Originally Posted by cudak888

I have a 36h S3C that I'll trade you for a 36h AW, preferably dated '75.

-Kurt

Originally Posted by rhm

Actually, I had a squirrel run through a 32 spoke wheel once! I didn't have a very good view of the action, being too close-- I was riding the bike at the time. Fortunately for the historical record, my father-in-aw was riding directly behind me, and he saw the whole collision as if in slow motion. As far as we could determine, here's what transpired:

The squirrel ran out of the bushes on my right, aiming for a spot directly in front of my bicycle. I'd guess I was going 13 or 14 mph, but what do I know. When we both reached the point where our respective paths actually crossed, the squirrel was airborne, and he passed rather cleanly between two spokes that were, at least momentarily, stationary. Unfortunately for the squirrel, the spokes did not remain stationary long enough permit the passage of his whole body; the rim picked him up and propelled his back legs and tail forward after the rest of him was well to the left of the bike. He didn't get stuck, but found himself moving upwards, spinning gently. A fraction of a second later, gravity recalled him earthward, just as my left foot just completed a downward stroke and began heading back up. By now I knew something strange was going down and, looking down, I saw the squirrel hit the top of my foot, which was moving (I'll let someone else do the math: 175 mm crank arm going somewhere around 100 rpm) fast enough to toss the squirrel up again. He landed on his feet about two feet to the left side of my front wheel, miraculously pointed away from the bike, so with a clatter of toenails he accelerated and disappeared into the bushes on the other side of the road. Total time elapsed, maybe about two seconds. My father-in-law almost lost control of his bike, he was laughing so hard.