Notes from a 37-mile bike ride
- Some of the back roads of Schodack and Castleton are just beautiful.
- When cars and trucks are passing, wait to cut back in until you’re sure they don’t have a trailer behind them. They generally do.
- Drivers aren’t all jerks, and they’ll generally do what they can to accommodate a bike. Except for slowing down. They must never slow down, because that would indicate submission to the bicycle, which must never happen.
- Two packets of Gu and a Clifbar aren’t quite enough fuel to pull this thing off.
- That’s poison ivy. Don’t park there.
- That’s poison ivy, too.
- Why, yes, that is a coyote’s head in that ditch. Just the head.
- You’re never going to disembed that putty knife from the asphalt, so just leave it there.
- Top speed: 34.5 mph. Scary fast on skinny tires. I have maybe three square inches in contact with the ground at any moment, and them inches are rolling fast, baby.
- If the car in front of you hits a snake and it gets tossed back toward you, the snake will probably be displeased. Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Sulu!
- Wildlife count: Several buffalo (I passed the buffalo farm) (okay, they’re domestic, but unusual), many cows, horses and sheep, the aforementioned snake, three turkeys, two eagles, any number of hawks, two rabbits, a heron, the last of the spring peepers and the head of Alfredo Coyote.
Mr. Johnson is wondering if that’s just a warning to the other coyotes, and, if so, a warning from whom?