Recognition

Out of curiosity, how many of you have gone to a party, been certain that you know the majority of people there, people you'd spent hours with, talking to them, listening to them, working together for a common goal, only to find that when you walk in the door you don't recognize a single person there?

This happened to me last night. Sadly it's not the first time. For years I have been having this same problem. I've gone places expecting to see people I know, yet for the life of me I cannot identify them there. It's highly disconcerting...it's also because I'm a cyclist, and these are fellow cyclists; we all have the same problem.

You see, even though we spend hours on end riding with each other, carrying on personal and casual conversations the whole time; ok, I'm not really talkative when I go to the front of the pack and pull at 45 km/h (28 mph), but unless you count the occasional curse between deep breaths, neither is the rest of the pack. But one of the universal truths about cyclists is that we really only recognize each other when we are on the bike (after seeing the person in street clothes a few times this changes, but that can be a rare event to begin with).

See first of all, when we are riding we usually ride two-up (two lines of cyclists, so each person has a partner to chat with). But since we are drafting the person in front of us, we rarely take more than a subtle glance at the person beside us from time to time, after all, you need to watch what is going on in front, otherwise things get really dangerous. Then should you happen to take a glance at the person, or chat with them face to face at a stop light, they are 90% of the time wearing a helmet and sunglasses, big sunglasses with dark or really colourful tints, at times we almost look more like insects than people. So you really never do get a good view of their face.

Now the helmet poses an interesting challenge as well. If the person has short enough hair, you're never quite sure what colour it is, or even how much of it there is (if any). I've been shocked a few times to find that guys I thought had dark hair were blond and vice versa. And of course the clothing doesn't help. Sure you have a great view of the ass on the guy in front of you, in some cases you may see WAY too much of it (caution, this photo is kind of revealing and kind of gross, now I'm sure you're going to look, and no there isn't much of a scar), but that really says nothing about how they look in street clothes. After all, for most people, their regular clothes are nowhere nearly as tight as what they wear on the bike, unless they model latex garments professionally...but let's not go there shall we. But it's really funny that if we were all dressed in our identical team kits I would be able to identify people more easily than if they are in regular clothes...how messed up is that!

Another funny aspect is how tall people are. Sure you can get a sense of their height based on how big their bike is, or the fact that you can't see around them, or that you can over them when they are directly in front of you (I'm more likely to be able to do the latter). But even then only when you stand next to someone in regular shoes do you really realize just how much shorter they might be; trust me, I'm well aware of those that are taller than me, I love their drafts, I still miss the guy from Calgary who was 6'6", it was like riding behind a mini-van, only without the windows or exhaust.

The final and often most crucial element which is missing when you meet a fellow cyclist not on the bike, is the bike. It's sad how much we identify each other by our bikes, even in races I have often found myself paying attention to the details of the bike in front of me more than I have focused on the people around me. I recall one instance where I was absolutely confused during one of my first rides with ERTC. I had noticed a guy in the pack riding a green Cannondale, a while later on a different road he was gone, but another guy (who looked an awful lot the same) was riding a brown Cannondale, even weirder still was that further into the ride this guy had vanished, only to be replaced by another identical guy, but on a purple Cannondale. It actually took me a couple of rides to figure out what was happening. It turns out that this was a multi-layer paint job on the bike, and depending on the angle of viewing and of light, it would change colours: from brown, to green, to purple...It was the same guy, but because the bike was different I was completely confused. Kind of like a 6 year-old when he sees Dad without his moustache for the first time...yes I am aware that I compared my intellect to that of a 6 year-old, at least I'm an honest 6 year-old.