Riding through the western suburbs of Boston is fraught with wildlife encounters you might not imagine. Last year, on an early morning ride, two squirrels launched themselves from the woods alongside the road in front of me. The first was 20 feet ahead of me and caused me to wonder "how likely is it that I'd ever actually hit a squirrel? My wheels aren't really very big -- a squirrel could go in front or behind the wheel, and if I did hit it, I wonder if it would knock me off my bike."
Not 50 feet later, squirrel #2 beat all the odds and actually put its poor little head INTO the spokes of my front wheel. Neither the squirrel nor the wheel survived the encounter, though I didn't crash.
My buddies teased me mercilessly every time I flinched when a squirrel or chipmunk so much as peeked from behind a log.
This spring, we were riding along Rice Road in Wayland, approaching a picturesque spot near a pond with picturesque Belted Galloway cows -- think of a cross between an Oreo cookie and a cow. "Look, there's a cute calf frolicking with it's mamma!" Frolicking right up until it saw our Spandex-clad Posse coming along at 17 MPH. Startled, it jumped like a bucking bronco, which startled the gaggle of turkeys -- about six of them. They jumped off the historic stone wall into the air in something approximating flight and headed across the road -- right toward our heads!
All five of us ducked in our saddles and were grateful to be upright. As we made the next turn, I got to see a huge dump of turkey poop on Rob's shoulder just as he said "Ahhhhh, that turkey shat on me!"
So, when riding your bike, look out for chipmunks, squirrels, cows and turkeys. They can have quite an impact!
If you chuckled, or not, please support the life-saving research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute by contributing to my Pan-Mass Challenge PaceLine ride.
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