It's high concept. Like Revenge of the Nerds meets Easyriders

Please excuse my absence for the last couple of days. I've been on the run from a gang- a gang of recumbent riders.

I was down near the beach the other day when I crossed paths with the pocket protector demographic's version of the Hell's Angels. Since I like to think of a gang of nerds in the same light as a gang of 3 year-olds in that if I were ever jumped by either I'm fairly confident I could fight my way out Burt Reynolds style.

Well, long story short, when I saw these guys cruising down the road, I brazenly took out my camera and started snapping away.

And why wouldn't I?

The second degree yellow belt I earned in the summer of '87 gave me more than enough skill to beat these guys into submission should things get dicey. Besides, with a wheel base longer than a Winnebago we're talking a 4 point turnaround easy.

The only problem was they'd hired a two wheeled escort to serve as rolling protection.

Oh snap! Well played recumbent gang, well played.

This last photo was snapped a split second before this gang of two and three wheeled marauders flipped a u'ey to come on back to find out just why they were interesting enough to be photographed.

I didn't have much time to weigh my options so I quickly decided it would be best it punch it and get away because I had a full agenda for the day that didn't included going to jail for disemboweling a bunch o' nerds.

The only problem was I was at the beach and as anyone who's read even a paragraph about recumbent bikes knows, "on level ground a recumbent is far superior to the common bicycle." What was I going to do? There were no hills to be found anywhere on which to drop these recumbent riders. I was gonna be toasted real quick.

So, I did the next best thing. I deftly weaved my way through traffic and let the recumbent gang deal with the horror and sheer of being eyeball to eyeball with Hummer bumpers and discover just how hard it is to split a lane while riding a sport trike.

Still, I had the their escort to deal with so I stayed on course running for the hills Iron Maiden style because I knew, if I could keep him at bay for 15 miles I'd be in the clear because as we all know a "century rider" can't pedal for more than the 15 miles between sag stops.

I'm happy to report that at exactly 15.2 miles our Trek riding protector of nerds decided to punch out and go home.