Two Wheel Tuesday: I've Got Yer Thorns

Git yer thorns here, git yer thorns! Those things have been the bane of every local cyclist that I know of this year, but if you have not had your fill of them or have, somehow, managed to evade them, fear not for I have got some thorns for you.

Ya hear? I've got yer thorns, I say.

I have picked them up both, in the rubber hoops on the Ibis, as well as the bigger, knobbier tires of the mtb, compelling me to replace the sealant in the front and add it to the rear of the latter (which is quite enough, thank you), but man, oh man, did I strike the mother lode tonight. I tell you, I had absolutely no success in avoid them.

You know who is expert at avoiding them? Rabbit, that's who. Once Coyote was hunting Rabbit out in the desert, chasing him over rocks, down gullies and around the cacti - sounds a lot like a good mountain bike ride, doesn't it! Anyway, eventually Rabbit, in full flight, ran into a thicket of brambles and Coyote, unable to stop in time, found himself painfully entangled in Rabbit's thorny shelter.

Adding insult to injury, with Coyote howling in pain, Rabbit came right back through the thorns as if they didn't exist, mocking Coyote, "well, Coyote, I won't be your meal today. Before you think about putting me, or my kin, in your belly, you might think about how you are not so smart as to be tricked yourself. Tomorrow, I may trick you into stepping into a gopher hole to break your leg. Or maybe..." Rabbit jumped away just as Coyote's jaws chomped down right where he had been standing. Coyote yelped in pain yet again, having bit down on a bramble and pushing a thorn right through his lip. Rabbit continued to mock him as he casually loped away: "You still do not learn, Coyote. Enjoy your dinner of thorns; I hope they are not too spicy. If you chew slowly, perhaps you may acquire a taste for thorns." (from the story, The Coyote and the Eagle, in The Stories of My Grandfather and Beyond)

Once back at the brewery, I started making a collection of the thorns I pulled from my tires, counting sixteen, with that many again little spots of sealant where others had broken free at some earlier point. I am as sure as I can be that every single one of them came from that semi-paved, semi-dirt side path / road next to the access road that takes you to the Norm's Hangar parking lot - I would avoid it, for a while, if I were you. Of course I also may have swept it clean all by myself.