The conjunction of a faster-than-normal bike and the proliferation of slower-than-normal crap baby birds may be a bit of a problem. I was hurrying home in the rain the other day, in an attempt to get there before I was utterly and entirely soaked through* while a baby blackbird crouched in the road ahead of me trying to decide whether to fly left or right to get away from the scary shiny thing approaching it at speed. At the last possible moment, it chose wrongly. It was only due to the efficiency of my shiny new brakes that there wasn’t julienned baby blackbird all over the road. I do wish they wouldn’t do that. I’d hate to get feathers on my shiny new wheels
Don’t worry, slow cycling will recommence when the novelty wears off (and when these guys stop setting such a bad example – I’m easily led). Until then I’ll continue to set land-speed records for the fetching of a newspaper from Papershop Village (senior class), and the baby birds will just have to learn how to get out of the way. Fifty minutes to beat, and counting.
*I failed
July 9, 2009 at 3:34 am |
Birds do seem to get out of the way eventually. I’ve never actually run over one, though I did once skin an indecisive pigeon that wasn’t sure if if needed to get out of my way until the last minute; however, he seemed okay as he flew off, minus quite a number of feathers.
As for your speed, be careful or you could be seduced by the fast side.
July 9, 2009 at 5:57 am |
[...] California. Most of the time, anyway. Although I do wish my avian concerns had more to do with protecting baby bird brains than wondering why California’s Official State Bird — aka the police helicopter — is [...]
July 9, 2009 at 7:38 am |
Thanks for the link…
I have found that if I’m cycling somewhere to go and do something or for a meeting, I can still maintain a civilised pace. But the trip down for the paper is rapidly descending into a race contre-la-montre.
July 9, 2009 at 2:53 pm |
As one that hadn’t set bum on a saddle for 20 years before January, I’ve done 880 miles (1420km for those of a continental persuasion) in the last 6 months… now doing more in a week (and at a higher average speed) than I did in the whole month of January.
No avian casualties here – although I did have a roe buck leap out of the hedge as I approached at about 20mph. Quite the cure for constipation when you’re not expecting it!
July 9, 2009 at 5:23 pm |
deer – yikes. Even scarier than pheasants.
July 9, 2009 at 5:55 pm |
Talking of deer, I and my daughter, who was then aged about 12, whilst riding our tandem got “T-Boned” by a deer. The thing leapt out of the hedge, slammed us amidships, stopped dead, turned and shot back into the hedge. Luckily we were going uphill at the time at about 10mph and weren’t brought down. However I had one very scared daughter with a badly bruised leg, stoker handlebars twisted round 45 degrees and a lot of deer fur hanging off various bits of us and bike. To this day my daughter has dreams of being eyeball to eyeball to Bambi.
I often have cold sweats thinking about what might have been had we been heading downhill at 45…
July 9, 2009 at 9:00 pm |
Blimey. Can’t even begin to top that one. I bet the deer’s got a few stories to tell as well…
July 10, 2009 at 11:38 am |
Time to get down to your local Aldi next Thursday …
for a wireless cycle computer (http://aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2827_10463.htm).
July 10, 2009 at 5:25 pm |
Sally: Let’s trump all our experiences with this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bike/76039319/
Eek!
At that was just the squirrel’s opinion…
July 10, 2009 at 7:30 pm |
WW – eek indeed.
Paul – either your link’s wrong or it’s too late & they’re sold out already…