A funny thing happened on my ride the other day...

I often get home, change clothes quickly and head out for a quick spin on my "lollipop route" (an 18 mile loop that uses a town square as my turn around, hence lollipop) in order to take advantage of the nice New England weather (now that the sweltering heat has past) and longer daylight hours. While I often see other cyclists out on this route on the weekend, I rarely see them during the week.

Hopped my wheel even though I was wearing THIS jersey

So as per usual, I get home, grab my Cervelo S5 (I love that bike, I ride it and feel like a pro...not a fluffy guy stomping the pedals) and head out for a double loop of my ride. About 5 miles in I happen to pass another cyclist stopped at a side road, give the obligatory 2 finger cyclist wave and kept going...until I happened to glance under my left arm at the sound of what I thought was shifting to see the front wheel of that cyclist overlapping my rear wheel. Ok, well I did just come through a stop light, maybe he just got up to me and will pass...so I focus on my rpms, pick up the speed...only to see him tuck right up behind me AGAIN!  Not cool dude, not cool. That is the cycling equivalent of somebody jumping in your lane at the pool, start swimming away but never ask to split the lane. A for-serious faux pas!

So I look over my shoulder and ask "are you just gonna sit back there and f'ing draft or are you gonna take a pull?!". To my surprise he responded with "...no,  figure I'll just let you pull me home...". Um, dude, are you kidding me?! A quick chat and I find out that this is his "rest day" and he has a long commute that he rides back and forth...oh ya? well I raced yesterday and I'm still squeezing gas out my legs. There's such thing as a free ride dude, take your turn or get bent. And, and, and...he still just sat on my wheel saying that since I was turning 22mph and was a young guy he'd just "ride me home". Oh hell no! I'm no Chris Froome but I jumped out of the saddle, got up to about 25mph and flat blew him off my wheel. So first off I got to feel like the cool kid (kid, I wish) becuase I had the power to stand up and blow him off my wheel and secondly I was happy to enforce a little cycling etiquette. Sit on a wheel? Not mine dude, not mine...