Yes, it’s much better than had I eaten a bug, then “passed” a tractor. Get it? Anyway, peer pressure is an odd phenomenon. We exert it or succumb to it as children, we implore our own kids not to fall victim to it, yet even as adults we sometimes still give in to it.
Bicycles don’t usually pass moving vehicles on the highways, but many of us have dreamed of that moment when pure man and muscle-driven machine out runs an automotive tortoise. Actually, it’s pretty much just a dream.
THE TRACTOR
This week while cycling along my favorite swamp stomping sugarcane road I came up behind a tractor. Now with pre-winter’s gusts beginning to taunt cyclists with what will soon to be constant headwinds, I took solace tucked safely behind this rolling behemoth.
I checked my rearview mirror snuggly attached to the bottom of my carbon fiber handle bars to see a line of cars piled up behind the tractor; and me! A quick look over the shoulder, and the lead car flashed the bright lights signaling to me that it was okay to pass.
Seriously? Ok to pass a moving vehicle. Could it be time to make this dream a reality? I knew better as I was maintaining about a 22 mph pace thanks to the wind cutting draft behind the tractor. But seriously, the car flashed the headlights in a moment of intimate communication between fellow travelers. What else could I do?
I nodded, then jetted out from behind the tractor as pure, unadulterated peer pressure launched my cycling assault into the opposite lane of traffic along this thin ribbon of a roadway.
Peer pressure didn’t help draft from the howling headwinds, but here I was; trapped alongside the lumbering obstacle and a line of “brother and sister” motorists who encouraged and entrusted me to lead the passing parade around this sugarcane harvester.
Igniting an explosion at over 28 mph my legs churned while my lungs seared and I soon overtook the green giant. Immediately, I was overtaken by six impatient motorists and not one waved with a notion of gratitude for my effort.
Yes, peer pressure made me do it. Unfortunately, peer pressure was not stopping the moving machinery that began closing the gap between his front end loader and my rear deep-dish carbon wheel.
It was solely the power of embarrassment, ego and fear that fueled the next several miles at an elevated speed to save either getting passed or ploughed by the unimpressed tractor driver. He had work to do, and a living to make. I had an early sunset to beat back home.
THE BUG
Oddly enough, the return trip was uneventful with an absence of obstacles to overcome; moving or otherwise. Then in a quiet, self-affirming celebration of average pace per mile and hour, I sat up from my tightly tape-wrapped handlebars and stretched my back.
The moment my mouth opened to say, “Yea!” I was struck by what I later learned to be a dragonfly. How did I learn its species identity? After embedding itself into my mouth, and involuntarily biting it almost in half, I looked at it before tossing it to the road.
Yep, dragon flies bite
What did I learn that bike trip:
1 – Don’t fall for peer pressure
2 – Don’t be so quick to celebrate yourself
3 – Don’t bite dragonflies in half
4 – Yes, dreams can come true – I passed a tractor!
What has peer pressure “made” you do lately?
Peer Pressure: I passed a tractor & ate a bug
Categories: Personal Perspective
Luckily, I have the good kind of peer pressure. As classmates, we’ve decided well only get out of nursing school with our sanity and knowledge if we push each other, so we do. We push to help. Thankfully, my parents engrained in us at an early age that your friends might help you get in trouble, but they will rarely take the punishment with you. As a result, negative peer pressure never really affected us (except once it twice, but who’s counting?).
Great idea Amber. Stay positive, even if you have to persevere to do so. Thanks & looking forward to your presentation
We’re definitely determined to do so. I find learning to laugh at ourselves helps. And coffee. Coffee helps a lot!
That’s an interesting perspective, peer pressure… I pass tractors for fun and based strictly on ego – I love the look on the driver’s face when I blast by. That, I think, makes more sense even in your case. Peer pressure doesn’t stand a chance against drafting a tractor at 22 – the ego, on the other hand, can trump sense in a second. Or maybe caving to flashing lights, peer pressure and the ego are all intertwined.
If you wanted the draft, why not wave the car by? He obviously would have understood? If I’ve got cars lined up behind me, I’d always let those impatient cusses go first anyway.
Cool post either way – that is one heck of a fat lip, Chief.