It felt so good to be back on the R Nine T after missing last weekend. And the weather gave us a perfect day for the ride—sunny skies and highs of 62. I broke out my leather jacket without the lining and leather pants and had a super enjoyable albeit squirrelly ride.
Traffic was the main squirrelly part; there were cars everywhere. No one did anything to cause alarm but we had a few slow-movers that caused us to check up. It didn’t help that I was checking out my odometer because I was approaching 2500 miles and I wanted to snap a picture.
I spotted one intrepid cabbage white fluttering across the road in front of us. But he was the only one. I spotted a few vultures up in the blue sky, but the squirrels were the dominant fauna I spotted on my ride. They are mostly at work collecting food for the winter, but we had to watch for them in the roadway. One extremely lucky fellow benefited from our quick stopping practice; I am still wondering how he escaped Bill’s front tire. The reason the squirrel darted brazenly in front of the Rocket was because he was in a dispute with another squirrel, and the other squirrel chased him into the roadway. From my perspective that guy was roadkill. But then I spotted him to the left of the Rocket’s front tire, less than an inch away. We stayed stopped until the squirrel finished crossing the road.
I had a squirrelly incident early in my ride. I hit a dip in the road and my left foot depressed the shifter down a gear. At my speed, the engine braking didn’t disrupt my ride too much, but it gave me something to think about when out on the highway to be aware of how a bump can cause unintentional actions.
We encountered more squirrels as we looped around for the finish of the ride, including a confident fellow who ambled across the road assured we would stop for him—which of course we did. We also encountered a squirrelly individual riding a recumbent bicycle. He did have a tall flag attached to his bike, but he was low to the ground and riding in a very shady part of the road, weaving between both lanes. He did have a flashing headlight, but it is low to the ground and wasn’t very brightly lit. It made me realize that my motorcycle headlight—a safety feature—is probably not as bright as I think.
As we head deeper into autumn and closer to winter, the squirrellyness will settle down. The leaves are more colorful but not yet at peak; I will be out next Saturday to enjoy the fall colors.
Flutterby Biker 