Squirrels be crazy.


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Actually better squirrels than skunks, a crash collision with a skunk leaves you battered bruised and awfully smelling, and i am talking from experience.

funny, on the coldest day yet this winter, there was a squirrel on the opposite side of the road that ran out in front of me at the last second. I was on my fatbike.

I had a squirrel run into my front wheel once. As he was riding around inside the spokes getting battered, I was envisioning all of those pictures of crashed cyclists. Then he ran out the other side.

I have had two run between my front and rear wheel, at speed. No thump, thump, their lucky day.

I agree that the best strategy to avoid squirrels is to keep a straight line and let them avoid you. However, last summer on a windy day, I had a squirrel fall out of a tree and very nearly landed on my head. It hit the road with a thump, got on its feet and ran away.

You are posting in the wrong thread. This is strictly for squirrel haters, not squirrel lovers.

I've run over a squirrel once. Bump, bump. It ran off into the bushes afterward.

Since then I find making animal-like noises at them will turn them back.

When I used to ride the MUPs a lot, I had a bell on my hybrid and it worked great for repelling them as well.

Well, I did hate to eat it, myself. Not the soup so much, but in general, both squirrel and rabbit I could tell what I was eating and that bothered me (like with fried fish when the tail was still attached). I like meat, but moreso when I can't tell what the parts I'm eating used to be when it was alive.

Yeah! I have had bounce off my back wheel once. I have often wondered if the bladed spoke took a arm off or something else. I didn't look back.

I had one run into my front wheel once. He thumped then ran back off the road. On my ride back I rode near the shoulder where our paths crossed, but I didn't see any sign of him.

On time I saw a little bird up ahead standing right between the white line and the side of the road. There was no shoulder and I was riding the line. I kept waiting for the little fella to flit off but he just kept still. It wasn't until I was right on him that he made his last wrong decision. He launched right into my front wheel. Took me by surprise. I thought surely he would have flown the other way. That little guy didn't stand a chance.

I just cannot help thinking about all those pet guinea pigs and hamsters mysteriously escaping from their locked cages... :innocent:

http://imgur.com/x89Z8LZ

There should be fewer squirrels to cause problems here next year if this is true.

Ice cubes for your drink!
EWWWW!

So what do we learn here? Commuter wheels turn so fast that the spokes present a solid wall :D

There is a street in my city that I occasionally use on my bike that seems to have a squirrel lover (or nut job) on it. Seemingly when someone on the street sees a dead squirrel they paint an outline of it on the road and remove the carcass. I've seen these for years and sometimes there are twenty of so of them. I took these pictures a few minutes ago. For the record, I hate squirrels.

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Nah, that squirrel is just pining for the fjords of Norway.

[QUOTE=Phlorida;17565202]There is a street in my city that I occasionally use on my bike that seems to have a squirrel lover (or nut job) on it. Seemingly when someone on the street sees a dead squirrel they paint an outline of it on the road and remove the carcass. I've seen these for years and sometimes there are twenty of so of them. I took these pictures a few minutes ago. For the record, I hate squirrels.

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AWESOME POST OF THE THREAD!

+1 on "FTW". It means more coming from the OP though.

On the other hand, squirrels have so few advocates... bless their skilled little hearts (for setting up squirrel base-camp in my attic, where it's nice 'n toasty compared to a leaf-nest that's, say, OUTDOORS where it should be). Dang varmints! My dog concurs, in fact he had an instinctive solution to my problem in mind right away; he was pretty excited about the prospects too, lol - we just couldn't manage hoisting the 80 lb Labrador Animal Control system up 6 rungs then thru the access hatch. That would have been "interesting" - Poor guy doesn't get his customary miles in, when it's 3 degrees out.

My Airzound air horn usually disperses the varmints well in advance...usually.

I'd call that an (twisted) artist... around my town (Minneapolis) you can find lots of interesting street art. I might start doing this on the streets around here!

i've hit a squirrel on my mtn bike. Rear wheel only, so just one 'bump' and he skittered off into the bushes. I didn't crash.

I do a spitting hiss at squirrels and cats by the side of the road. It usually scares them back into the bushes.

And, similar to a velocity's post, I was riding on the Little Miami Trail a few years ago, heard a crack of a branch breaking, and had the branch end with a squirrel hanging on land a few feet to the side of me.

I've seen other photos of squirrels caught in spokes. They can be dangerous.

This made me laugh:

[QUOTE=velocity;17565261]Awesome thread.

I was riding about 20mph when a squirrel darted into the roadway, stopped and stared at me, darted back to the roadside; then he ran back across the road and between my wheels. CRUNCH!!
No damage to my bike but it was pretty tough on the squirrel.
Sometimes yelling "Squirrel !" gets them to run away but not this time.

At RAGBRAI ([Des Moines] Register's Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa), roadkill is appropriately memorialized by dropping a few strings of Mardi Gras beads upon the dear departed. It is a fine tradition.

guinea pig is pretty decent eating!

The squirrels - they're after me! Why? They think I'm nuts!

They take up residence in my roof when it's really cold out. Nasty filthy little tree rats.

If you can make a sound that is reasonably similar to a squirrel's chittering alarm call, they will usually run away from you. Pursing your mouth and sucking air in through your teeth can kind of sound like that. It confuses other cyclists, though. And runners. And dogs... Any non-squirrels that hear it, really.

I think the real question we need to ask ourselves here is if squirrel vs. bike encounters are more of a danger with clipless pedals or platform pedals.

I feel the same way about toddlers and young children. One of them totally @#$%ed up my Enve fork once.

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