Thank you to Mr Yellow Jersey

T-Rekster

Got taught a valuable and humbling lesson this evening from a cyclist that shall forever be known as Mr Yellow Jersey.

Out on my usual after work ride and after passing the usual array of pensioners on electric bikes and families on mountain bikes suddenly saw in the distance a bright white road cycle ridden by a fellow in a yellow jersey, finally I thought something to test my mettle..!

Well after pushing hard on the flat I soon gained the 800-1000m he had on me originally, sat behind him for 100m thinking how amazed he must be that I had come out of nowhere!

downhill, kept pushing, zoomed past him patting my self on the back on how upset he must be!

300m later on the straight looked behind and there he is in the distance, "wow that was worth the effort!

next big uphill gets halfway up seems harder than usual, sure enough this yellow jersey comes flying past me up the hill, my heart sank as I suddenly realised what a Tw*t he must of thought I was, no matter how hard I tried i could not make up the difference by the time we parted routes he was a good 5-600 metres ahead.

Now I could put this down to him being half my age and certainly half my weight, he could have had a lighter bike or simply be fitter, but I know that besides all that he understood the difference setting a good pace makes, something I did not fully understand until tonight!

So Mr Yellow Jersey, my hats off and I Thank you for a valuable lesson taught the hard way.


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crumbschief

Fun innit,i doubt he thought you were a tw*t though,it's just how it goes over distance.

Secteur

Excellent post - I agree with the sentiment - there's no point showing off, no matter how tempting!

Having said that, if I overtake someone, I just assume they're at the end of a big ride or are trying to keep in Heart Zones 1 or 2 for fat loss or something.

I hope they assume the same of me when they overtake me!

Having said that, some folk are just very fit with legs of steel and what would kill you or I is simply a normal pace for them!

danowat

Its a horrid feeling when you are out on a recovery ride, or on a low inensity aerobic ride, and someone comes past you, it takes all your mental strength to not chase after them!

mattward1979

Had some guy today overtake me at a set of red lights, the distance I soon made up, only for him to run ANOTHER set of reds to take the lead....

The irony being, me cycling in a safe way stopping at reds and being mindful of traffic nearly got side swiped by some daft bint on a mobile phone while turning left across a junction..

Im not sure what to take from this experience tbh =P

pauldavid

I got passed tonight close to home at the end of my ride by a guy riding at a speed that made me feel as though I was stood still, his calves appeared to be roughly the same circumference as my thighs although I could be wrong as I didn't keep him in sight for long. :shock: :oops:

Having enough mental strength to hold back wasn't a problem as my body wasn't capable of keeping up anyway.

All very demoralising but I am telling myself he's been cycling for years and I've only been doing it a few months so I can only get faster

Obviouvsly if you are Billy Big Calves and you have only been cycling for a few months keep it to yourself please if only for the sake of my mental health.

crumbschief

Addendum

When i'm out on the MTB it's a different feeling,i get loads of fun racing about chasing people down on faster lighter bikes,it's a great workout even if i don't get past them,makes me laugh and i feel on a high when i get home.

Brushiemma10w

Hey, at least you overtook him at some stage T-Rekster. I was about 28 miles into my first 50-miler on Sunday, in the quiet B roads of deepest Suffolk, when two blokes out on a run turned off about 50 yards ahead of me. I couldn't resist the urge to try & catch up and so dug deep....18, 19, 20, 21, 22mph, but the gap just wouldn't close. My final balls out effort to catch them left me knackered and them even further ahead before they disappeared altogether......I don't think they even knew I was there (mercifully).

5 weeks after taking the biking up and I think I'm Lance Armstrong :oops:

morstar

Not quite the same but, many years ago I caught sight of two guys a good distance ahead on very open roads. Over the following 3 or 4 miles I absolutely buried myself to catch them.
Finally got up to them with about 200 metres spare before I turned off down a dead end. During that200 metres we exchanged pleasantaries and I quickly established that they couldn't have been making less effort if they tried and yet it had taken me miles to catch them.

StanwaySteve62

Overtaking is a funny ole game.
Out a few weeks back with a slower mate when two guys rolled past. A few hundreds up the road was a level crossing that was down, so a few friendly words exchanged before the gates opened.
Had no intention of going with them as my mate would struggle but as there was slight downhill before a climb I found myself on their tail pretty quick.
Well the road turned up and was on them without trying with about 75% of the climb to go. So go by or sit back? Of course I went by and pushed to the top and waited for my mate. So glad it was no problem as would have felt pretty stupid if they had come back past.
One of the guys actually said I made the climb look easy as he went past whilst i was waiting for my pal at the top. Thankfully the 30 second gap I pulled allowed me to get my breath back and appear nonchalant

navrig

I was out for a gentle stretch and warm down late afternoon after a hard weekend of hard riding when this guy passed me. He was a bit older and pushing quite hard but given the hard couple of days I had hard I decided not to rise to the challenge. A few moments later I picked up a long thorn and a rear puncture nd had to stop.

It took me about 10 mins to repair the tube but fortunately I had stopped near a local cafe so I took a break with a long, strong latte and ginger bread.

The caffeine gave me boost and with a relatively short distance I had caught up with the old codger on a long hill. He was fairly pecking and struggling with what was a slack gradient, still there was nothing I could do about it and just kept ploughing on, leaving him behind.

I am really pissed off though because when fixing the puncture I got a whole lot of black, grease all over my yellow jersey.

Would you believe it?!!

KillerMetre

I am terrified of similar situations happening to me when I come back from 4 months off the bike due to injury...I prey I don't become the topic of one of those long winded stories on SCR.Also I live in perpetual fear of being looked at as an 'all the gear no idea' type for the first couple of months of comeback 1.0.

I may resort to attaching a brief note of explanation to the rear of my jersey :oops:

T-Rekster

Navrig wrote:

I am really pissed off though because when fixing the puncture I got a whole lot of black, grease all over my yellow jersey.

Would you believe it?!!

Didn't see that coming....much, still made me chuckle though..


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rolf_f

Don't forget that skinny gets like me have no real power on the flat but can destroy fast cyclists on any half decent hill! Got to get your revenge somewhere

pilot_pete

Four of us on a 70 mile ride in the sunshine a few weeks ago. About half way in, just pootling along due to one of our number just returning from a varicose vein operation and two guys pass us, pushing quite hard. We all look at each other, with that look and our mate in 'recovery' just says, "go on then"!

We start our train to reel them back in from the 500m that they have on us just as we approach a long climb in the Peaks. We blat past and it becomes a race between the three of us to the top....balls out....great fun! Meanwhile, the two have 'shot their bolt' and even our mate catches them. They get to the top as a group of three and they go their way. Our mate has had five minutes chatting with them saying 'you went passed and I just thought, oh f@ck, here we go, there's no way they are going to sit back here'.

Childish? Yes. Prove anything? No. Bloody good fun? You bet!

PP