Drafting

I've been riding my bicycle to work more often recently, between once and twice a week. My main motivation is to do a little bit to help bring down gas prices, and though it may not seem like much, it represents a reduction of ten to twenty percent of the driving I do. If everybody did that, gas prices would fall significantly.

Unfortunately, I have two problems. First, I'm not all that fit right now (for me, anyway), so the twenty or so miles round trip with over 1,000 feet of elevation is a bit of a stretch for me. Second, there's no shower at work, so I need to avoid working up much of a sweat on the way in.

Thus, my strategy is to ride very slowly, exerting almost no effort, until someone passes me. Then I accelerate and get right on the passer's tail so that I can draft behind them, enabling me to go much faster, still without sweating. It works quite well, since I'm very good at drafting and have a lot of experience so it's not particularly unsafe.

The only problem is, my drafting seems to drive a few people who pass me crazy. I don't get it. It doesn't cost them anything, and if the don't want me to draft, they can always slow down to below my minimum speed, in which case I'll pass them and they can draft behind me (or not).

I have to believe that most bicyclists are also environmentalists. I wish I could convey to them that by being able to draft behind them, it makes it more likely that I take my bicycle more often, so that they are helping the environment. Not that it matters much - it's almost impossible to shake me off once I get behind them.