Do you feel a draft?

I've been looking for an excuse to use the image of Voyager using her Quantum Slipstream Drive for a while now. It's finally here.

I don't draft a lot during bike rides, for several reasons. Sometimes I simply can't catch up to the person in front of me. Sometimes I'm too busy chatting with people and I'd rather ride alongside them. And then there's the whole issue of worrying about riding so closely behind someone that I might crash into them if my reaction time isn't good enough. When I do draft, it's usually at an easy-to-moderate pace.

We did our Tuesday morning bike ride this morning and finished up doing our regular out-and-back course along the Los Angeles River Trail. Jon said that he was "gonna go hard" for the final 3 miles of the trail, and told me draft him to practice riding his wheel. It was not something I was looking forward to, but I trusted him and gave it a shot.

Wow. I knew all about the theory of drafting and how it works, but I never really experienced it at this level. We were FLYING down the trail. (well, I felt like I was flying; Jon was holding back a bit so as not to lose me.) I wish I had timed myself. I stayed on his wheel for the entire 3 miles and I'm sure it's the fastest I've ever done the trail, by far. Not seconds faster, minutes faster. In a way I felt like I was cheating since I was doing less work, but I suppose it's just a different type of workout.

It was just a really cool feeling to have that sense of sustained speed for the full 3 miles. I need to find some draft-legal races, and some more fast friends.