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Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Wheelsucker

As a rule triathletes, well, many of them anyway, don't draft. In competition (save for ITU events) it's illegal and in training it's not really conducive to effective training (though I'm sure there are those out there who will beg to differ). As such, I don't draft when training, even when I'm on my road bike.

For drafters out there, proper drafting etiquette when it comes to a total stranger is to make sure the person you're drafting off of 1) knows you're there, and 2) is ok with you sucking wheel. For me, I don't like drafters...period. And if you don't ask and just magically show up on my wheel, well, I'm either going to make you pay, or make you pass. Friday's ride saw a very windy day (as appears to be becoming the norm here these days) with the headwind coming on the ride back to my office. About 5-6 miles from the office I rode past a park where a guy was walking his bike down towards the path from what I assume to have been the port-a-potty located there. About 5-10 minutes later, I happened to turn and see him sucking my wheel and I have no idea how long he'd been there.

When he finally passed me, he never said a word to and parked himself right in front of me, I assume to return the drafting favor. I dropped back outside the draft zone and just let him hang out there. After about 4 minutes he dropped back behind me again because it must have really sucked to have to sit in the wind like that for SO long. We did this back and forth for a few cycles, him pulling for a few minutes with me hanging back and then dropping behind me. Finally we hit a "hill" while he was pulling and slowed down considerably forcing me to draft because I couldn't pass due to oncoming path traffic. After the traffic went by, being really annoyed, I passed him, kicked it up to Z4, and dropped him.

I guess it shouldn't bother me as much as I let it, but the dude NEVER SAID A WORD. Sure, I could have said something, but then, I wasn't drafting.

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