights. His bibs are so tight they’re see-through.
How did you manage to put an additional 6k in a bike?
E-Bikes pass me on my commute here and there, can’t really do anything against some of those quasi-Motorbikes. I commute on a gravel bike, so I do my fair share of overtaking in uphill stretches, which probably pisses people of as well lol.
I love it when the ebikers pass me as I can draft behind them and train the sprint muscles. Give them the side eye at the lights. 🙂