Mountain Biker Admits Running Over Snakes

From:
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:13:42 -0700

I ran over a small diamondback once. It was OK -- I stopped and
watched it crawl away.Usually I have time to bunny hop or swing
around them. During snake season, which is now in full bloom, I often
see two or three rattlesnakes on one ride. I've seen them combat
dancing, sleeping coiled in the trail (they love to burrrow into the
loose dirt so they are half-buried during the cool of night and
morning) and stretched across the trail. I once caught a front tire
on a rock while braking for a three-foot Diamondback, went OTB and
landed on my chest. I closed my eyes on impact and when I opened them
the snake's head was maybe two inches away from my left eye, so close
it was blurry. I flopped out of the way in a nanosecond, and it never
even backed into a coil. Luck or karma, perhaps, (I am a vociferous
opponent of the idiots who think they need to be killed) but most
likely the fact that they rely on camouflage as their primary
defense, and movement compromises it. Or it could have been too busy
laughing silent little snake laughs at the idiot who fell off his
bike.


So yeah, occasionally we may run over a snake, but I don't know that
the overal environmental impact is any greater than the pollution a
hiker puts into the air driving to a trailhead.


--mark


On 12 Mar 2007 at 11:11, Shelley Potts wrote:


Do folks out there really ride over the occasional snake!?! I've personally
never come across such a situation. Does it happen often!? As a side note,
I have a major snake phobia so I think I'd shudder w/ heebie jeebies if I
ran over a snake! *blech*!!
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande