Loren, You had to brake to keep from running into the van in front of you due to the 'draft' that you were in. Same on a bicycle when riding in a line or a bunch as racers tend to do. You have to lightly touch the brakes to keep from running into the bike in front of you. The front bike can be pedaling like mad and you can just sit there and touch brakes. The lead bike is dealing with wind resistance head on and you have the draft or area of lessened wind resistance. Move two feet to the side without pedaling and you will seem to shoot backwards. The same would happen with cars if there was a safe lane to the side where you could quickly pull out of the draft. Truckers don't like it and it is a bit dangerous, but you can pull pretty close up to a truck and suddenly your rpms to match the same speed lower because you are in the trucks draft. Since they take so long to stop you really aren't that likely to run into them. Also their draft is bigger and longer than that of a van or car. Sam -- Sam Walters Baltimore, MD 89 Syncro GL, Zetec Inside 85 Westy Weekender 85 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel - to become veggie oil powered All incoming and outgoing email scanned by automatically updated copy of Norton AntiVirus. |
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