On 05/24/2016 09:49 AM, Scott Henry wrote:
"Plus, wouldnt you want to be able to say you did the ride under your
own steam? Maybe thats not important to some. Maybe its not important."
- Thats crazy, drafting is easier. That's why people do it.
Bicycles, cars, runners. Drafting works for a reason, you can ride
easier, whether its for speed, for time or even to allow the tired out
of shape rider to make it back home.
Easier, and also very much harder mentally. I find the mental stress
exhausting. At least the god-awful screaming and shouting in pace lines
warning of cars and gravel popularized by the AIDS rides seems to have
gone out of fashion again.
As was stated though, don't look at the rear wheel, look at the hips.
Once you are in the groove you can accelerate, slow, rest, turn, get
led out, anything, all without looking. Its trust and teamwork.
Yes, and it can all go pear-shaped in the blink of an eye. Somebody
drops a water bottle -- that ended my penultimate ride in a pace line.
The way everybody scattered every which way - left shoulder, across the
road, slam on the brakes - instant dissolve into chaos - was
terrifying. I pulled over and asked myself if the 5 minutes saved on
the total ride time would be worth the six months (let's count the
seconds, shall we? 26,000,000 seconds!) recuperating from a major
accident and decided the risk was vastly disproportionate to the
reward. Then a year or two later, a neighbor cajoled me into joining
the pace line she was in at Bike Virginia, and the aforementioned
screaming ("Gravel, for the love of Jesus!" in an area where every road
was chipseal, and there was gravel on every shoulder and in every
crossroads) did me in once for all.
But I to agree, if you did it by sucking wheel the whole time, never
took your turn pulling, you really can't say you did the ride "under
your own steam." That's a big issue on the extremely popular Seagull
Century, a flat 100 on Maryland's Eastern Shore where many, many novices
go to do their first century. Pacelines there tend to be Hobbesian --
the war of each against all -- Pace Mobs and Pelotoons where you
routinely see shockingly, even horrifyingly dangerous behavior and where
there's a body count that makes me think of Bloody Lane and Devil's Den.
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