Alright, this insanity has to end.

[Guyincognito76]

There's a nice hilly ride I like to do near me, and I use the ride there as a nice steady warm-up. Today I'm cycling there and I'm still in the built-up area near where I live, on my recently serviced road bike and dressed in my finest figure-hugging cycling regalia. A nice steady 22km/hr, loosening those legs up in a jolly style, when I hear a chipper, "Morning" from beside me. There is a pensioner, dressed in tweed and pressed slacks overtaking me on what looks like a Raleigh Twenty with a brick battery. I think it is at this point where I realised I had misinterpreted his cheeriness for smugness, but ultimately decided that sprinting past the L̶y̶c̶r̶a̶-̶l̶o̶u̶t̶ tweed-lout was both churlish and self-defeating. I may have to wear my helmet over my face now to hide my shame, like some kind of cycling Kendo Nagasaki as your layman doesn't understand mechanical doping.

 

[JtB]

I had a similar experience once, except that the pensioner who overtook me didn't have a battery to power his bike. :-(

 

[Lonestar]

I'm going to do that one day.Soon.

 

[screenman]

I love chasing down and overtaking battery bikes, often ridden by persons younger than myself.

 

[Levo-Lon]

How often have we thought...i wish i had one of those...headwind and knackered...

but if it gets you out at 80..what better way to spend a morning

 

[wonderloaf]

Had a similar experience recently, chap on a nicely restored vintage road bike sailed past me while I was trying to get my RD to work properly (my excuse anyway). Difference was that the 'Good Morning' definitely had a hint of smugness to it.

 

[Phil Fouracre]

Horses for courses, I love mine :-)

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I love chasing down and overtaking battery bikes, often ridden by persons younger than myself.

Do they provide you with a full cycling and medical history so you can vary you smugometer accordingly.

Age is no indicator of wellness to ride a bike nor how long they may have been riding nor their perception of their own confidence and abilities.

More people on bikes whatever age and however assisted should be welcomed, not provide yet another avenue for ghettoising different cycling types and pointless snobbery.

 

[screenman]

I encourage everybody to ride bikes of all types, I am over 60 have cycled for over 54 years and still do so.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Hehe, similar happened to me: it was a couple of Americans, they stopped me to ask for directions, then she (who I had seen wobbling allover the place, clearly inexperienced) took off uphill like a flash.
My astonishment must have showed, because the hubby gently told me they were on rented electric bikes

 

[Guyincognito76]

I encourage everybody to ride bikes of all types, I am over 60 have cycled for over 54 years and still do so.

He was, at least, peddling and not using the device as a glorified Bumper-Car.

 

[PeteXXX]

 

[I am Spartacus]

Take it as a learning curve... 22 kph is very slow for a road bike.. 'recently serviced' means you are quite a new comer to cycling.. bikes dont actually need to be serviced, just fettled and maintained and components added as and when... you'll learn over the years.. oh.. get fitter to ride faster when out there in 'all the gear' but 'no idea' .

 

[Guyincognito76]

Take it as a learning curve... 22 kph is very slow for a road bike.. 'recently serviced' means you are quite a new comer to cycling.. bikes dont actually need to be serviced, just fettled and maintained and components added as and when... you'll learn over the years.. oh.. get fitter to ride faster when out there in 'all the gear' but 'no idea' .

Hahaha, I'm really not

I am a really terrible mechanic though. Sad truth is that I had to take it in after my botched attempt at fixing my brakes.

I really was warming up too, I was half a K out of the house.

Well, the quoted reply has been a bigger kick in the balls than being passed by an old-timer.

 

[iancity]

Novices, the lot of you
I'm slow, I know I am, so here I was looking splendid in my lycra on my nice CX bike when I was overtaken on a very slight incline.... by a schoolboy. On a BMX. Riding with no hands. While texting......

These things live with you