Originally Posted by
Giant Defiance
So what is one supposed to do about dead animals on the side of the road?
Ride past them. If you choose to ride over them, I would suggest fenders, especially if you ride over ones whose corpses have not yet dried out.
I usually try to avoid them and think to myself, "Someday that will be me..."
Surely your strategy for survival on the road doesn't resemble the suicide squirrel strategy, does it? As in "oh my god, this thing is coming for me, I'll try to be as unpredictable as possible, so I'll pretend to run away first and swerve then right into its path at the last second, as it's about to change directions to start chasing me!" No? Good, then you should fare better than the squirrels.
There's been a squirrel on my route for almost two weeks.
Only one? That's pretty rare, actually. I surely pass several on any ride; don't even notice the squirrels any more. Will notice bigger animals (raccoons, cats, skunks). It's a little sad, but I am not going to shed tears over a dead squirrel over the side of the road; if I did, I'd be perpetually depressed, given an abundance of such critters on the streets of the town.
On one hand, it has been really interesting, observing the body decompose slowly into what it is today. But on the other hand, the corpse is rather gruesome to look at.
The bodies dry out and decompose fairly quickly.