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

Mon Feb 11 08:44:53 EST 2008

The link Bob sent should be 
http://beta.velonews.com/article/71866
Interesting article as are all of John's 
write-ups.
Amanda
--------------------------------------------------
Amanda and Mark Shenstone
Graceful Gardens
PO Box 100
Mecklenburg, NY 14886
607.387.5529
http://www.gracefulgardens.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Nunnink
  To: John Dennis ; Finger Lakes Cycling Club
  Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 8:25 AM
  Subject: Re: FLCC> turkey one-wing snow angel: a 
good omen?

  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
  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; 
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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