Yes, Deer

Wow, fast week, some more from the sporadic diary:

 

Rode Monday night at Sals. The last few times I was out the bike felt a little funny, but Monday I adjusted my rebound damping and -- voilà! -- everything seems fine again, awesome in fact. A the top of the entrance climb (I ride from home and come in at Reeb) I came face-to-face with a young deer, most likely a doe, running along the red trail. She stopped just a bit ahead of me, but kept looking back over her shoulder. Not panicked or anything, just checking, but she wouldn't leave the trail or run away from me. About a minute later, I heard a jingling up the hill, and eventually some guy came jogging around the bend of the Upper Orange with his dog, and as soon we were all in front of her the doe took off. It set the tone for a very pleasant ride.

 

Tuesday I went over to Southside and got a haircut at Eskandalo, then met Anne and the gang at Home and Planet for the South Side Film Festival's opening... festivities. We ducked out a little before the parade to get good seats over at the venue, and enjoyed two awesome movies. The first was an animated short called "Tord and Tord," and it was cute, but the feature film was something amazing called "Africa United," the story of a bunch of kids who basically hitch-hiked from Rwanda to the World Cup in South Africa, dodging authorities and warlords and various jungle perils along the way. I half expected it to be a bit lame, but it was an amazing story, and well told.

 

After that we biked back over to Brew Works and, since it was National Bourbon day, we each tried a bourbon drink. I had mine on the rocks and it was very, very good...

 

Yesterday I rode at Lehigh, alone though I did see the VMB crew at one point -- I'd started an hour after they did, and I was just beginning while they were somewhat near the end of their ride, so I went my own way, through this and that, Crazy Bones, yadda yadda, my usual route except that when I got to the top of ONO Hill I took the shortcut trail to the left. Home just before dark, cold sesame noodles and super-spicy eggplant, some more Iron Council, and then to bed.

 

(I saw another young deer on the ride, this time browsing the campus landscaping. Practically domesticated, it didn't leave until I was almost on top of it. Anne was riding the towpath with Deb, and they saw a young buck, just hanging out near Charley Brown Clearing. This must be the season for half-tame deer sightings.)

 

I have off tomorrow. This weekend is another wedding, this time in Ithaca and we're bringing the road bikes -- we're making our trip a mini-vacation, and there's good MTB in the area but the road riding is spectacular, and we only have room for two bikes... The Turner's drivetrain has some issues, I may take this opportunity to get some work done.