A day in the life of a back roads rider.

[..]

Left home at 8am 40f.

Squirrel killed. Yep.

Small bird flew in to me. Killed. Yep.

Large boxer dog mutt in middle of road around blind bend. Alive. Yep

Lumpkin County police car stopped diagonally across a 1 1/2 lane road. Took him about 15 seconds to notice I was waiting for him to move his ass.

2 turkey buzzards too fat and lazy to fly out of my way. Waddled. Alive.

Large blue heron flew across road at head height. Made me jump. Alive.

Groundhog sitting in middle of 1 1/2 lane road. Alive.

2 more dogs in the middle of the road. Alive

Home 220 miles later 50F.

Nealy too much excitement for a short ride.

Hooray for heated jacket liner, gloves and handlebar grips.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Damn, that's a lot of wildlife for 200 miles. I might see a quail or a rabbit in 200 miles.

[NewValker]

   sigh...wish I could ride...12* today, 20* tomorrow, and 15 to 18 inches of snow Tuesday...
Craig

[Pappy!]

I remember leaving last years Inzane and heading South with Bronxboy.
We were running in the low 80mph range on a beautiful 4-lane with gorgeous hills and gentle sweepers.
Out of the blue in in less than the blink of an eye a Crow hit my helmet shield directly in front of my left eye.
The impact sounded lind a gun shot in my helmet and the force it hit with was amazing. Bronxboy said it looked like a small explosion. He went through the feathers.
Am convinced that if I was riding with a half helmet and sunglasses I would not be writing this today.

[0leman]

Britman, sounds like you need to find another backroad to ride on, way too many dogs.

The rest of the critters are just normal wildlife to have fun with.  The roads I ride this time of year have few deer, maybe ground squirrel or two (they have just come out), lots of hawks and eagles, cattle to look at grazing in pastures (good fences), and a slow rancher/farmer on equipment.  AND no LEO's, don't have to watch the speed-o-meter as much.

[..]

The event I missed writing down yesterday.

I'm riding down a valley hill with a bend to the left at the bottom. The bend is tight but opens up so I can accelerate with some gusto out of it.

I see coming down the other side of the valley is an older gold colored Ford Explorer SUV.

This vehicle is going way too fast and I'm starting to calculate vectors of where our paths will cross.

Yep, I have no doubt they will cross and we will not pass by without a care in the world.

The SUV is coming into the bend way too hot and it's starting to lean and G forces are pushing it towards and over the center line AND the bend is tightening up for it.

There's no time to brake and it's going to be coming to my side of the road.

I can't steer to the left of the vehicle because there's another slower car behind it so I don't want to deliberately ride into their track.

Only option is to twist the throttle open and get to and past the X where our paths will meet.

As I violently scrape my left foot peg I see the nose and side of the vehicle pass behind me completely on my side of the road tires screaming. In the left mirror I see the vehicle leave a rooster of dirt and grass as it's 2 right wheels leave paved surface.

I've eased off the throttle and can twist around to see the SUV bucking along the grass verge before returning to solid ground.

And away they go looking for another road user to scare the bejasus out of.

[..]

Britman, sounds like you need to find another backroad to ride on, way too many dogs.

The rest of the critters are just normal wildlife to have fun with.  The roads I ride this time of year have few deer, maybe ground squirrel or two (they have just come out), lots of hawks and eagles, cattle to look at grazing in pastures (good fences), and a slow rancher/farmer on equipment.  AND no LEO's, don't have to watch the speed-o-meter as much.

Always the country dogs.

Most have the sense to get off the road when a vehicle approaches but some like people are stubborn or stupid.

[Alpha Dog]

Well Britman, at least you did not have a Sasquatch cross in front of you like happened to police officers in Lumpkin Cty, GA a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmr-cDD0Hdk

[Jess from VA]

I was following a guy who dipped his toe to warn of a mangled skunk.  He dipped too deep and launched the skunk into the air (spinning guts and fluids), and then almost ran over it again.  

A minute later, he was holding that leg out in the wind.... presumably to keep from breathing the lovely odor.

I was laughing so hard, I had to pull off.

No one would sit with anywhere near him for the rest of the day.