"I'm a loose cannon and not to be trusted"

The Doc's an online racing idiot. You've been warned

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It is probably time to admit that, in online racing at least, I'm a dick. I act in bad faith, I make trouble.

I can always be confident that when the chat in a race stops being cheery and starts to fill with innuendo and implied threats of virtual vengeance, they're talking about me.

I'm not cheating. My profile does not claim I weigh 25kg and stand one metre tall. I'm just annoying. With all respect to people who ride online races with pure motives of achieving victory, I can't quite achieve that level of buy-in.

I take an online race mainly as a workout, and the main purpose of a workout is to work.

To that end, I throw in wild attacks at stupid moments. I go to the front and really drive the pace on the small hill that comes before the big hill, with the result that I get dropped on the big hill, usually along with a pile of other people who have now learned the hard way that I am a loose canon and not to be trusted.

Perhaps my most annoying stunt is to put in an attack, get a gap, then just drop back to the bunch so I can attempt to do the same thing again five kilometres later. The problem is that anyone who chases me to get in what looks like a race-winning breakaway ends up stranded off the front on their own. I'm "that guy" from the club run, except that thanks to the internet I now have global reach.

I have the ability to piss you off from eight time zones away.

I feel I should point out the difference between racing badly and racing like an idiot, because from the outside they are hard to tell apart.

Racing badly is doing your level best, but just being rubbish. Racing like an idiot is racing with an agenda that doesn't match everyone else's.