Tortoise and the hare

Fred's off to Inverness for a long weekend with his kayak. After work I donned my elf hat and helped him to carry various large kayak bags from home to the train and from Kings Cross to the sleeper train, where the kayak in its collapsed state joined a group of bicycles in the guard van. The train was packed! We had just enough time to grab a take-away, but we didn't have time to eat together in the train. So, we ate our take-aways while conversing via text message and pulling faces at each other through the Fred's berth window until the guard blew the whistle and the train trundled north.

There was a lot of leapfrog on the cycle commute this morning. Some cars in Dulwich thought they'd hang by my back wheel for a bit before zooming around me for pole position. However, I soon overtook them all while they were waiting at the traffic lights. That'll teach them for breathing down my back wheel. I wasn't rushing either - just doing my normal speed (i.e. leisurely) so really the cars just needed to chill since they weren't getting anywhere any faster by putting foot to the accelerator.

The second leapfrog had me in the faster vehicle, but I wasn't the fastest in the end. An older chap on an ancient bicycle was following a similar route to mine. I cycled behind him on his creaky bike for a while and even overtook him once. However, after a short distance I looked up and he was way ahead of me - this happened three times at different sections of my route! I'm assuming that he's cycled these roads on that bicycle for years, way before the cycle routes were planned and cycle paths were painted on the roads. He knows the quicker route into town and all the short cuts, honed by years of trial and error. If I see him again, I'm going to follow him, but at a respectable distance, of course.