I remember when I lived in Utah I was biking home from work one day. I lived in some hills and there was a really decent climb up to my house. As I was enjoying the pain of slowly going uphill a small and fluffy dog decided that he needed to make my life more miserable by trying to bite my ankles as I rode up the hill. The thing that really sucked was the fact that I couldn't pedal any faster than the dogs 3 inch legs could run. I was pretty much stuck with this "If I could punt you like a football I would" dog trying to take a piece of my achilles tendon home for dinner. I am not sure how I accomplished the feat of unclipping and taking a shot at the dog with my shoe, but I managed to make some contact, although minimal, with the dogs face and he promptly left me alone.
My second great encounter with animals came on fine summer day when my husband and I were mountain biking on Sheep Creek trail in Utah. For some reason, I never imagined that I might actually encounter an animal such as a sheep on such named trail. I mean they name trails after weird things all the time. Well, I was wrong. This was actually a trail that was guarded by a herd on unruly sheep. My problem was I was on the wrong end of an angry herd of sheep that my husband had stirred into hysteria. Bryan had ridden up past the herd of sheep that were taking up most of the fire road we were on. As soon as he got past they got all stirred up and mob mentality took over and they turned and started stampeding in my direction. I was mortified. I had heard of mtn. bikers injured by cougar attacks or falls from great heights, I was not going to be the 6:00 news story of "biker trampled by 50 angry sheep"! Luckily I had an escape route up a sidehill to my right. I managed to get off my bike and drag it up the hill with me and avoid the stampede. Once the dust cleared I found my husband practically rolling on the ground laughing. I was secretly hoping that he would fall on the ground laughing, and roll right through some sheep crap! That would have made my day.
Last Saturday I had my latest urban adventure with a quadraped. It's a nice afternoon and I am headed to my friend Joe's house to hook up for a ride. As I round a corner see a huge labradore come out from behind a bush and nail my front wheel, behind him is a little pug following obediently. As I am laying on the ground trying to figure out if I broke anything a) on my body, or b) on my bike, I can't seem to get the pug out of my lap. He seems to think that this is a great place to sit, or maybe he wants me to pet him, who knows. Meanwhile the lab is starting to sniff the road rash on my right arm that is now starting to bleed. I eye him suspiciously, he looks like he is about to start licking it. I landed on my tail bone really hard and can't figure out if I can stand up yet. The owner comes out and mumbles something about how he's seen worse road rash and I think "So your dogs have taken someone else out? Maybe you should think twice about letting them run around your neighborhood." He was nice enough to get me a paper towel so I didn't drip blood the rest of the way to Joe's. After some spiffy bandaging, courtesy of Joe, and 4 Ibuprophen (aka Trail Candy) I was good to go and managed to ride 3.5 hours before the drugs wore off and I had to go home to get more. The next morning hurt worse: sore neck, sore left quad, sore tail bone and aching arm.
My brand new Fizik saddle :(
