Rush of blood to head, aggressive thoughts.
Whaat… how dare you?! I’m actually quite fast you know. I’m just choosing to go slow. Well maybe I’ll just show you how fast I am!
Faint echo of self-chastising thoughts
why are you being so pathetic? just go at your own pace!
quickly extinguished by a potent mix of adrenaline and something like testosterone
Then: speed up, but by all means do not show them your panting and sweating.
It must look effortless.
Finnish Whaler 
From the other side: I fang around in heels and dresses, so ‘athletic’ is not really what I’m going for. Being fast, one often has to politely overtake another cyclist though, and it is interesting how often that will spur him (sic) into counter-overtaking action. My only mental process at that point is ‘You sad little shit, I’m probably just going to have to overtake you again.’
Thankyou for visiting and dropping me a bone.
I’m sorry to admit that I am that person whom you deem a ‘sad little shit.’
That said, I once made a friend through overzealous overtaking.*
It was late at night on Canning Street.
I apologised as I overtook [?] him.
I said: ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I overtook you. I always do that, but I’m so slow, you’ll probably end up overtaking me again.’
I don’t often start conversations while on my bike. It’s a bit annoying. But it turned out that the person I was talking to was a positive person, the type that likes this kind of random interaction.
We had quite a long conversation, talked about our evil inner competitive selves, and about the Greens and the Wilderness Society (our respective interests at the time).
It turned out the person lived in my hood, so we were able to ride most of the way home together. He even was able to escort me through the potentially rapey park that I sometimes contend with at night.
As our routes were set to diverge, the person asked me for a drink, and I said I would like to, but was too tired.
I went home.
Then I met the person a week later at a friends’ house in Altona. I was trying on some ridiculous pointy high-heeled boots that my friend wanted to palm off onto me. The person concurred that they looked good. I recognised him from the ride (even though it had been dark) but didn’t say anything at the time.
As it turned out, we later became friends.
I wore the boots once or twice but always felt a bit self-conscious in them.
I reckon since cyclists can’t yell obscenities from inside their steel bubble, but they want to let a bit of emotion out, there’s a lot of little silent conversations going on in cyclists heads all the time! I often stage little imaginary conversations in my mind! Praps i’ve just gone a bit mad…
I’ve been a little concerned about my own inner competitive demons lately. I don’t want to turn into my dad (who has, at times, been known to abandon his own children in a bid to prove his hill-climbing supremacy).
Today I actually chose to ride along Drummond Street because I knew that with less cyclists I wouldn’t even be tempted to compare myself with others.