Joy of gears

Today I rode up behind a serious looking biker at Hamline and County Road B. He was waiting for the traffic light and I stopped behind him. He turned and looked at me but gave no greeting. Guys on bikes are like that.

He rode away when the light changed and I was prepared to let him go. He had fabulous calves, clearly a very serious rider and he had already been rudely dismissive. I wasn't about to try to race a person like that.

He was spinning a pretty high cadence on the downhill past the library and he gained a half a block or so. But as we hit the more steeply downhill part down to the light I shifted up to the big ring, as is my usual custom, to attack the overpass over Highway 36. He was still spinning pretty fast but when I started to turn the big gear he suddenly started to come back to me.

Over the highway we stopped again at the light in front of the golf course. I took a closer look at his bike. Oh, a single speed. Well that explained a lot. Single speeders are usually a bit haughty around geared bicycles. I believe their take on gears is along the lines of, "What do you need gears for? Aren't you strong enough to turn the one you have?" or something like that. This guy had a nice bike, a Surly, and I am guessing a usual single speed, something like a 48X17. Now if you can climb every hill you come to in that gear you are indeed strong. But on the rolling terrain of Roseville a 48X17 is at a distinct disadvantage if I can turn my 53X17 at the same cadence.

I let him go again when the light changed and downhill we went again to Hamline and B2. On the uphill after B2 I easily reeled him in again. And there I sat until he turned off about a half mile later.

It wasn't a race and if it was I suspect he still could have dusted me off. He had great calves, he looked awfully strong. But it was fun anyway, the joy of mechanical advantage.

I rode past Lake Owasso. They have reopened the lake to recreation but the sheriff still has about 6 cars on scene and the divers are still on the water. The lake is up to 25 feet deep and reports are that the water is very murky, visibility less than 2 feet. That guy is either going to have to float up on his own or they are literally going to have to bump into him.

I checked the Ligue 2 table on ESPN soccer.net. Nantes is first in the league, tied in points with the other teams who won their games on the opening weekend but holding first in the first tiebreaker, goal differential. Only 21 goals were scored by the 20 teams in this first round and no more than 2 by any other team. A 5-0 victory may end up standing them in good stead further down the road. The opponent this week is Châteauroux. According to Wikipedia Châteauroux usually attracts crowds of 5-6,000 in a 10,000 seat stadium. Welcome to the minor leagues Canaries.