Speed Check

Had to bike home in the dark tonight. Wasn't too scary. Except.

I was stopped at a red light, facing a steep hill. I hate that; why do all the lights have to be at the troughs and not the peaks? Anyway, I could see ahead that there was a car double-parked in the bike lane. (That's totally illegal, and very uncool for bikers, who have to go into traffic to go around the obstruction. The bike lane's existence proves that the traffic on that road cannot handle bikers going in and out of it.)

There was a car on my left, so my choice was to wait for him to go by so I can go around the double-parker or to go ahead of him, take up the lane, and go around. The light turned green. The car on my left apparently saw my situation. It didn't move. I biked like a madman. I churned my legs. I hit the hill (the steepest of the night) at 20 mph and ACCELERATED up. I passed the double-parker. I quickly shifted to the bike lane, and I stopped biking so hard.

I thought, I've never gone that fast up that hill before; cool. Then I thought, what's the car behind me doing? The car that had waited for me to go around the double-parker. It was still behind me. I was in my lane, and it wasn't zooming by. I felt weird. What was the driver doing, waiting for a good opportunity to enact vehicular homicide? What was he doing? Other cars at that point had started to honk at the stalker car, who was going slowly to stay behind me. Then the other cars went around him.

I started preparing to put on a burst of speed if need be, but then I realized all the cars had passed me. The stalker car was gone.

So I thought about it, and my only explanation is a bit egotistical: he was trying to measure my speed. I mean, I had booked it up that hill. I surprised myself. Maybe the stalker car had wondered how fast I was going, and that's why he had matched my speed. I hope that was the reason.