FLCC> turkey one-wing snow angel: a good omen?

[John Dennis]

Overlooking Senator Obama’s dynamite speech in Virginia (you can listen to
and view it HYPERLINK
"http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/clinton-campaign-manager-is-o
ut/?hp"here; Hillary’s is there too, I’m listening to it as I write this),
the good news is that the three tiger finch chicks at Longview have fledged
and the adult birds are even letting them have their own perch in the
aviary. 

 

I was thinking of calling these ride notes “rendez-vous at Longview”  but
Dan Barbasch was not impressed.  He says the rides I describe bear little
resemblance to the rides we go on.  Anyway, I drove to Longview today (up
the hill a piece from IC) and met Dan about 12:30pm. It had been sunny and
warm all morning.  I even packed a tube of sun block. Dan had mentioned
“some clouds on the radar near Elmira” but I went ahead and packed my road
bike even though Dan told me he would be on his commuter bike which has
heavy-duty fenders and aggressive tread tires.  As we were saddling up, it
began snowing…a sort of pretty flolicky snow that wasn’t sticking but then
it wasn’t melting either.  Might we go as far as Candor? We headed up King
Road to get on a nice back road that Dan knew and soon found ourselves on
Ridgecrest in something that—with a touch of hyperbole—could have been
described as white-out conditions.  After some significant climbing we hung
a right on Nelson, deciding that 96B with it’s big wide shoulders would be
the better bet. 

 

As I was cruising down Nelson at 20+mph, this wild turkey comes running
across the road and it slips and falls when it is almost exactly in front of
me.  Apparently, the left leg had lost traction.  The left wing spread out
and carved a nice one-wing snow angel in the fresh snow on the shoulder
before it regained control and carried on, two-legged, into the right verge.
I had been thinking of breakin’ loose one or both shoes from my pedals, but
after seeing the turkey go into its slide, I concluded that road conditions
were such that the lateral torque of breakin’ a foot loose would be enough
trigger the bike and I doin’ our own snow-angel thing willy-nilly.  

 

Back at 96B, we noticed the first car to come along had its emergency
blinkers on.  So we did the second dumb move of the day, we turned left and
south.  We would go as far as Danby and then turn back.  But at Danby we
kept going, snow noodles streaming out of my front break calipers whenever I
rode in the snow on the shoulder.  After the long downhill to Willeysville,
the sun broke out and the snow stopped and the road turned wet.  Everything
was OK except for my seat getting progressively damper!  At Candor, we
arrived with snow and ice caked to our faces. We refueled at the gas
station, and we made yet another dumb move: we neglected to bring our bikes
inside.  And we dallied too long over our hot drinks. Coming out, we found
derailleurs and brake and gear cables all frozen solid. Temps had dropped or
so it seemed.  A spray can of penetrating oil coupled with quite a bit of
kicking loosened things up enough to have more than one gear.  No sooner
were we headed north than that indomitable Willseyville-Candor head wind
came out of the woodwork.  A few miles on we were passed by two engines from
the Wilseyville Fire Dept, two rescue ambulances and several private
vehicles with flashing blue lights.  North of Wilseyville, we eventually
came upon  a three-vehicle pile-up, largely cleared, but with traffic still
backed up in both directions.  While waiting for a van with crumpled front
end and broken out rear window to get loaded up, we lost valuable body heat
and our brake cables refroze.  Back in the saddle, the wind seemed stronger
and colder. We were back in the hills on a section of 96B I had almost never
ridden before today.  

 

Except for cold feet, I felt warm enough, but why was I having trouble
speaking clearly?  I would put the headwind at 10+ mph with gusts up to
25mph.  I suspected wind chill of below zero. Back on higher ground, the
snow was too thick on the shoulder so we rode in the right-hand track of the
right lane, watching our mirrors carefully.  Back at Longview, we loaded our
bikes into my car and noted the air temp shown on the dash was 16 degrees.
Yesterday’s ride out to the Finger Lakes National Forest and back on clear
roads and in the low 30s had made a lot more sense!

 

Ride safe he muttered indistinctly,   John 

 


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