Myth Confirmed

Back during my time in Sacramento, I had gotten to the point of biking from 10 to 15 miles a day.  And back then I had a portable cassette player.  At this point is was probably an Aiwa.  And the best music In had found for a good constant pace was the soundtrack called “Songs from the Cool World”.  It became the soundtrack of my rides.  Now when I hear music from that album I immediately go to my time on the American River trail.

The only time I regretted having my music on was once when two cyclists coming toward me shouted something, that I couldn’t understand because of the music and headphones.  then I came around a curve and there across the pavement was a snake.

That’s when your brain goes into overdrive.  I quickly assessed which end was the head and which the tail (I saw a small rattle), and steered myself to pass behind it.  As I went passed it, the snake turned and actually struck at me.  I see it all in slow motion as my foot comes down on the stroke and the head is coming towards it.  I see the fangs, and I pump that much harder to get by unscathed.  And I did, but I had quite the clip going at that point.

Looking back I still can’t really understand the people coming at me, but while I thought they might have been shouting, “Pig!” (where was my mind?) they were surely shouting, “Snake!”

I was pretty shook up the rest of the day.  I had to work that day as a teller at Wells Fargo, and told everyone at the branch my story.  One guy said from the size and length (maybe 4 feet long), and the way it acted, it was probably a young rattler.

So for some reason this was all with me today as I went for a ride today.  No snakes today, and all dogs and children encountered were well behaved and under control.  But today I was testing something.

A few months ago I came across this on the internet:

So today, my music of choice was the soundtrack to “Tron: Legacy” by Daft Punk.

Now, unfortunately the whole soundtrack isn’t fast paced, but when the right stuff comes on, the above graphic is definitely true.