pointlessone

Picture this (true story)
The other day i was hammering my local route, on the way to a fast downhill with my buddies. We stopped at the top of the run, the guy with the hardtail went to the bottom as fast as he could so he could radio back to us if we had a pedestrian, bike, horse free route down. He radios back with the good news so we take our marks and go for it, with about ten second intervals. Now i go second, with two guys behind me.
About half way down i see something out of the corner of my eye... (to complete this picture i have to let you know im wearing a full face helmet!)...... A bird... a pigeon to be precise. The timing was perfect.... it hits me square in the face.... and gets caught between the upper and lower portions of my helment. ... So there i am, full speed, with a flapping bird in my face! To add to my problems i hit a rut, go over the bars and the guys behind me pile into me.
As im laying on the ground, with my buddies tangled up with me in a very painful bundle, as if to really take the piss.. the pigeon gets out of my helmet...sits on my front wheel...does a massive dump and flys off..... Im now nursing a dislocated finger and a very bruised pride....
Now everyone is calling me tweetie pie! Has anyone tried fried pigeon before? please send in your recipes!

Dannihilator

Well, behind doves, Pigeons are the dumbest bird on the face of the planet.

Sucks to hear about the dislocated finger Tweetie Pie.

Juniper

Wow! That's crazy! I have had a bird and a squirrel and the occassional dog run into me but luckily I avoided a crash those times. Could have been worse; the bird could have pecked your eyes out as you were trying to keep control ('The bird pecked my eyes out just as I was going into some big air! I could sense I was maybe 7 feet off the ground and I knew I was about to come down in a rockgarden. I pulled back and loosened up enough to do a totally uncontrolled ride to the bottom of the chute on my rear wheel!') All joking aside, you are one lucky rider you didn't get scratched by the bird or hurt worse in your pile-up.

Too bad about the finger; those hurt! Don't worry about your pride; you've got a great story to tell for a long time (it's one of the great benefits of mtn biking).

rasheed

wow, that must have been quite a sight. hope the finger heals up quick...

Quote:

Originally Posted by KonaRider24

Well, behind doves, Pigeons are the dumbest bird on the face of the planet.

they're practically the same bird - or rather family of birds...

britannica.com:

Quote:

any of certain birds of the pigeon family, Columbidae (order Columbiformes). The names pigeon and dove are often used interchangeably. Although “dove” usually refers to the smaller, long-tailed members of the pigeon family, there are exceptions: the domestic pigeon, a rather typical pigeon, is frequently called the rock dove and is the bird portrayed and called the “dove…

https://www.britannica.com/eb/article...ck%20doves&ct=

a2psyklnut

You should send Joe Gardner a PM asking him to change your username! j/k dude.

I was once riding my road bike in a paceline and a squirrel committed suicide by running into the back wheel of the rider in front of me. I got splattered with squirrel guts, but no crash.

Hope the finger heals quickly!

Akak

ROFL! Birds are just rats with wings!

The only bird encounter I've had on a bike occured when I was living in Colorado and JUST started mountain biking. This was around 1987 so bikes weren't a common thing on trails in the Front Range.

A friend and I were slowly descending a gentle fire road when something between us startled the hell out of me. It was a MASSIVE owl with a wingspan that must have been at least 6'. It came in completely silently and was low enough for me to look down at it.

For as big as it was, it was fast, too, and was gone before we could stop. I'm not sure if we disturbed its nest or what but it definitely came down for a closer look.

I've also seen a squirrel killed and a near collision with a deer. Both happened on the same road in Missouri during training rides with 3 other triathletes. The squirrel shot out of the woods and ran between the wheels of the Quintana Roo in front of me. It was killed instantly by the 110 psi wheel moving at 26 mph.

The deer was one of a group of 5 that we saw in a field from a LONG way off. We saw them in time to all comment "wow, look at that group of deer." They started running and we watched them and rode along the field. The deer never varied their course and neither did we. They hopped the fence (which was beautiful to see) and the entire paceline had to lock up the brakes to avoid hitting the last one.

Hope the finger heals fast!

swifferman

I've eaten pigeon

It is mighty tasty!

issues034

Well to tell you the truth pigeons ar among the smartest birds on the planet, they just seem dumb because all birds are ********.

hooligan

Parrots seem to be quite smart. I heard that one learned over 400 words and used grammar properly. 400 or 4000 I forgot.

anthonaut

never had a bird in my helmet but i've had a bee. Scared the $hit out of me. Luckily it didn't sting me...

blue_neon

I have had incounters with pidgeons before. I was riding on a bike path, and there are sort of shrubs on either sides, and a group of pidgeons on the track doing who knows what. I thought, they will move out of the way (i'm going fairly fast), all execpt one moved, so i had to do a quick right turn to avoid it but the stupid thing went right as well, and i ran over it. Not completley over it but hit it with my wheel, i turned around and saw it hoddling back into the shrubs. On the topic of birds that no one likes, i just hate crows, they just wont shutup and wake me up each morning!

anthonaut

Good footy team though (Don't worry- Australian thing)

greenbreezer

LOL!!! I think what adds to the humor is that you guys took the diligence to make sure the trail was completely clear so you can hammer as hard as you can. But you guys still ended up crashing into each instead. Bird's fault, of course.

I once had a bee bounce off my sunglasses and ricochet into my sportsbra. I couldn't just let one hand go to try to shoo it out cuz we were on some pretty technical terrain. So it stung me. YOW!!! So there I was, the only woman in a group of 5 riders standing on the side of the trail sticking my hand down my jersey trying to pull out the bee's stinger. Needless to say, the "Can I help you with that??" jokes were flying!

blue_neon

I dunno, i would wish they would go back to Adeladie but. Of course only me, a Maggy fan, would say something like that

Hopper

If you want a real footy team, look to the Swans, go Sydney, Go Sydney.

Hey Neon, I got something you might want, a pre-WWII VFL premiership medal from my great-grandfather, however I wouldn't sell it though.

anthonaut

I can understand the jokers' reasoning!

khuon

I've never smacked into a bird. Plenty of spider webs though and plenty of insects... I did get attacked by a flock of birds once. I s'pose they liked the colour of my helmet or something.

Juniper

The worst encounter I've had with something like that was when a wasp flew between my glasses and my eyelid and went crazy. I could kind of see it coming towards me on a 'bee line' just to the left of me. Of course, I thought it would just zip by. It flew straight in between my shades and my face and freaked out; eventually stinging me right on my eyelid. There was nothing I could do in the two seconds it took for it to all happen! I whipped my glasses off, just flung them, but it was too late. I crashed (I was just meandering) but hardly noticed it because of what was going on with my eye.

My eyelid and cheek swelled to the point that I had to pull my eyelid open with my fingers a few times a day for about three days to make sure I still had vision. I suppose the swelled area looked like the size of a softball cut in half and layed on my face. I looked like I was wearing a hallowean mask and it totally freaked everyone who saw me for a week or so! Weird.

greenbreezer

I once got attacked by a swarm of wasps! The weird part was that there were 6 of us, but they all came after me! We were stopped on a singletrack so were all in a line, taking a break. One of the guys went off-trail to take a pee and on his way back, stepped on a wasp's nest. They didn't even touch him. I was the only woman in the group, but I don't wear any kind of perfume or lotions (at least not when I ride with my knuckle-dragging buddies -- love you guys! You know I do!). I wasn't wearing anything that was any different from the rest of the group either (drab jersey, black shorts, white helmet....) You often hear about "women's scents" and "men's scents" and it made us wonder if that's what made the wasps hone in on just me. My husband grabbed my arm and abducted me down the trail while the rest of the guys shoo'ed the wasps away. But I still got stung about 5 or 6 times and the guys were unscathed!

Juniper

Wow! That reminds me of the time I took a friend mtn biking for his first ride. There was a medium sized log over the trail and I told him to follow and watch how I unweighted my bike to hop the log. Thump-thump; I went up and over, knocking the log with my rear tire. I looked back to watch him but what I saw was a cloud of wasps boiling out the end of the log just as he approached it.

He couldn't get over the log (being a first time rider enveloped in wasps didn't help) so I encouraged him (from a distance ; ) to hurry up and we rode like crazy down the trail with this cloud of wasps chasing us. He, being the slower rider, got stung 8 times. He still pesters me to this day about it.

blue_neon

Come on, not including this year , two grand finals in a row and a third to come next year!!!

[bEn]

WoW Hopper your a Sydney fan, good on ya! BTW blue_neon, magpies arn't that good.

madbiker555

Pidgeon= bag of crap with wings

CranxOC

You really need to change your screen name to "Tweetie Pie;" it's the right thing to do!

blue_neon

And you think that your 'out of state' Sydney are? Why dont you move over there...