His nostrils flare. A small cloud of warm vapour ascends through the crisp morning air. Fierce eyes glare ahead into the unseen multiverse. Perhaps piercing through to an alternate reality where I had not just spectated his awkward micro-second self-rescue from a track stand gone wrong. The sidewalk curb rising quickly to meet him as his DuraAce SPD-R pedals savoured their coupling with his $500 Giro shoes.
I watch the Mamil. The Mamil watches his prey. His Eastwoodian visage constrained such that his right eye appears half the size of his left. I half expect him to tilt his head to the side and spit. Ennio Morricone plays in my head. Buddy has already dumped a fist full of dollars but that obviously didn’t include a basic bike fit. For a few dollars more?
His targets, three gregarious Groadies, are some six blocks straight up the hill now. Their boisterous bleating about a day of whisky-fueled gravel grinding plans now long inaudible as are the tunes from the speaker nested in one frame bag or another. Nina Simone. Classy ride tunes gentleman.
The opposing traffic-light transitions. Yellow. Red. I hear the loud snap of a Shimano road cleat being devoured by a pedal and the Mamil lurches forward, clearing half the intersection before his light can change. Green. He bombs a sickening multi-cog shift and the drop-bar Road-E pedelec fully arrests itself. Dead stopped.
I count under my breath. One, two, three, and then in some minor-miracle of motor, meat, and modern drivetrain, $10,000 of Turbo is reanimated with magnificent momentum. Before I can fully ponder how his derailleur didn’t get vaporized, the machine has covered a hundred meters. A blue pair of Peter Sagan’s sunglasses glare back at me, perched on the Mamil’s helmet, but to this hyper-focused predator, I no longer exist. In the time it takes the Groadies to cover another block the Road-E has easily closed half the distance between them.
The hungry Mamil drives to catch the trio. He rises out of his saddle and pumps the bars, he sits and spins, it makes no difference. His unwitting quarry might as well be pedaling stationary trainers he moves to overtake them so quickly. I wonder what motor-tricking mod he is using to boost the max speed‽ I watch a minute longer but just before he can reel in his catch they all disappear as the road turns. The gruesome display, when hunter meets hunted, left only to my imagination.
A few minutes later a twosome rolls up to the light. She on a flat-barred Marinoni and he on some boring post-USA Cannondale carbon copy. The light turns in their favour and away they roll, unwittingly frolicking in the Mamil’s hunting grounds. As if on cue, Peter Sagan’s sunglasses come rolling down the hill at a casual pace. The Mamil’s hunger satiated for a moment.
His head turns, he sees the duo heading up the road, his shoulders grow wider, he times the light North-South, circles about, and lines up in front of me to pursue his next challenge. He unclips, with violence this time, and puts a foot on the ground. Energized. No near-falls this round. The Mamil removes his shades and tucks them into the back of his helmet. He rubs his hands together. The Cannondale and Marioni have nowhere near the headstart and are moving at half the pace of the Groadies. The Mamil smells blood and chain lube. A green light encourages him off the line and he’s flying again. A perfect shift catapults him forward. I want to scream “PEDAL YOU FOOLS” but I know it’s no use.
The Mamil caps his e-fueled ego-boost interval annihilation by turning his head for some short speech long out of my range of hearing and then proceeds to storm the hill leaving the couple spinning away far behind him. I pack up my snack, get back on the cargo bike, and start up the hill. Hopefully having timed everything perfectly to not have to pedal through an unsolicited bout of, the all too common, “have you considered putting a motor on that thing?”