[RascalPuff]

Dear MJA:

Sincere thanks for your compliments.

Moving right along, as it were...

I will avoid being sardonic with you at hazard of chancing that you are being sardonic with me.... I presume you're being serious and sincere...

When riding on an open road it is standard to be passed by another faster cyclist, as well as passing many others myself. Absolutely every time a bike goes by, there is a natural pull that occurs. It is both mental and physical, and I believe both equally natural. So powerful is that attraction, or gravitation, that I now believe the physics of bicycling equals the physics of gravitation; that two cyclist are equal to two particles of the science of physics. I will try to explain.

I was riding the other day when a cyclist went by. I had just gotten started on a short 40 miler when he passed me. I decided to resist the gravitation and not catch him. I wanted to ride simply my own pace. Again, and as usual, I found I could not. I was being pulled or drawn by the momentum or inertia of the other cyclist, by a mysterious invisible force. He had gotten a little way ahead when a truck passed me. It was traveling faster than I, (estimated 30 mph, versus my 25) but again it wanted to pull me alone. There it was again, that force. I got directly behind it and drafted. Drafting is a well known tool of racing, riding in a vacuum of air. But is it truly a vacuum of air, or the force of gravitation? Rather than increasing my peddle speed, I had to brake. It was pulling me along. And what of the now distant other cyclist, surely it was to far away to create a vacuum, yet there was still a real force to recon with. Eventually the truck turned off and a short while later I found myself directly behind the other particle, cyclist. I experimented with this force for a while by separating myself and the other bike with distance, again and again. Each time I experienced this same force.

With no intention of digression or flippancy, MJA, do you mind my asking your age - how old are you?

I ask, because in my experience of riding bicycles, motorcycles, driving cars, trucks and walking (for tens of thousands of miles) I have experienced what you describe, but without thought or contemplation of any (discernible) gravitational interactions between myself and other vehicles or people. Drafting and otherwise being influenced by partial vacuums of air is all that ever measurably occurred to and with me. I ask your age because it may be that your naivete has something to do with your questionably grounded conclusions.

Post Script:
It's my considered opinion from reading your posts that you are waywardly obsessed with the import of finding - and making - everything equal; that you perceive things the way you wish to see them, rather than the way that they are...

Thank you for your post.

I am, respectfully,
- RP