Paul Barnard

Tuesday afternoon the wind let up for the first time in a while. I decided to take about a 25 mile ride in the little time that I had. I most often ride without music, but I was feeling pretty good and thought the music would help me make the most of the ride. My set up is a small bluetooth speaker and my playlist on my phone.

I was feeling an uncommon level of energy and was pumped for my ride that would take me 3 miles though mainly residential areas to the MS River Levee path. Just before I got to the path I took a left and several hundred yards down was a wrong way rider. I maintained the lane. As he approached, he shouted at me that I was on the wrong side of the road and motioned for me to move over. Without going into detail, I let my inner sailor loose on him by suggesting he go have fun with himself among other things.

Up onto the path and I was rolling. I became one with the music and was in one of those rare and fleeting grooves that us riders love to get into. I am typically about a 17-18 MPH no wind, flat ground rider. On this day though when I looked at my computer, it was reading 20-22. I was still feeling energized when I hit my turnaround point.

As I spun back up to speed, I didn't feel like my body was quite cooperating. A mile or so further, and I noticed that the willow leaves that had stood silently on the ride out, now waved like pennants directly toward my nose. Like someone had flipped a switch I realized the music had motivated me to a place my fitness couldn't possibly sustain. So much for my adrenaline high. I settled in to a 16 MPHish pace for what was going to be a sobering ride back.

Ahead on the path I saw a cyclist that I was catching up to pretty quickly. As I closed in, I noticed that it was HIM. Again. My nemesis. https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...encounter.html I prayed that he'd continue to plod along at a pedestrian pace rather than rise to the challenge as he had previously done. I reckoned that my best option was to pin the throttle to the firewall and blast pat him. I dug deep and did so. As I cleared him, it dawned on me that I couldn't just back off as soon as I went around him. Whether he engaged me or not I was going to have to stay into my reserves for an extended period of time.

I must admit that I was beyond grateful that he didn't try to reel me in. The mismatch between my pride and power would have surely been ugly. The war I was having with myself was uncomfortable. The brain and the body clashing violently.

It's 2-1 in my favor now.

subgrade

Are you sure there was no tailwind on your way out? I've had similar feeling of extraordinary energy on a few occasions when I felt like going several mph faster than usually in no wind, just to stop and find out I actually had tailwind.

Paul Barnard

When I was feeling so good on the way out, I looked at the willow leaves to see if they would explain why I was moving so effortlessly. They lay absolutely limp. The surface of the river also told a tale of stillness.

Interestingly, the opposite happened to my on my 36 mile Veterans Day ride yesterday. I didn't really feel like riding, but forced myself to. I started sluggishly, but during the last half I came to life. I did have a mild breeze helping me with that.

Reflector Guy

I'm just glad to read that apparently I'm not the only one that happens to!

Paul Barnard

It brings me great comfort to know that Mother Nature hates other people too.

jack pot 

.... a bloodless ending is always a good ending

mstateglfr 

I ride in what can only be described as an omni-wind. Regardless of what direction I am riding, its into to the wind.

Paul Barnard

You know, I owe everyone in these 10 states an apology for ever complaining about wind.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-10...united-states/

Maelochs

I road across Kansas a few years back .... most of it is not flat and boring, but pretty hilly .... and they have one of those magical headwinds which always blows 20 mph in your face no matter which way you ride. Rolling hills are So much more fun when the wind is pushing you back faster than you can climb.

Troul 

6.5 is not accurate for metering. If anything, 7.5 at minimum.
Rare to have a tailwind that's useable or a calm ride solely measuring body capabilities.

As long as it's dry & above 40F I'll ride like a fly.

rsbob 

Fortunately never had to experience the trepidation of passing someone I had recently insulted.

Have pushed to catch someone and then realized I gassed myself to do so, and then was running on fumes to stay ahead, but that was in my 30s. Except! This last summer (at 65) I blew past a guy just starting his ride (let’s say at 23). In not more than a tenth of a mile I slow to 20 and he reciprocates by not only cleaning my clock, but after 3 minutes disappears from sight. He had the last laugh.

glad he didn’t throw a pump in your spokes.

canklecat

My best overall times are on days with little or no wind. But my rides are mostly loops, so if I benefit from a decent tailwind on one side, I'll pay for it on the flip side.

I'd like to ride with music -- I always enjoy casual group rides with someone else playing music from a bluetooth speaker -- but I get headaches from ear buds so I can't ride or walk more than an hour with ear buds. I got some okay bluetooth ear buds that don't block out ambient sounds but still get headaches after an hour. It'll start out as a minor ear ache, then a sinus ache, then a full blown headache. Sucks but I've had that problem since I was a kid. Can't scuba dive either and even going deeper than 10 feet in the pool or any water causes excruciating sinus and ear pressure pain.

A friend recommended a little JBL bluetooth speaker that fits on the stem with a little farm rigged mount. I might try that on my old steel road bike for longer casual rides.

Paul Barnard

I use this little guy with the rubber band mount. I mount it on the stem. I paid $9 at Academy when they had them on closeout. It's adequate.

Phil_gretz

Edited for clarity. Wow. Sad.

Maelochs

Give him The Look, dial up 400 watts, and blast away at a speed he couldn't match unless he had been racing. There is already an accepted formula for these situations. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

Paul Barnard

IKR! I am happy to help others feel better about themselves and I am happy to post about it. I figured the forum would appreciate a little levity to escape from the "Is bison fat a good chain lube?" kind of threads that are so pervasive on these pages.

bruce19

You're riding the wrong side of the road. Someone tells you that and you have to pay him back? If it had been me, I would have caught up to him and explained why I did that.

hsuBM

I am loving the Barnard Ride Chronicles. Please keep them up!

We we need a fun name for your nemesis... Walter? Biff? Jeremy Clarkson?

Paul Barnard

I am going to do an after lunch ride today. Who knows what kind of excitement I can conjure up? We do need a nickname for the nemesis. It's got to be a good one though. His larger than life presence defies description.

mstateglfr 

Buffalo fat is good chain lube, but bison fat is awful. Too few people know the difference between animals and mistakenly apply bison fat, which straight up ruins their drivetrain.

Reflector Guy

I once had just started out on what was to be a very long ride on a rail-trail I'd never ridden before. I rode barely a half mile before I stopped for photos at a really creepy overgrown abandoned overpass which was covered with graffiti. Because of course bikes with graffiti in the background is a photography thing apparently. I was all done and just putting the camera back in my seatbag when a group of three or four riders passed by and one of them called out "Oh, tagging!... That's NOT COOL man!"

I couldn't think of a reply fast enough and soon they were gone. But for the whole rest of my ride, I kept catching up to them.... I'd try dogging it for awhile, stopping for water, etc, and I kept catching them. They were slower than I was. I just couldn't pass them until I could come up with a better reply than "Really, I wasn't tagging! Honest!". So I never passed them.

mstateglfr 

Gerald.
Its the name of the one eybrow baby from the Simpsons who is Maggie's nemesis.

Maelochs

I thought you were calling him "Bison Fat"?

canklecat

I think your mystery nemesis is named Fausto. Or Marcel.

Sorcerer

Hilarious!

I try not to use bike paths in my area because there are some riders who are obviously not okay with someone riding faster than them and for that reason they ride faster and pass on places that aren't safe for everyone including me, and the joggers, runners, strolling lovers, dog walkers, electric scooters and what have you out there.

However I am not above pushing the pace and rising to a challenge, and that is something I try hard to keep a lid on.

The other thing I commute on are multiuser bridge paths over freeways.

Last year on winter I had a terrible fright going around a bridge which I enclosed in cyclone fence on a corner just after dusk. I had lights blazing. I came around the corner on the right.

The fence, although open wire mesh, is at certain angles, like at this corner, quite opaque.

At probably 12mph just past half way around the 90° bend right, I suddenly saw a stroller in front of me, with a dad pushing it, and a small child walking next to it, all of us close to the same side, my side, the right side.

I basically braked hard, got as far back as I could and did a nose wheelie, and I remember I was certain it was going to hurt me too, as I would fly over the bars as soon as the front wheel made contact with the stroller.

Well the dad, short stocky man, put his hands out and pushed on my helmet like he was returning a spiked volleyball and saved us all.

It was a great save, and I was grateful!

He was hispanic and gave me a well deserved shellacking which began with something like, " why you ride so fast?"

I was sincerely sorry and gave him my number and told him to call me if he wanted me to pay for any damages or hurts.

Everyone seemed okay, by some miracle, his strong defensive reflex, and luck.

Okay, I didn't give him any crap about why was he walking his stroller on the wrong side of the path. Of course when there is an infant and children involved what could I say.

Needless to say, I ride slower there now.