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

[Bob Nunnink]

I do love reading John Dennis's reports.  Saw this in Velonews and it made
me think of John
Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Attack of the abominable snow (plow)
man <http://beta.velonews.com/article/71315>Keep the rubber side down.

Bobby

On Feb 10, 2008 10:36 PM, John Dennis <jvd at baka.com> wrote:

>  Overlooking Senator Obama's dynamite speech in Virginia (you can listen
> to and view it here<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/clinton-campaign-manager-is-out/?hp>;
> 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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