Providence

For all my braggadocios about cycling the truth is I'm a very a competitive person, mostly with myself. This competition has reached into all aspects of my life driving me, sometimes, to the point of obsession, just ask 'the wife'. At my cycling peak there was only a handful of guys I would ride with and we were just animals, or so I thought.
In the early 80's I was cooking at a restaurant in the Oakland  Rockridge area and my GM, who's name was Peter, told me he used to cycle and asked if he could join me sometime soon. My answer was a half-harted  'ya sure' and my 30 something GM was off to the dining room to take care of the customers. He held me to my promise the following Saturday.
Arriving at our meeting place Saturday morning  Peter was there and three of my usual cycling buddies I had asked to join us. I figured we would drop Peter in short time and since I was out on the road I didn't want the day to be a total loss. The route we planned was a 40 miles round trip with Berkeley as our starting point.
As our pace line was leaving the parking lot Peter picked up my wheel and we headed out at a warm up pace of 18-20 mph. We talked , joked around and got into the groove under-way.Peter looked confident and loose on his very nice bike, should have been a clue.
After each of us pulled 20 or 30 strokes a couple of times we got serious and stepped up to 26-27 mph to strut our stuff. Peter, my 30 something boss, was right there no problems.As I dropped back Peter told me he was going pick up the speed a little and the next thing I knew we were cruising at 32-33 mph. Peter never relinquished the front of the pace line the rest of the ride. I kept asking myself: who is this guy as I sat on his wheel the rest of the way home.

The lesson learned? Someone is always better then I am at something and maybe, just maybe, I need a good butt whippin now and then to improve my attitude!

That night at work Peter told me of his semi-pro status in his youth. He had a good laugh on me but became  a friend . I, on the other hand, nursed my bruised ego and set a new goal of technical excellence in the things I do. I also learned to be open to butt wippin's in the future when needed. Providence.
Remember, if I pass you, stop at Peets because your buying.