I passed some supercommuter on Dexter southbound. Since I wasn’t really hotshotting it, he caught up on the downhill and sucked my wheel all the way to Denny and tried to pass me on the right a couple times. At that point I decided to begin hotshotting it.
When we got a red on Denny, he pulled up next to me and pointed to my front hub. “That on?”
“Yeah”
“How many watts does it give you?”
“It’s a generator. It powers my lights.”
“So it doesn’t power you?”
“No, it takes power. About 7 watts when the lights are on.”
Burke Gilman is Cat 6 heaven, I’ve learned. Fortunately, I don’t take it often, and when I do, I’m usually in street clothes on my old Trek with panniers and a basket, so I remain unchallenged.
Two recent Cat 6s - Pulled up alongside some dude on a Synapse at a light, at the bottom of a big hill. Light turns green, we take off up the hill, with me staying politely behind. Eventually his pace is slow so I just pass him and say hello. A minute later, I hear some noise, and I notice that this dude decided to grab my wheel. But the noise is what’s noteworthy, because as he passes me, I notice that he has one of those waterbottle speaker things, and he is blasting Britney Spears “Toxic” as he digs super deep to try and dust me up this climb. I just let him go.
Got wheelsucked by a dude on a super narrow stretch of road, which didn’t bother me, since it was heavily trafficked and there was no room to pass. Traffic clears, guy rides up, says hello, then dispatches me as though I were sitting still. I notice his bike and kit, and he’s on a Jamis team bike and wearing a pro team kit. Oh.
some dude in a car wasn’t paying attention
he’s far back so i signal left coz i needa turn left coming right up
i look behind and notice dude hasn’t slowed and i htink well i gotta stay where i am now
he tries to pass me on the right, which is the lane of oncoming traffic
then he pusses out and jacks his brakes and cuts his wheel then gets hella pissed and passes me on the left like he shoulda done from the start
he flips me off so i yell really loud “fuck you”
then he slams on his brakes and wants to confront me so i pull up in a parking lot where he pulled up
he calms down very quickly once he realizes i’m not afraid of him at all
was so dumb
this morning some kid kept passing me and i kept catching him
he has both jeans legs rolled up to mid calf and has on some c team hipster jogging shoes or something
on a black and white trek carbon bike with a backpack and i think he had some rayban shades on too
he’s really hammering and i don’t want to be anywhere near him
but i kept catching him at the lights and taking off first coz i know the timing of the lights
he keeps passing me then slowing down once he’s dusted me
i did see him again towards the very end of my commute, he took a turn downtown here, left turn so it’s a wide turn
he stops pedaling and then stands up to rail through this turn…what the i don’t even…
some kid with no hamlet wearing jeans and a button down on a squeaky as hell fixie makes a right in front of me, seems to be going a decent pace through a small construction patch
until an overpass begins and he starts to slow, I keep the gas sorta on but not really tryin that hard, pull up behind him and ask if he’s going to turn because there’s a mup entrance coming up, but I don’t think he heard me he continued straight
get on the MUP and some older guy in kit is eyeballin me hard. ride through the underpass and on the slight climb up just keeping the cadence steady up the slight rise, pass and give my most casual good morning and then proceed to drop his ass despite feeling sick still. suck it old guy.
Almost got clocked by some U dudes bag who decided playing hardass and ignoring my first three hails to move to one side of the bike path with his girl was going to make me shrivel up or something. So when I put on my polite voice while track standing a half dozen feet behind them he tosses her into the snowbank and spins around like shit is on. I think I laughed under my breath or something that pissed him off so bad he couldn’t move. Rolled past and let fly over my back to his girl she needed work on her dance moves. Distinctly heard her laughing but for obvious reasons I got out of there.
Must’ve been the same guy I ran into the other day. I was cruising along, taking it relatively easy the day after a big ride, going 17-18mph on a flat MUP with a little crosswind. Dude on squeaky fixie comes around me. It’s a stripped Leader. No brakes, no foot retention. Was thinking, “whatever man, have fun.” Fucker eased up after he got around me, though. I just hung on his wheel and watched him struggle for a bit. Then we came to a slight downhill blind turn that always has dirt on it from the hillside. Fixie dude starts to skip stop. WTF? I gave a kick and went around him through the blind turn. There was an oncoming cyclist or something. He looked a bit worried. Probably didn’t help that I gave him a little shoulder.
Fucker.
This. I’m glad nobody ever really decides to stop. After almost getting killed a couple of times, I tend to slip into a rage pretty quickly.
Probably told this story before. Guy maybe 15 cars back pulls to the right to stop in the bike lane for a red light. Slapped his mirror harder than intended on my way by. He yelled something when he caught me between lights. Caught him at the next one and out of character I wasn’t even mad and invited him to talk it out in the next parking lot. Got a doe eyed vigorous shake of no thanks. Took me a few minutes to figure out he thought I’d invited him to fisticuffs.
Currently on vacation. Caught and dropped an older guy fully kitted on a carbon Specialized. He saw me coming and tried to run, but he didn’t stand a chance. I was on a “metro velo” I posted in some other thread. Suck it, Frenchie.
I don’t run into many other bicyclists riding around town here. I know they’re out there, maybe I just ride to and from work at weird hours.
We’ve got a stop light at the bottom of a nice hill here. Maybe one time in 30, you’ll be going down this hill just as the light is turning green and just fly through it at warp speed. But usually I have to stop for the light. Anyway, one time I was taking off from the light and some chick was having her lucky day as she must have been at the top of the hill just as the light turned green. She gave me this little wave as she passed me at warp speed. so jelly at that moment
Cat6 is pretty quiet here, being summer holidays for a lot of people.
Wife’s cousin is getting into cycling and asked to join my commute. Sent him Strava file so he could learn the route, still managed to completely lose him twice and had to wait at the top of every hill. Also rides pretty sketchy: would be the guy on a bunch ride who you’d try to stay away from. Probably need to sit him down and have a chat about etiquette and not riding in a way that puts you and others in danger.
Made a left about half a block in front of roadie bro on my full squishy after 10 miles of poaching trails. He soon passed me on a downhill, and I tried to catch him for the next 1.5 miles and kept close but couldn’t quite close the gap. 2.4 tires at 20/25psi is SLOW on the road.
Sunday got dropped hard at a changing light on the Burke Gilman in Lake Forest Park. Doofus tore down the path maybe 50 feet past me and then slows to turn around and see if I was chasing him. Smashing his dreams through inaction (and because of borken legs) was just as satisfying as dropping him would have been.
Had this reasonably fit but not bike-y looking lady on a hybrid almost catch me a couple of times at lights. I’m pretty slow but was feeling pretty lame with her kinda keeping up for several k’s. Then I noticed she had an electric assist motor which probably helped her a bit on the flat, headwind-y course.
Prolly told this one too. Not commute - Climbing the local big hill I was desperately trying to fend off a fit looking lady coming at me like I was standing still. It was Kristin Armstrong. I had some lulz.
Heard someone shout “Yahooooooo!” Then, across the intersection, I saw a guy on a 7-11 Mercx pull alongside a minivan to dispense some shit talking or something. Unfortunately for him he fucked up unclipping and clattered to the pavement in the middle of the street in front of everyone. When he got up he jumped in front of the minivan and blocked the intersection for 30 seconds. When he saw me staring he did a Miley Cyrus face at me.
Freds came out today since it was like 50 degrees or something. First a group of MAMILs in Prospect Park (almost rode by a guy that got popped out of the group on the one joke of a hill), then a guy on an MTB trying to Cat 6 me.
My goal is to little ring my commutes until at least the first week of Feb. and he was going so slow I passed him after patiently waiting behind him for a block. As soon as I did, I heard all kinds of clanking and rattling that sounded like he was going to try to come around me. It didn’t happen after a block but then I took the excuse of beating a light to put it in the big ring and punch it down a small hill for a few seconds.
I’ve worked in SF for 6 months now and hadn’t yet been to golden gate park and rarely even to the panhandle. I rode out there today on a job and took the commuter path. Fuck that shit. So many fixie fucks passing me with inches to spare between me and some toddlers on scooters. Between the commuters with speakers blaring and fixie kids endangering everyone within 50 feet of their creaky conversion I feel more safe kicking it next to trucks and cabs passing me at 50mph.
And it’s like 70° in sf today so every fucking cat6 in the bay area is out putting around.
Was out on team skills ride today, heading out to the spot where we were going to do drills. There were 9 or 10 of us in a double paceline, going at an okay clip, but not blistering fast. All of a sudden, some dude with a boner stem Cervelo, fancy deep-dish carbon wheels, and what looked like sweatpants comes huffing and puffing around us. He gets about 40 feet in front of us and then runs out of juice. We passed him again, and he apparently tried to hang onto the wheel of the girl at the back, but didn’t last long.
he continued straight