About five miles down river from the coal-loading operation, the levee road runs parallel to the train tracks, just several feet apart from each other. While I was riding along, a freshly loaded coal train came up behind me. The engine blew it's horn to let me know it was coming, as if I couldn't hear it, or would for some reason decide to start riding on the train tracks. In any case, the train sped up from behind and started passing me on my right. At first, I thought of it as an annoyance, but then realized the train was creating an amazing wind draft.

In the greatest American bicycle movie of all time (also the only one that I am aware of), Breaking Away, there is a scene in which I'm sure all bike riders fantasize about. The movie, in case you haven't seen it, is about a teenager, Dave, who lives in the university town of Bloomington, Indiana. He is trapped in the unenviable and dead-end life of being a college town local, or Cutter. His friends have no hopes and aspirations and his father, a used-car salesman, has no greater dream for his son, than to just not be a bum. Dave however, is a bike rider, and through his interest in the sport has become fanatically fascinated with the Italian lifestyle. This of course, rubs his father the wrong way, and creates all kinds of family tensions and interpersonal sub-plots as the movie progresses.

In my favorite scene of the movie, the young bike rider is out on a training ride in the cornfields just outside of Bloomington. He's riding along, when a truck with the logo Cinelli, the sponsor of the upcoming bicycle race, pulls ahead of the rider. Not letting the truck get away, he speeds up and rides right behind it, using the trailer's huge mass to his advantage. When a large object moves at a fast rate of speed, it causes the air molecules in front of it, to be pushed out of the way, in the same manner that a large boat creates waves, or a wake. If you follow that vehicle closely from behind, you can actually get pulled ahead by the larger vehicle, which also reduces the wind resistance that you will face, in essence allowing you to go much faster, with much less effort. This principle is why race cars and bicycles race so close together. In biking it takes less energy to ride as fast when you are in the middle of the pack than if you are leading, and in car racing, you use less fuel.

Getting back to the movie, the scene progresses when Dave stays behind the truck and uses the draft to go faster and faster. The truck driver, seeing the rider behind him holds out his hand to indicate how fast they are going. At the end of the scene, supposedly the truck and the rider are travelling at 60mph when the police pull the truck over for speeding.