Quote Originally Posted by Aggie_Ama View Post
My biggest fears are finally seeing a rattlesnake, then crashing...
That actually happened to me about 10 years ago! It was my most frightening moment MTBing alone. I was going up a long fire road climb in the summer heat, just zoned out. It was after an el-nino winter so it was really rutted except for the right side which was on the high side of the hillside, with a lot of dried foot tall grass. Just the right place for a rattler to doze off, but I was not thinking of that. I was really not thinking about anything except the smoothest part of the trail and the heat.

Next thing I knew, was this motion and scraping sound on my right about next to my front tire. Too late to do anything except pedal faster. Time then took a real dive. I had plenty of time to think about everything I was doing. Speed up, look back. What's that? Big mouth. BIG MOUTH gonna get caught in my rear spokes! Two sails. Not teeth. They look like skin sails. Missed me missed the bike pedal faster oh crap in a rut- down I go. Maybe a few seconds but forever. I sat up and realized that the rattler was a few feet behind my bike, which was between me and it. It was rattling away very loud. Now for the weird part. It then decided that it did not like being hemmed in on the high side, so it crossed the trail just behind my bike, maybe 10 feet from me as I sat there. The whole time it was rattling and turning it's head towards me. Very pissed off snake. I got a real good look at it- it was around 6~7 feet long- and very big in the middle. It curled up under a bush on the edge of low side and kept rattling. I got up and could not believe my luck, the rattler must have been spooked by me and was not in a good position to strike. Lucky me.

I had to wait for a while, about 10 minutes, hoping it would stop rattling and go away as the trail is used by horse riders and mtb'ers and I just didn't want to leave a pissed snake on the side of the road. Finally it stopped, and I thought it was ok so took one step towards my bike but it began rattling again! I was about 30 ft away by then, it was still pissed! I warned a few mtb'ers who came by and it rattled away as they passed. 20 more minutes later I finally left.