Daily commute....

I've just been riding and riding and not blogging. Nothing too exciting going on, just the daily commute. The weather is still a bit schizophrenic - snow one day, warm the next, rain, snow, warm, etc. It is a bit maddening. But, such is life in Colorado. And I can't complain really. :-) Here are some of the highlights of my recent commuting adventures...

I nearly hit a squirrel on my way to work not long ago. It was my first near miss. A couple of years ago, when I was on the Rebel, I had this sudden irrational fear of creating road kill. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, querying the Rebel board about it, and even practicing swerving (which isn't the best thing to do). But, I never had an incident and I got over it. Running over small animals with my car seriously creeps me out. On the bike I think it would be even worse. What if it bounces up and hits me? What if I hit it just right (wrong?) and stuff squirts out? The thought of it creeps me out. And suddenly I was faced with it. The squirrel did as squirrels do, it ran across the road, got almost all the way across and then decided to turn around and head back to where it came from... right in front, or under, my GS. Maybe it was because I'd recently taken that MSF class, but I kept my eyes up and looked straight ahead, didn't slow too much, definitely didn't hit the brakes, and just kept going. I don't think I hit it. I didn't see it in the mirrors. There wasn't a bump or anything either. It may have run right between my wheels. I was creeped out for the rest of the ride. But, then I shook it off - literally - and was better.

I've also seen a couple of large elk herds on the way home a couple of times. They were hanging out right off of highway 93. I didn't see them right away either, which isn't good. But, they weren't in a good spot for me to pull over and get a photo either. Elk are quite large. They are also very cool. :-)

Speaking of my MSF rider course, I got to use an avoidance maneuver we practiced in the class. The situation reminded me of tbolt's unfortunate get off. I was merging onto 28th Avenue where it stops being Hwy 36 (going from 60mph to 35mph in a short space). There were merging cars ahead of me and traffic slowing on the road to allow us to merge. The car ahead of me was moving slowly but steadily to merge. I checked my mirror and then did a head check. When I looked back, the car ahead of me had nearly stopped and the gap between us was closing. Seemingly without thinking about it, I pressed right to swerve around the back end, and hit the throttle to go ahead of him. There was plenty of room to do this maneuver since I was still in the merge lane. I didn't even blink as I executed the move and settled back into traffic. When I got to work, I was nearly there at this point, I realized I'd successfully put into practice what I learned in class. It was a good feeling.

Shiny side up everyone!