Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Something I love about bicycles - Part VII

Headhunters.

A headhunter is a special kind of commuter, the kind that is very, very competitive, seeking to pass the maximum number of riders during his or her daily commute. It doesn't matter whether the headhunter lives a mile from the office or twenty. Each day they set out to destroy the competition, the college kids on their rusty, old ten-speeds, the mountain bikers riding two inch knobbies on the pavement, the department store bikes and the carbon fiber dreams. The headhunter merely wishes to pass. To pass is to win.

I have been a headhunter. I have vanquished old women with baskets full of flowers. I have derived smug pleasure from passing a lycra-clad roadie and from burning past kids on freestyle BMX bikes. I don't know why. I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish or what I was proving about myself. I've certainly let all that go now.

But I love the headhunter still, even if I put up a little resistance as he tries to pass.

1 comment:

Brian Kall said...

I'm the opposite of a headhunter. I want to draft as many people as possible and not do a lick of work. Like today, where I drafted a cancer survivor who passed me. He was suffering like a chump in the headwind and I had to yell at him not to run into the bus ahead since his head was down cranking away. But I rode that draft for all it was worth.