Who sets the pace?

Frustrated at another football cancellation (the opposition couldn't raise a strong enough team to take on the might of Hay Hill), I set off for a bike ride yesterday morning. Nothing too adventurous - just round the block really. But I needed to do something.

Now I reckon that cycling highlights the contours of a territory, more than any other mode of transport. Any slight change of gradient becomes evident almost immediately, as pedalling becomes either easier or harder. Englishcombe Lane is a bit of a microcosm of Bath, in that you can't go very far without going either up- or downhill. Cycling towards Rush Hill involves quite a steep climb, from the end of Southdown Road, up past the Tesco store, to the junction at the top.

By the time I reached the main road, I was breathing quite heavily. Partly due to being out of shape - but also (I realised) because I had been cycling quite fast. And so I wondered (as I prepared myself to tackle Rush Hill) why this was.

Partly it was because I wanted to do something energetic, rather than going for a gentle outing. But a couple of other things struck me too.

On the one hand, cycling on a public road, with traffic passing in either direction, is very different from cycling along the canal towpath or on the cycleway to Bitton. Subconsciously, there is a strong pull to keep up, to match the pace set by the traffic. You're not supposed to hang about, to potter along. You find the same thing of course when you're driving a car - keep to the speed limit and before long, someone's on your tail, trying to push you to go a bit faster. In recent years, I've become more assertive in driving at the speed I want to drive at. And I've tried to be a bit less pushy behind the slow-coaches.

Be that as it may, I think there is something profoundly important (especially in our culture which worships busy-ness in many ways) in finding our own pace and resisting the lure of 'the traffic' which seeks to pull us along.

The second reflection was: who am I trying to impress? Is there another subconscious message which says 'I'm not going to be one of those cyclists who holds up the traffic, gets in the way - I belong here, look at me go!' Maybe, maybe not. But it's another, perhaps even more profound, question to consider. Most of us are driven (to a greater or lesser extent) by the need to impress others. The question is, do we realise when this is happening?