What is the thing you see most on your rides?

[SnappyPix]

Long time, no see Snappy. How's things?


I do miss seeing pineneedles and sand and the sea and stuff.

Hey tlkiwi, things here are shweeeet! Due to circumstances, have moved from North Shore to Central Auckland, so traffic dodging at the moment & heading for the country as much as I can! Worryingly, have slowly fallen in love with your homeland. This was NOT supposed to happen!!
V.excited at the moment as all trained up for the Hamilton to Auckland 100km on Sunday - my first major race, and with up to 3000 participants, I can't wait!!!!
Are you enjoying London? I sense you pining for the tracks and trails of home?

Sorry don't mean to hijack this thread, or go OT.

[DirtDiva]

London is going well. It's a wonderfully diverse place with masses to see and do, but I will cop to missing the scenery at home more than I meant to. It's pretty hard on a lovely summer evening when you can't just call up one of your friends and pile in someone's car and head for the beach. *sigh* There's not that many places in the world where you can be in the ocean in 20mins or up in the mountains taking your first run of the day in 2hrs. What can I say, there's lots of places I'd like to live, but I'll always. be a Kiwi!

[bikerHen]

Banana peels! I am amazed at how many banana peels people throw from the car window. On my short ride to work, six miles, I have sometimes counted up to ten banana peels and that's just on my side of the road! Right now, with every major and some minor routes in north Spokane at some stage of road construction, gravel is my biggest pet peeve. I'm almost to the point of pulling out the comfort bike just for the saftey of the wider tires. When I do head out into the countryside its pine trees and lots of white tail deer. You can image how much fun deer are when they dart out in front of you! But since most of my everyday riding seems to be in town its cars, cars and more cars! Bikerhen

[SnappyPix]

BikerHen - that is so weird! After reading the post this morning, I went out for a ride along the bays. As I was pedalling along in my happy place, it suddenly came to me - banana peels, "I should have said banana peels"!!
I swear to god that one day I'll slip on one, and then won't I feel stupid?!

tlkiwi - I'm sure I heard somewhere that the average Kiwi lives no more than 40km from the ocean. How cool is that?!!

[ladyjai]

sun, asphalt, glass, cars and trucks. buildings and landscaping designed to make it either look like not a desert, or take advantage of desert plants.

when i vary my routes to include climbing: quail, cottontails, lizards, and moving bushes/shrubs, and our lovely mountains, sajuaro, and brownish shrubs/trees.

occassionally, other riders!

[JanT]

Road: looking up: mountains, sky, lots of friendly bikers; down: glass, gravel.
Mountain: cholla balls, rocks, quail, kangaroo rats, cottontail and jack rabbits, turkey vultures, and rarely other humans (I know some secret places!)

[SadieKate]

I thought yellow was going to post here and say that she was even seeing roots and sand in her dreams.

[SalsaMTB]

Mountain: Dirt, trees, deer, squirrels, roots, and massive webs coverng entire branches (fall webworm I think)...yuck!

The other day while mountain biking I saved a chipmunk. A hawk and just came down to get the poor fellow and got freaked out when I turned the corner. The hawk and chipmunk fled in seperate directions.


Road: Cars, trees, tons of dead/dying trees (caused by emerald ash borer, such a sad site to see) grass, and lots of badgers (or something that resembles a badger)

[DirtDiva]

Personally, Corsair, I'd have blamed it on my brother. Heck, it might have even actually been his fault when we were kids - we weren't exactly nice to each other sometimes.

tlkiwi - I'm sure I heard somewhere that the average Kiwi lives no more than 40km from the ocean. How cool is that?!!

The furthest place from the sea (as the crow flies) in NZ is right by the lake in Cromwell.

[maggieH]

Mostly farms: corn, soybeans, blueberries, cranberry bogs, & turf farms. Lots of horses, no cows. Sheep on two fields, goats on one. On weekends I see one field being used for dog-training classes. Housing developments: McMansions where there were cornfields last year and also historic mills and houses dating back to the 1700's. There's a llama farm next door to our development and wild turkeys come into our development. Small airports: Sometimes I lead a 16-mile "three airport ride." On longer rides I'm in the Pine Barrens. Overhead: Helicopters, small planes, airliners, and military planes from McGuire. Not much traffic on my routes, plenty of bikers going much faster than I ride.

In one of the towns, there was a wild turkey that would come out of the woods behind a house and chase bikers. It was funny being chased a quarter of a mile by a turkey and I always looked forward to seeing him. One day when he was missing there was a lady on the sidewalk, "No turkey today?" I asked as I rode by. "They killed him, number 33." she replied. There's a house by that number across the street and down a ways, and I inferred she was angry about the avicide.

[RoadRaven]

tlkiwi - I'm sure I heard somewhere that the average Kiwi lives no more than 40km from the ocean. How cool is that?!!

The furthest place from the sea (as the crow flies) in NZ is right by the lake in Cromwell.

Mmm... have to plug Middle Earth... love it here... I am 10 mins from the first of three rivers near me... 35 mins drive from the ocean, and 25 mins drive from the forest and mountains... 2 hours drive from "Mt Doom" (Lake Taupo and the ski slopes)
Its a wonderful place to live

[kestrel]

- crazy little squirrels that can't decide if they want to cross your path or not

- gopher snakes crossing the path/road (a lady in a SUV safely stopped traffic and escorted/carried the huge snake off the road.. kudos to her!)

- little birdies harassing the crazy little squirrels

- those damn guys in their little green Velo wear

For awhile, I *swear* the same guy was lapping me on Old La Honda road.. I know that I'm slow, but thinking that I've been lapped 3 times was demoralizing. Apparently there are *hoards* of people wearing the same jersey.

- those friendly of guys in their Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club wear

- tandems! i love watching tandem teams!

[shewhobikes]

you won't believe what we see. Just today:

Great church signs. As in, "Without the bread of life, you're toast."

Hay bales, appaloosa horses, signs for Lickskillet Road and Bachelor Ave, houses from the early 1900s made entirely of stone with tin roofs and plastic flowers rooted by the mailbox,

a white t-shirt with black letters that said "God Has Been So Good to Me" draped over a fence,

mist rising over a lake with dogwoods on the banks turning red,

the ususal road kill--squirrels, possums, an occasional turtle, unidentifiable squashed furry things,

a big herd of cows headed at a trot toward a pickup (dinner time!) followed by a huge flock of those white cow birds, whatever they are,

a house with icicle lights hanging across the front and a halloween skeleton hanging on the door.

I promise, we're not all rednecks. But when you get out in the country, this is what you see!