When the herpetologist pulled out the old lead sled, I gave it the CSI once over.
Trek Antelope 820, 1988 probably. The black one. The only shock it contains is the one associated with seeing the herpetologist still riding it. Some of you may remember, the herpetologist rides the lead sled once a year- at the camping trip. To my constant frustration and dismay, his bike continues to work, and it's rider as well, despite years of benign neglect. In his K-Mart tennis shoes, with his bowie knife on his belt and a brass, gopher tortoise belt buckle, the herpetologist straps his Michael Douglas hair into a children's helmet and proceeds to kick ass up the mountain. Now, I'm not saying he rode away from anyone, but nobody rode away from him either. On the downhills, he leads the charge. He wears no gloves. He prefers wool and cotton outergarments, although I suspect one of the gamiest chamois in the forest lurks inside his cargo shorts. A bookrack with a large bag of ancient tools strapped to it, rattles like a chain link fence. He likes to sit on the bookrack when he needs to "get low". The herpetologist prefers bar-ends, of course they are two different kinds, cocked at two different angles. The herpetologist did not produce a single reptile on the trip, which was disappointing.
There was great interest in the diversity of trees, which lacks the thrill of a good snake. One Black-bellied Salamander was discovered in the creek, but as you undoubtedly know, salamanders are amphibians, not reptiles, and therefore more like a fish than a bird. Reptiles are the ones more like birds, or something like that.
On to better things...
We saw indisputable evidence of Sasquatches, (Or is it Sasquatchae?) in the region. Pulling up in a grassy meadow on top of the mountain, I put my foot down and discovered I had almost stepped in the biggest, darkest, roundest turd I had ever seen. Seriously, it was like a long tube of gingersnap cookie dough (but darker). I recoiled in amazement. No human colon could hold such a whopper, and yet it was definitely a humanoid turd.
The herpetologist said it was a bear, but bears are not reptiles so he is outgunned here. As a long-time, self-declared cryptozoologist, I am going to have to pull rank.
That turd is all the proof I need.
My fingernails are so nasty,
Juancho
12 comments:
From funny to boring to gross, and all spectacular slices of the genre. Sounds like a camping trip.
To change the subject, I've been collecting blogging accounts of motorist vs bike, and I have to say they all leave a brother wanting. There's never a harrowing account written from the hospital bed, and there's never one from the motorist's point of view.
It seems you can only write one if you were in the bike lane when you got clipped. If you weren't in the bike lane, you've got no story to tell, since you have to impress on your reader that you're just like them and the tale you're telling could happen to their own righteous and perfectly legal ass. Lately when I ride at night and the cars are whizzing by, I only feel the potential disaster has any chance of getting any blog play if I'm in the bike lane. I run out of bike lane, I'm a man without journalistic recourse.
I think the problem is PTSD. Anyone with a really crunchy story to tell has PTSD, and one of the symptoms of PTSD is the need to avoid re-experiencing the trauma the way you would if you sat down to pen the tale. So we just get the bumps and the scrapes and the indignant walk aways. I'm not complaining, exactly. I'm just documenting here that first person accounts of fresh motorist/bike tragedies are as rare as a snake in Ellijay.
Perhaps you can find a more road-bike oriented site to satisfy your gory desires.
Sasquatch, I think part of the problem on the biker end is a lack of survivors, if recent local news accounts are any indication. Concussion and brain damage are also possible causes, although that may be just a variation on your PTSD theory. Certainly gives pause to anybody who rides in traffic.
Juancho, I enjoyed your Cheaha account, but would like to hear a bit more about the riding itself. I camped in the state park there a few years back, pre-mountain biking. Didn't know about the bike trails.
And don't shoo Sasquatch off just
'cos he's often on skinny tires. It's a circus, right? You'll be sorry you didn't treat him better if he ends up with PTSD or worse.
I've had it with the mincing, prancing, road bike talk around here, but here's the story you should find...Talk to my brother who got creamed by a Buick exiting I-10, then called 911 himself, from the middle of highway 27, with a broken femur. That there is whay you call a man.
Sorry, but to impress me he'll need to write about it. I've got my gory desires.
Plus, I'm not prancing, bitch. Spends a couple nights in the woods and tries to come back all hard...
Careful! You don't want to chip that manicure!
MEOW! CATFIGHT!!
I have a friend who's a car magnet. He was hit 4 or 5 time last Dec-April and finally broke his collarbone in a Crit in May. But, someone told him he's boring, so he doesn't blog.
really, I've ridden with him and his presence makes one invisible to cars. It's harrowing.
If you could see the way S'quatch weaves around in the road, with his navy blue jersey, at night, you would pity the motorist who will someday clip him. He will say some shit about owning a light, but I bet he uses it as often as he does his helmet.
Love ya S'quatch! Kisses buddy!
How can you speak in such a cavalier fashion about my eventual clip, with the blood and the breakage and the death rattle?
I can see you now standing around with a bunch of decent folks expressing proper sentiments and then you'd have to go and bring up my lack of good sense when you know damn good and well our fates are mapped out ahead of time and we have no control over them whatsoever.
Right. Fate. Uh-yeah. Why didn't I realize? So I can quit trying and just do whatever? Oh wait, that IS my current strategy.
Please -- no talk of eulogies. With his build, Sas should suffer no worse than a standing eight count when touched by anything less than 18 wheels. So if you stay off I-10, you'll probably get by with a few bumps and bruises. Hey, the separated shoulder was no big deal, was it? It's those of us with the more classic road bike physique who are in greatest danger when dancing with those widowmakers on four wheels.
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