Pedestrians

Never overestimate the alertness or intelligence of the bike
path pedestrian.

Last week I had two fun encounters.

The first one, a young lady was walking her dawg on a leash,
and was standing in front of a small opening in a log fence
leading to the park and the bike trail. I hollar 'bike', and
proceed to the opening. Her dog leash is on the ground, but
she's on one side of the opening, and doggie is on the other.
She tenses up when I holler 'bike', stretching the leash taut,
and looks dazed and confused. At this point I'm in full pedal
for the opening. She tries frantically to reel said pooch back
to her, and poochie, of course, struggles to go the other way.

Sheesh. Finally when collision seems imminent, light dawns and
she steps -into- my path heading towards the dog. Huh? What
timing, what panache. I barely miss her, have to jump off the
pedals, and flintstone, and manage to squeek by narroly missing
getting impaled on the wooden fence.

Earlier, on a narrowed section of the woods trail, due to the
hanging debris from H. Isabel, I see a mother with three small
children. I holler 'bike'. She turns to see me coming, she and
her brood being about 3-4 feet from the narrowed opening.

Does she wait a second or two for me to get by? No! She gets
confused and ushers her brood into the opening, as though the
gates of heaven are closing for last call, and as I get about 6
feet from her, she gets in the opening as well, and turns to
look at me, presumably to see me sail off into the shrubbery.

Realizing that two objects can't occupy the same space, I
flintstone again, and get entangled in the brush. At which
point, she says 'oh, sorry'.

I'm thinking I need an air horn, a bell, a grappling hook, a
boxing glove on a spring and a cow-catcher attachment on the
trail bike.

Just another fun aspect of trail biking! ;-)

Instead of muttering obscenities at the pedestrians with no
earthly clue, I think from now on I might get an air horn and
honk it at them when they say 'oh, sorry', and follow it up
with a smile and a slightly startled look: 'oh, no problem,
oops, sorry, that pesky airhorn keeps going off by itself'. ;-P

-B

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