[Tone12]

Interesting experience last Saturday. I headed out on a beautiful morning. One of those where you just think, man, I'm glad I'm out riding. About one mile in I catch up to three people, two guys riding SS and one girl on a geared bike. I'm in a great mood and say, "Hey guys, how's it going." First thing out of one of the guys mouth was, "I bet you think your special cause you have gears." Hmmmm. "No," I replied. I do like gears but my little bro rides single speed too. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them checking out my bike. It's an old Ibis Alibi. Well, "have a good one," I said, and started to speed up. About 10 yards in front of them I heard the girl say, "I know this is just killing you to ride slow, I give you permission to go kick his a$$." Hmmm. I was feeling pretty good so I thought, Bring it!!!! Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys but still. Where did that come from? I'm sure they thought I was just some poser wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Not decked out in my lycra and sleevless jersey like they were. It did feel good to smoke them but I'm still a little irritated about the whole situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. Has anyone else ever had something similar occur?

 

[bigdrunk]

Everyone go ahead and flame me, but I think all people like need is a really good ***** slappin! Broken nose = attitude adjustment. There are already too many people with that kind of attitude surfing, which is why I quit.

 

[roy harley]

No worries

Interesting experience last Saturday. I headed out on a beautiful morning. One of those where you just think, man, I'm glad I'm out riding. About one mile in I catch up to three people, two guys riding SS and one girl on a geared bike. I'm in a great mood and say, "Hey guys, how's it going." First thing out of one of the guys mouth was, "I bet you think your special cause you have gears." Hmmmm. "No," I replied. I do like gears but my little bro rides single speed too. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them checking out my bike. It's an old Ibis Alibi. Well, "have a good one," I said, and started to speed up. About 10 yards in front of them I heard the girl say, "I know this is just killing you to ride slow, I give you permission to go kick his a$$." Hmmm. I was feeling pretty good so I thought, Bring it!!!! Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys but still. Where did that come from? I'm sure they thought I was just some poser wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Not decked out in my lycra and sleevless jersey like they were. It did feel good to smoke them but I'm still a little irritated about the whole situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. Has anyone else ever had something similar occur?

think about it this way, you didn't have to put up with them during your ride. Their just pissed that they have to babysit one of thier girlfriends, yet the two of them are still into their gay relationship. Lots of pent up anger there! If you can enjoy the ride, go F$CK YOURSELF! I say..

 

[pimpbot]

Sounds like....

... somebody had such a small pee pee that could not stand being humiliated in front of the GF.

 

[sumguy1]

You're kidding , Right?

That didn't happen. Come on. Fess up. You just made that up.

Pple can be lame, sure, I'll admit that. But they are not that lame.

No SSpeeder would ever say "I bet you think your special cause you have gears."

What, these SSers couldn't afford gears?

Gears are SOOO fancy and exotic that only really cool pple have gears? .

And then they tried to catch you and, I assume, drop you - ON THEIR SINGLE SPEEDS???

Sorry. SSers are not this silly. Come on, Fess up.

If I'm wrong and this actually happened please tell me where these Bizarro World single speeders ride. I've never felt all cool and special with my gears and I want to see how it feels.

 

[HellMuttCracker]

Sometimes people need to take a step back and get over themselves...

especially in a situation like that

 

[Panacea]

Simple answer? - they's ********!

I get the same thing here in Australia mate. The land of the great, 'G'day' for christsake! I wonder about people that get so passionate about their particular Biking style preferences that they can't converse in a normal manner. Perhaps there doped up or summink. So anyway, F**k them if that's their attitude, be glad you don't have to associate with them

 

[moab63]

Yes it happens a lot specially if you are

Interesting experience last Saturday. I headed out on a beautiful morning. One of those where you just think, man, I'm glad I'm out riding. About one mile in I catch up to three people, two guys riding SS and one girl on a geared bike. I'm in a great mood and say, "Hey guys, how's it going." First thing out of one of the guys mouth was, "I bet you think your special cause you have gears." Hmmmm. "No," I replied. I do like gears but my little bro rides single speed too. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them checking out my bike. It's an old Ibis Alibi. Well, "have a good one," I said, and started to speed up. About 10 yards in front of them I heard the girl say, "I know this is just killing you to ride slow, I give you permission to go kick his a$$." Hmmm. I was feeling pretty good so I thought, Bring it!!!! Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys but still. Where did that come from? I'm sure they thought I was just some poser wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Not decked out in my lycra and sleevless jersey like they were. It did feel good to smoke them but I'm still a little irritated about the whole situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. Has anyone else ever had something similar occur?

wearing a t-shirt like I do lots of times and some baggie(oakleys), with my little cannondale. Then I have to go and run them thru the pain cycle up some hill, and I do middle ring, zipping water from my bottle looking back at them, like whats up tough guy with the 5k bike and 300.00 shoes. I really dont care what you ride or wear, I try to be nice to everyone but if you try to show me up, you better be ready to suffer.

 

[Duckman]

Sounds like they wanted to make sure you knew they were on singlespeeds. Prob new to the SS game maybe, as I agree about a typcial seasoned SS rider(the other poster). Meaning, most are VERY strong and skilled riders, and could care less about others and their gear. Sounds like you did what needed doing..ie. drop'n them, since THEY made the issue out of things in the first place. Sometimes its the little things in life that are "fun".

One of the constants in riding/racing..."no matter how fast you(think?) are, theres always gonna be someone faster". I've relearned this many many times over the years.

 

[dpdsurf]

This touches on a conversation I was just having with my friend after our ride on Sunday. No matter what "type" of sport, there are always individuals that will knock a particular way somebody decides how to go about the activity if it is slightly different than their way. For example snowboarding vs skiing, surfing = long vs short boards, MTB = DH vs XC vs SS etc and so on. I think they just do it to boost their "egos" and make them feel better about their choice. This type of narrow minded behavier seams common with brand choices as well.

 

[dirtpaws]

That didn't happen. Come on. Fess up. You just made that up.
Pple can be lame, sure, I'll admit that. But they are not that lame....

Never under estimate how lame people can be!

The mechanic as my shop likes to create funky frankenstein bikes. They look ugly, but ride very smoothly with his mech's touch. One bike he created was this single speed hardtail based on the old sloping mixte style frames and he as a joke put a Litespeed sticker on it. At the trail head, we all rolled up at the same time as these two dudes on real Ti Litespeeds. They looked at him and said, "You're not going to try to ride with us, on that?" and proceeded to laugh at him.

He replied that, "You mean you're not going to try to keep with me on those?". My mech buddy ended up dusting those guys and beat them up the climb by about 5 minutes, and they were on geared bikes.

But what a bunch of asses for saying anything in the first place. I am not even going to get into how they looked like middle age wealthy types and my mech buddy was a shorter dark Mexican... That will just set me off!

I've got the Jones H-bars on my bike and once a rider descending screamed out as he passed me climbling, "Nice DORK bars!". WTF? I was just minding my own business and way out of his way on the fireroad.

So never under estimate the potential of how lame some people can be on the trail.
We've all seen how lame and roadrageous people can be at the wheels of their cars on the highway, imagine that some of them are mtn bikers driving to the trail head.

 

[SinglePivot]

some people are d!psh!ts. always have been, and always will be. There's one in every bucket.

Hi five for putting the screws to them.
-Sp

Interesting experience last Saturday. I headed out on a beautiful morning. One of those where you just think, man, I'm glad I'm out riding. About one mile in I catch up to three people, two guys riding SS and one girl on a geared bike. I'm in a great mood and say, "Hey guys, how's it going." First thing out of one of the guys mouth was, "I bet you think your special cause you have gears." Hmmmm. "No," I replied. I do like gears but my little bro rides single speed too. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them checking out my bike. It's an old Ibis Alibi. Well, "have a good one," I said, and started to speed up. About 10 yards in front of them I heard the girl say, "I know this is just killing you to ride slow, I give you permission to go kick his a$$." Hmmm. I was feeling pretty good so I thought, Bring it!!!! Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys but still. Where did that come from? I'm sure they thought I was just some poser wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Not decked out in my lycra and sleevless jersey like they were. It did feel good to smoke them but I'm still a little irritated about the whole situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. Has anyone else ever had something similar occur?

 

[OokieCookie]

To REALLY get a taste of how bad egos can get when youre dealing with middle aged guys on expensive bikes, try road riding. Yikes!

 

[bulC]

indeed

"Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys..."

Exhibit A.

 

[Tone12]

Ego on the person trying to keep up and an even bigger ego on the person who dusted them and then felt good enough to post a story about it here.

Ha ha, good point. It kinda comes off that way now that I think about it. I sooo don't have an ego when I ride. I'm out there just to have fun and enjoy the sport. I was just really pissed at what they said and needed to vent a little.

 

[keen]

That didn't happen. Come on. Fess up. You just made that up.

Pple can be lame, sure, I'll admit that. But they are not that lame.

No SSpeeder would ever say "I bet you think your special cause you have gears."

What, these SSers couldn't afford gears?

Gears are SOOO fancy and exotic that only really cool pple have gears? .

And then they tried to catch you and, I assume, drop you - ON THEIR SINGLE SPEEDS???

Sorry. SSers are not this silly. Come on, Fess up.

If I'm wrong and this actually happened please tell me where these Bizarro World single speeders ride. I've never felt all cool and special with my gears and I want to see how it feels.

Well I too read the post and said that sounds like a scene from a cheap B rated movie. If indeed it happened I'd be inclined to stop my bike and ask for an explanation to the comment. I was riding one of my local trails this weekend and passed a younger couple walking - the guy said to his girlfreind that he wished he could afford a $600 bike. I slowed down and said its a $1500 bike. In did note a little sarcasm in his statement but I held back what I really wanted to say "Get a Job" oh well.

 

[meloh1]

Wow, just like the game we all played as kids, this thread has taken on new meaning. Where in Tones post did it say anything about the guys being middle aged or on expensive bikes (they were single speeds, right? Sure, you can put a fair amount of money into an SS but is it likely they were expensive?)? I might agree with your statement but it has no bearing on this thread. There's plenty of ego displayed here, both by the "guys" and by Tone (even though he doesn't admit to it) but what does age or the cost of their bikes have to do with this incident, other than what you want to read into it?

 

[TNC]

It happens...my story.

Interesting experience last Saturday. I headed out on a beautiful morning. One of those where you just think, man, I'm glad I'm out riding. About one mile in I catch up to three people, two guys riding SS and one girl on a geared bike. I'm in a great mood and say, "Hey guys, how's it going." First thing out of one of the guys mouth was, "I bet you think your special cause you have gears." Hmmmm. "No," I replied. I do like gears but my little bro rides single speed too. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them checking out my bike. It's an old Ibis Alibi. Well, "have a good one," I said, and started to speed up. About 10 yards in front of them I heard the girl say, "I know this is just killing you to ride slow, I give you permission to go kick his a$$." Hmmm. I was feeling pretty good so I thought, Bring it!!!! Needless to say, they were dropped. I probably put at least 20 minutes on the two guys but still. Where did that come from? I'm sure they thought I was just some poser wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Not decked out in my lycra and sleevless jersey like they were. It did feel good to smoke them but I'm still a little irritated about the whole situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. Has anyone else ever had something similar occur?

This past May a fellow mechanic and I were out on Flat Pass trail in Moab. He was riding a Super T equipped Bullit, and I was on my '99 Bullit with a Z150 SL on it. A guy in his mid-30s on a newer generation Heckler caught up to us on the water crossing at the start of the trail while we were putting out shoes back on--the water was nearly 2' deep and running like crazy out of the LaSals. When he got on our side, he looked at our bikes and said, "Man those are some big, heavy bikes. I hope you guys can find some place to ride them on this trail." He pedaled away like he'd just thrown down the guantlet. Now Flat Pass trail is not flat. My riding buddy is 45 and I'm 52, though I had a full coverage helmet on and I know he couldn't tell my age. My buddy and I laughed about his comment, but my buddy is a downright animal on a bike, and he couldn't resist taking the challenge. Flat Pass has a fair amount of climbing during the first part. Sure enough, my buddy caught him and passed him. I slowly, very slowly, reeled him in myself. At the last couple of climbs, he tried to hang with us. We waited on him just before the last, fast downhill section, and then took off. At the end of all the fun, there is a big sandpit. We waited for him for a few minutes. As he came by me, he made the statement, "Yeah, I'm 36 and don't really like to take that many chances." I said, "Yeah, I'm 52, and I know what you mean." He did a double take trying to look at my face to see my gray hair. I told him my riding buddy was only 45, however. Back at the shop we still laugh about hoping to find some place where we can ride our big, heavy bikes and be able to keep up with these youngsters. I guess even we displayed some of that ego thing you mentioned in this situation, but we don't go around looking for a place to shoot our mouths off.

 

[Pigtire]

We get a lot of those here...

I get hissed or get comments like " Wow man, them skinny tires(sarcasm being laid down thick w/ a side of giggles))" when I ride my cyclocross bike on the trails or if I ride my singlespeed "Why? W/ the same tone as above. I do the same thing you did, just smile and a nice greeting and then beat the hell out of them on the climbs. Now who is giggling?

 

[dirtpaws]

...This gentleman gets so mad at anything even remotely close to flaring Ellsworth that he comes back with such stinging and angry retorts as this...

ooooh, the sensitive Ellsworth warranty issue eh? There is a whole thread on that issue over on the Ellsworth forum over that. Seems to be a touchy subject.