Bella Bites Again!

It rained some more today, but I was undeterred. I have a fendered single speed for just such occasions.

I don't often ride in the rain, mostly because it is relatively rare here. The rain comes hard and fast, and then clears off. But it has rained sporadicly Friday, very hard all night and then it was light rain all day today. (More than 4 and one half inches at dusk today by my rain gauge.) But while I rarely ride in the rain, most of my crashes have occurred in wet conditions. [1] I therefor never ride in the rain without my helmet. [2]

I hadn't been on this bike since I my rear-wheel spoke needed to be fixed, (July?) so I was making adjustments as I left the house- lower handlebars, so more weight on my hands. Shorter cranks, so my feet make smaller circles, stuff like that.

I ride up toward Bud and Bella's house, and a gang of five dogs hanging around spot me from afar. When I rode up, they are waiting in the road for me. I am concerned that one of them will dash under a wheel and take me down. Bella is great fun when it is just her and Bud. In those situations, she is content to just have a good run.

But she is a different dog in a pack. She is aggressive. I am convinced it has to do with wolf-pack hierarchy and status. She feels compelled to be the dominant one. So I am focused on her.

Bella comes at me from my front right and the rest are milling about. Bella leaps up and attempts to bite my hand or arm. She misses but catches my my handlebar instead. This precipitates a diversion style fall: My bicycle goes right, and I continue straight and down, rolling on my forearm-shoulder-back.

This all played out at a rather slow speed, so I am unhurt, but gee whiz! I climb back on my bike after adjusting the brake handle to it's proper position, and continue on, slinging ammonia at any dog that comes near. Within moments, the incident is out of my thoughts, and I have a nice trip to town.

I have made a habit of favoring a longer route to town because it has smoother roads, but it also has three railroad crossings, two of which are at a steep angle. I avoid that way in the wet. No need to tempt fate on wet train tracks! So I return back the way I came.

This time, I wasn't spotted as soon, but not so late that I can get a lead on them. Bella crosses the road in front of me and again attacks on my right side. I maneuver away and fling ammonia at her, but I miss, as does she. She crosses behind me while I avoid other dogs in front of me, and the distraction prevents me from switching hands on the ammonia bottle. Bella comes up behind me on my left and she bites my left leg and pulls me down. (I crash.) I am again doing the forearm-shoulder roll on the same side, but this time I get to use the groceries in my messenger bag to cushion part of the fall! (None of the eggs broke, imagine that!)

Picture the scene: Five barking dogs running every which way in the rain; A crazed and bleeding cyclist splashing through puddles in his cleats, chasing Bella across her yard to home; Four of Bella's people yelling at the dogs and running every which way trying to corral them... Whoo-wee we had us a ruckus!

After I came to my senses, and I had checked my bicycle for damage and peeked at the eggs, Bella's folks provided medical care. (We decided not to wait for Obama to provide it for us) They ruined some great pictures by being nice and cleaning up most of the blood.

WARNING! Photos of Bella's loving caresses follow this announcement. Be advised that ChipSeal took these pictures of himself while in the shower! (YIKES!) Yes, my dear readers, both of you have been warned: Yet more body part photos.[3]

To help orient you, Bella's nose is on my shin side, and her lower mandible was on my calf side.





The calf wounds are simple puncture injuries, but not as deep as the shin injury, where the punctures are deeper and there is a bit of tearing from the twisting movements caused by the dynamics of our motions at the moment of the bite.





While these photos are dramatic, and the wounds gory, they are not very painful, and I am not very concerned about them. I think the blood stained socks makes for a great "war story"! It is said that puncture wounds are the most prone to infection, But it bled freely and hydrogen peroxide was liberally applied within minutes of the injury. I don't think professional medical care would be able to do much more. I am more concerned that Bella will get sick from biting me!



This next photo is included purely as an ego shot, as I remembered to flex my calf muscle before taking it. How 'bout them guns, eh?



So those are the facts. Now to the judgment. Going forward, I need to be more cautious if Bella is out with friends. I am grieved that Bella will lose her freedom over this, as her kennel will soon become more secure. I hope Bella will be allowed to freely roam if the other dogs are penned up for a while- sort of a rotational thing.

As I pointed out in the first post about Bella's bites, we had three or four runs a week for more than a year when she was content to just run alongside the road enjoying the "chase". It is the wolf-pack dynamics in the presence of other dogs that seems to bring out her aggressiveness.

And now to classification. I had two crashes today. In the rain. The first one was a wee bit over the average of miles between crashes, and the second was considerably shorter than average. (I crash about once every 1,500 miles) The averages are a bit misleading though, as this is the second time two of them occurred on the same day- Although on that other day only one of them was in the rain!

Until today, all of my crashes that happened in the rain were because of the wet conditions. (And my failure to adjust how I operated my vehicle in those conditions.)
Ain't statistics fun?

Oddly, in both crashes, I fell in the exact same way, breaking my fall in a safe and controlled way, without thought. Perhaps in doing it just once I would not even be bruised, it was so smooth. (After the first crash I remember being annoyed that my left sleeve was now covered in road grime. I didn't think I had been hurt at all.) But pull that move twice and you feel it the second time!

My helmet has no scrapes that show it was needed, but because the event was not observed by a scientist, we cannot claim it as evidence for anything.

With that observation, I close this chapter of ChipSeal's real life adventures in Texas. I would hope the next chapter is not so dramatic. Please!

[1] I count it a crash when I hit the pavement. I exclude, however, clip out failure type falls from the tally. Those aren't crashes, they are just amusing entertainment for onlookers.

[2] I do not regard cycling in the rain inherently dangerous. I think that I ride in a dangerous manner in the rain. Nearly all of my wet weather crashes are due to my not adjusting for the conditions while turning. I am good at allowing for a greater stopping distance, so that hasn't been a problem.

[3] It is becoming ever more clear to me why fashion models earn the kind of money they do. My body is in no way photogenic!

More Photos of Body Parts!

I am not one to stand in the way of some popular trends. (Though this one is probably mis-guided.) I present you with another edition of Selected Blogger Body Parts!

We have all enjoyed Keri's feet, Rantwick's butt, Steve's foot/farmer tan and the handsome portion of PM's face.

And this time, in the true spirit of ego blogging, I present to you a dog bite in process of healing, or a scar wanna-be:

 

Oh for crying out loud! As you can plainly see, I am as inept at this photo upload stuff as Steve is with his video camera! (HERE) This shouldn't have come up in my "dog bite" search, because she is such a sweetie.

That right there is a picture of the boss of me, Shawlee the lazy dog. She is so lazy she leans up against the house when she barks! She and I take long walks in the fields around here; She annoys the bunny population and I feed the mosquitoes. (I wouldn't slander her like this to her face, mind you, but I have it on good authority that she doesn't read my blog.)

I'm not really sure how I got her on here... Let's try again... Here goes nothin'!

For your viewing pleasure, I present to you a dog bite in process of healing, or a scar wanna-be:

 

Gosh darn it! That's the the one taken the day after I got bitten. Giving it another try... (ChipSeal grunts with effort)

I present to you a dog bite in process of healing, or a scar wanna-be:

 

At last! Owww! (I think I pulled a muscle patting myself on the back.)

Now of course, this is truly ego blogging. If you had any idea how many pictures I took to get that shot! I got the late afternoon sun, a good flex going to show off my muscles, six or seven different angles, sixteen or so shots from each angle- Oh yeah! Ego blogging for sure!

But when I slow down to consider the marvelous way the healing process takes place. It must be a vastly complex process. Have we ever made a machine that can heal its self?

I have to wonder where the information comes from. Not just the raw information held in the genetic code, but how such data is transmitted. The vast amount of data available is just a part of it, the data must be "read" on a cellular level too.

A lot of information can be transmitted by Morse code, for example, but unless you can understand the language, it is meaningless to you. How could such a complex language be developed by chance? It seems to me it must take a lot of faith to believe such an implausible notion.

Ego Blogging

Ego blogging: Showing off my stuff. You will probably not find any of this interesting, which is why I have put off doing such rot. Let's see if I can make it a bit more interesting. I will not be showing any photos of my butt. I am not Rantwick after all!

 

The above and below photographs are of my fendered single speed Redline 9 2 5. This is my backup bike so I can get around when I break a spoke on my other bike, and the one I crash... er, ride on in stormy weather. There is a red side and a white side. Both colors are made by applying reflective tape. Remember, it is area that is important!

 

 

 

The bridges above are two of the three on Novy Road. It is both scenic and charming but poorly surfaced. The third bridge is quite similar to these two.

Below is my road bike. It is a 2007 Giant OCR C zero carbon fiber full Dura Ace equipped 30 speed. I have 10,100 miles on it and I am swiftly closing in on fifty cents a mile cost! I keep lead weights in the seat bag just to keep it from floating away. I rarely lock it, preferring to take it with me into restaurants and stores.


 

The "white accents" on the forks and stays is reflective SOLAS tape. The water bottle is one third filled with custom dog repellent.

 

 

Since it has come to my attention that I may have slandered the Ellis County road maintenance department, I am posting some photos of other roads in my area. Above is Central High Road, showing it's charming bridge and then a shot looking away from the bridge.

Below is FM 879. FM stands for Farm to Market. It indicates it has met certain design standards and can support heavy truck traffic. If I am in error about this, I am sure PM will set me straight and I will announce the correction. Behind the camera it is 35 MPH and the pictured part has just changed to 55 MPH.

 

This is more of FM 879. Rolling hills, very rough chip-seal surface, with the worst area between the two tire tracks. Between here and the far-off distance there are three dogs spaced out along there who like to run with me when I come by.

 

Below is North Main. This road collects all the bike riders between Palmer and Ennis. It is lightly traveled because I-45 is about a mile to the east and running parallel. The surface is smooth, but there are a few sections that have a lot of damage. Two railroad spurs come off the rail line to the left of the photo, that cross North Main at a bad angle. Both these factors cause me to avoid this road at night and in the rain.

 

Another Real Life Adventure...

Keri Caffrey seeks to ride on shaded boulevards when she can on hot days. Here in Texas, I try to have the earth provide my shade- I set out on my errand at 10:30 PM local time!

To explain how I happened on this adventure I need to start at the beginning. Not the very beginning, but a more recent one. Eleven days ago, on the twelfth, I set out on an exploratory bike ride that would take me down eight to ten miles of unpaved roads to the east of Lake Bardwell. It is not unusual for me to find myself riding on dirt roads.

A few miles after I set out, I broke a spoke on my rear wheel, and it ended that ride. I am riding on a Mavic Ksyrium SL wheel set with those fancy "bladed" spokes. I have been very happy with them. When the spoke failed, I had 9996.4* miles on them, and they were as true as the first day I rode them, in spite of the hundreds of gravel road miles I have subjected them to.

The broken spoke put such a wobble on the wheel that it necessitated my backing the brake out as far as it would go. So until I get my wheel back from my LBS I have been getting about on my fendered single-speed. I purchased it to be a backup and foul weather bike.

So last night I set out to take some recyclable junk to town and pick up some groceries and dog food and a few odds and ends. Thirteen miles round trip.

I am on the way back, with about 20 pounds or so of loot in my messenger bag, near midnight. It is very quiet as I am headed out of town. (But I am still in the town proper.) I chose this route because it has good road surfaces. I don't want to hit potholes in the dark! When the adventure starts, I am zooming down the speediest part of the trip home. I am going at least 21 MPH because I have spun my cadence past the maximum and I am forced to coast.

I spot movement on the road ahead in the shadows- A loose dog? I'm not sure... It might be. It is the size of a large dog perhaps. This is scary. Something is moving around in the road ahead, and I am approaching it at what now seems a VERY high rate of speed- and on my quiet bike it may not even know that I am coming! I am very afraid of hitting an animal- it could startle and run into my path!

In the past, I have tried various noises to alert wildlife that I am bearing down on them, so they can retreat to safety without a collision. I've tried clicking as one would for horses, whistles, and shouts, all without consistent positive results. On a BikeForums.net thread, someone had suggested "barking" as an alert, as most animals recognize that as a warning/alarm. And that is what I did.

The coyote, in the oncoming lane of this two lane shoulderless road, perceived me at about the moment I "barked". He/she panicked, spun around, ran diagonally across the road in front of me to disappear into the yard on my right. Whew, missed me by that much!

I think I am more at risk of hitting an animal than I am of being hit by automobiles, either during the day or at night. Even the local coyotes seem to be car-centric!

*I religiously log my miles at BikeJournal.com under the user name BornInZion.

From Dog Bait to Chew Toy

I'd like you to meet Bud and Bella. Bud is a good friend of mine, and Bella, well, not so much. This is Bella. ---->

On this lonely Texas road near my house, I pass by the home of Bud and Bella whenever I take the short route to town. With a 55 MPH speed limit here, they don't chase cars. But it's game on! when a lone cyclist comes over the rise!

What excitement! What joy! Let's go for a run!

Bud loves the chase, and he has never threatened to bite me. He can run 24 MPH according to my computer. I can give him a run for the money if I am not fighting a headwind. We have a great time either way!

Sadly, Bella wanted more than a good run today. For months and months she has been content to just join Bud in a good run. Last week, she came in close to me and touched my leg with her nose, and I brushed her away with my hand.

Monday, (6-9-2009) to my surprise, she lunged and bit my knee. Some really good puncture wounds from her lower teeth. Ouch!

Being in a rural area, loose dogs are common. Nearly all of them will enjoy a harmless chase, with the cyclist a convenient rabbit. Some have a more sinister intent.

I like dogs. They are simple like me. I enjoy providing a highlight to their day. I make barking sounds at them. Sometimes, but only if I am protected by a fence, I call them pussy-cats. (They hate that!) I rarely have to discourage threatening behavior.

I carry a water bottle with me, and I keep ammonia in it. Only very dense dogs need more than two applications in their face to learn to keep their distance from me. For example, next door to Bud, there are two dogs that always observe my passage from the porch. They were very aggressive and would run into the road to attack me. One squirt of ammonia and they have lost any desire to get near me.

Further away though, there is this one aggressive dog that will always take a run at me if he is out. And he gets squirted every time! He backs off with just a whiff of the ammonia now though, but but he has taken ten in the face at least up to this point. Stubborn or stupid? It's hard to say.

I hope bella is a quick study. On the way home, Bella ran out at me again, and she got a good shot in the face. I last observed her wiping her face in some grass while Bud and I had a good run. I hope Bella will still come out to run, but keeping a more proper distance as well.

I could report all of the dogs I meet, and put a serious hurt on the homeowners, as Texas will force them to put up fences and euthanize any actual biters. I am reluctant to get a third party involved. For the very few problem dogs, ammonia seems to be effective and lasting deterrent. If I report Bella, then Bud will be confined as well, and I would miss him.

I spoke with Bella's owner on Wednesday, and they are as dismayed at Bella as I am. They allowed me to photograph Bella, but Bud would have none of it- he retreated under a shed and refused to come out. I will try again soon.

I will provide updates with edits to this post as events unfold. And a picture of Bud if I can manage it!