I was riding my bike along the 101 hwy between El Capiton Beach and Goleta California this last summer. I was approaching a large but "dead" raccoon, with its guts hanging out, as I approached and got next to it, it suddenly moved its head bared his teeth at me and growled at me! If I had a gun, I would have put it out its misery.

Thats the stuff of nightmares, both sad and terrifying.

Reminds me of that just turning cold morning when I was still "unretired". Turned off the main road, post downhill and at speed, so no reaction time. Almost ran over (right next to) a HUGE copperhead. Not squished and thankfully not moving. WHEW!!!

A friend that rides a lot more than me told me he runs over rattlesnakes all the time. Just thump thump and keep going. My wife ran over one once too, I was maybe 50m behind her on the trail and it was escaped into the brush by the time I got there. I've heard that a rattlesnake cannot strike unless it is coiled, so if you encounter one stretched out across the trail, it is not dangerous (unless you stick around long enough to give it time to coil and then strike). I have no idea if the same is true for all venomous snakes -- and obviously I'm not encouraging anybody to take stupid risks with dangerous wild animals! (I've also heard that the vast majority of snakebites are on the hand, i.e. somebody being stupid)

Google search tells me this isnt true lol.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e7a83f66ae.png

http://i.imgur.com/7G50VX4l.jpg

Thanks for combating my disinformation! I'm glad to know this, although it won't really make me more cautious around rattlesnakes, just more worried if I ever come around a bend and see a rattler stretched across the trail, with no time to stop

Speaking of aminals...did I mention this earlier? I once found a stray puppy. Doing my bicycle courier thing. Puppy was alone, looking confused and forlorn. I scanned the area for someone who looked like they were looking for their dog. Seeing no one, I put him in my jacket, and continued. A little later, a business-looking man saw the puppy sticking out of my jacket, and asked me about it. I explained. He said that he had been thinking of getting his kids a puppy. And puppy was the peak of adorable. I had planned to hold him and take him to a shelter. But the dad offered to take him. Seemed like serendipity. I handed him over and hoped for the best.

Saul

Hopefully he hadn't been thinking of getting his kids a puppy FOR DINNER

Well, the man looked well-fed. Extrapolating...Of course, I could be wrong. We'll never know. I prefer to envision a happy picture for the dog and the kids.

By PUPPIES no doubt :eek:

When I use to live in So Calif, I would ride mountain roads, and they would come out to sun themselves, cars squashed most of them, but when I riding up the mountain I would just give them a wide berth but coming down I would be doing 50 or so I just would run over them as well. I never went back to check, but I don't think a person on a bike running them over would kill the snake, but it probably pissed them off pretty good.

I also seen Roadrunners out in the desert run up to a rattlesnake, and that bird would do this dance where it would bob to the left and then to right and do that several times, and the snake is bobbing with the bird, then the bird will suddenly dart in and poke one of the snake's eyeballs out, then the bird would just as quickly dart back out and resume it's little dance, then it would dart in quickly and take the other eyeball out. Then it would go around to the back of the snake and drive its beak up into the back of the snake's skull and I think it must have sucked the brain out? But that snake would just drop to the ground. Where I was at, we had small Roadrunners, in Arizona they have a larger Roadrunner, and those would flip the snake into the air and eat them whole, I saw a YouTube video of that happening. The guy that narrated the video did say that sometimes the Roadrunner lost to the rattlesnake, it was a risky way of getting food.

Wow that's so cool! My wife & I used to see roadrunners on the hillsides near our house, but we haven't seen any in a few years

Found yet another hex key. Nice hunk of metal with no markings :( Measuring it with a Craftsman socket... sigh... it's not quite 10mm. Probably some english standard and useless to me :p

From the look of those pics,I think the knife is glad you're its new owner. :thumb:

I found some dude's wallet this morning in the bike lane, with $200 cash. Maybe he's a bike commuter too?
I didn't have any luck finding him, as he has an out-of-state driver's license.
I called the police and am waiting on them to come pick it up. Maybe they can figure out where he works or lives, if it's here in town.
If not, I guess they get to keep the $200!

I don't think I would give the cash to the police. I would tell the police that if they find the owner, they should contact me, and I'll send the money.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...be16e8318d.jpg
Picked up 25 lb. box all over parking area near pizza place.

To make up for my crash Wednesday night, Thursday coming home I found a pair of Ray-Bans! Black with aviator lenses and wire frames but thick plastic arms - confusing style

I thought about it, but I was glad I did, because he took my personal info and made it clear they might consider it theft if anything was missing.
For a moment there, I was having second thoughts about turning it over to the police. They really shouldn't make it onerous to return found property. would've been much easier to throw everything out and keep the $200...

My wife found a purse a few weeks back that must have been left on the roof of a car and slid off when it moved. It had quite a bit of cash in it along with cards and ID placing the owner a couple hundred miles from here. Took it to our local PD and they informed us they couldn't accept it. They contacted the Sheriff and had a deputy swing by after we waited almost an hour. He took the purse and contents along with all our information. You're right, it felt almost as though we had stolen the purse even though it still had all the cash and what not in it. If the lady had been local, we would have just returned it to her. In the future I'm not sure what I'll do. The DW still believes in doing the right thing though, so that's settled haha

That's tough, as she too might've moved. Otherwise, you could've just used some of the cash to mail it back to her!

Found a cool old crescent wrench in the intersection of a road we frequent on group rides. It's heavily traveled by huge dump trucks that have been hauling fill dirt to a 700,000 sq ft C-130 maintenance facility being built at the airport we ride out of. This intersection is right where the trucks make a sharp turn. It could have fallen off any number of vehicles, but in doing a quick research online based on the markings it's made by Armstrong Tool Co specifically for Caterpillar.




https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6647f0a672.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3bdf6fea8a.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...fc8e78a7f9.jpg

Found this on last week's Sunday Explorers Ride; going around would've added at least another mile to the ride, and the sky was threatening, so we did our best. Still got mud and cow excretions all over our shoes and tires. I'm calling it impassible until at least May.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...afd51da816.jpg
Yes, yes we did.

Mud season. I know it well.