I was on one of my usual weekday routes that take take me something between 45mins to an hour to complete. I have 3 general routes, one flat route, one moderately hilly and one with a couple of good climbs in it. I generally use these as hard efforts trying for PRs and maybe a KOM if I can swing it (not likely lol). If I need a recovery ride I’ll do the flat route at an easier pace usually. Anyway, on this particular night I was riding the moderately hilly route and heading back towards the homestead. I was on this section of road that has a short little uphill then it levels off before another short uphill which leads into a false flat.
As I hit the little flat section between the two little hills there is a street on the left and a group of riders are waiting for traffic to pass. I give the wave and keep may pace up the next incline and then picked up the pace a bit on the false flat. I’m doing about 20mph and I can now hear the group of riders behind – it was expected, I knew I wasn’t going to hold them off nor was I trying. The lead rider give me an “on your left” and then tells me “nice pace” as he passes me. The plan was to hang on to the back of the group after they passed and get a little free speed. That never happened. While they didn’t pass me all that fast I under estimated their speed and didn’t give it enough gas to hang on and I lost the wheel.
What really irked me though was they gave me zero room as they passed. I was riding the white line and there are a few storm drains that extend out to the white line and a little beyond, which normally of course I’d adjust my line into the lane and stay there until all drains are passed, but that wasn’t happening this night as I was given no room and I had to navigate the storm drains at speed. Each drain is surrounded by concrete so I had a smooth area to ride on but none of then are level with the road which made for some fun. So boo on that group for not being courteous. I always pass single riders with adequate space especially if I can see some road furniture ahead.
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