Shortwave

You can also tell by the scales on their bellies. As if I am going to roll the thing over. Lol

Italia12

Wow, that’s scary. Fortunately nothing like that around these parts!

kwb377

I've had a few close encounters with Cottonmouth recently on mtb rides and have been wondering...

When riding in remote areas that may take a while for EMS to get to you, would it be better to stay in place and wait for them to come to you (and keep your heart rate/circulation down) or pedal back toward a trailhead where they can reach you faster (but raise the heart rate and circulate the venom faster)? I have no medical training other than being able to access whether or not a wound needs a BandAid or a tourniquet, so the answer may be obvious/simple.

Rick_D

Nailed one yesterday on the parkway path--crossing my lane in a shaded area--didn't see it until a couple feet away. Bump-bump. Gopher or rattler? Could have been either and decided to not circle back and perhaps encounter a ticked off version of the second option. Besides, what does one do for an injured snake? Chest compressions?

Either type I feel bad, critters have a hard enough life as it is without my maiming them.

Big day for turkeys. They were everywhere.

rumrunn6

w/o mouth-to-mouth?

Camilo

I've only seen three rattle snakes in my life and two of them were last month in the Tucson area. One was slithering in the shade along a curb on the side of the "Loop" near Catalina SP. The other was along the Bajada Loop in the western part of Saguaro NP. Both were trying to avoid people so I was able to watch them from a distance.

Disposable

I was walking near my parents' home in northwest Arkansas, and as I stepped over a gap in some rocks I heard a sudden Hisss and looked down to see A COBRA! coiled beneath me. What the hell? They don't have cobras in Arkansas! After I landed I examined it closely, from about ten feet out. Near black, short body, very thick, that neck spread out flat and cocked back, just waiting for me to get closer. Nope. I got home and told my folks about it and Dad said "Oh that's a puff adder. They're harmless except for the heart attack." I think they're more formally called hognose snakes, I've never gotten to see another one.

Bob Ross

^^^This.
Like OP, I too live in Tucson AZ, and lately I've been encountering at least one rattlesnake per ride...and these are road rides, not MTB rides! But they want nothing to do with us, and if you just give them a wide berth you'll all coexist without incident or drama.


A neighbor here has told me that in many parts of the city and surrounding areas, if you call 911 and tell them there's a rattlesnake in your yard the response time will be significantly quicker than if you call 911 and tell them you're having a heart attack.

big john

What if you tell them you're having a heart attack because there's a rattlesnake in your yard?

philbob57

I was on a gig in a Western US state. The client and I were talking about my relocating and coming on board as an employee. Then I noticed that the local TV station broadcast PSAs about avoiding getting attacked by a mountain lion. Nope, not for me. That was scarier than rattlers.

cyccommute 

Some places even celebrate them.

Very realistic pits on that viper.




This one has an unnervingly realistic “rattle” at the south end. So realistic that I nearly jumped into the air and didn’t come down.

cyccommute 

Caution creepy cuteness ahead.

This footage of rattlesnakes yawning comes from the Colorado Rattle Cam which is the first livestream of a rattlesnake rookery in northern Colorado.


The yawn is both disconcerting and incredibly cute.

rsbob 

Didn’t encounter a snake today, but was chased by an angry dog and had other dog encounters.

Was out in the country with some questionable houses and a few nice ones. First encounter was with two dogs I ran into on a previous ride where they came out madly barking into the street and started to circle me. Since they were lab-like I hoped their lab gene friendliness would emerge as I happy talked them while telling them to go home. Eventually they calmed down and came over and tentatively sniffed me, but they were still jumpy and barky. They are both lab mixes and probably about 60-80 lbs and eventually lost interest and went home.

So anyway they spotted me again today and came running my direction. I think they remembered me, or my smell, from last week and quickly broke off and went home.

About 5 minutes later, not seeing any houses around, I hear mad barking, the sound of claws hitting pavement, and dog tags jingling. I was doing about 20 MPH since I was trying for a PR. I was spinning about 90 RPM which is fast for me and didn’t give me a ton of extra leverage/power. Besides, I was on aero-bars at the time and jumping over to my shift levers was not an option, so I spun my legs way up and got to about 28 MPH when I heard him fading back, still barking. Think the andrenaline helped me get the extra power at high RPM.

On a previous trip on the same road, I had a different dog chase, but he was probably about 30 lbs and super fast. I found out he didn’t want a piece of me, but just to chase for fun. When I first heard him barking and closing in, again I got out of the saddle and spun up the speed to about 26 and looked back and there was no dog. When I turned my head forward, he was pacing me off to my right side, running through the grass. He paced me about another 50 yards and the broke off and went up to a house.

I may have to give that particular road a rest for a while.

NVFlinch 

Today's ride, may I present 'Professor Scaley'....

(My daughter named it, not me)

]https://i.imgur.com/P0SlyhC.jpeg

sknhgy 

I had to tell this self-proclaimed expert to get his leg away from the cottonmouth he was photographing because I didn't want to have to take him to the ER. He was about a foot from the snake. This was in Southern Illinois.

unterhausen

Neighbors have told me they saw a copperhead in their yard. I would much prefer a rattlesnake. I swear I heard one yesterday when I was inspecting a tree that was about to fall down. Never found it though.

EddyR

I lived in Florida for 30 years at the top of Tampa bay. It was very wild there back then 1979. Never saw any large snakes when riding bike. Driving next to the lake Tarpon outfall canal I was snakes to big to dive my truck over. I did see a lot of alligators when out riding my bike. Sometimes they would be asleep on the hot pavement on park roads next to lake Tarpon.
EddyR

SpeedyBlueBiker

I never ran across any snakes while I was at Southern Illinois University, but I knew they were out there. Southern Illinois is a very pretty area and so different from the rest of the state.

Wileyrat

Here’s a couple of critters I’ve come across riding in Tucson. This is by no means all of them.

Peruano

Lets give it up as much hype.

mtbikerjohn 

By the airport in Albuquerque..

sknhgy 

The water moccasins are in the low areas around the swamps.
Illinois has some very nice places. You just have to know where to look.
People go to the ends of the earth to find remote adventures. All I have to do is have someone drop me off with a canoe or kayak at a bridge over some remote creek in the Illinois farmland. Then have them pick me some miles down river. There are some pretty fantastic places in Illinois. Especially if you are interested in Native American stuff. Or if you like to gig frogs or fish. I once caught a 2.75 pound small mouth bass on a trip like that.
Many rivers are designated as federally navigable, and that gives you the right to use them as long as you stay within the banks.