mean mountainbikers...

this mtb story forwarded through the spinman group had me in stitches today! being a (rather inactive) mtb-er myself, I can really relate to the crazy stuff that happens out there!

BIKE SPIDERS FROM HELL


By Don True

Remember the Cottonwood 200 Club Ride last Sunday? The route went out Sixty
First Street; down the big hill; through Dover and on to Council Grove. I
was doing my civic and biking duty by being a marshal at the top of the big
hill, just outside Dover. I was the guy handing you bananas and apples and
refilling your water bottles. It’s the bananas that caused the real
problem. I had heard that when bananas are shipped here from South America
that sometimes tarantulas slip into the packing crates and make it all the
way to market. And since the bike club buys bananas by the case for the
hungry hoard of bikers, I think that’s where the spider came from. As I was
sitting there on the water jugs he must have creep silently and slowly out
of the crate and into my rear jersey pockets. I just wish I had seen him
then.

As the last group of riders left the water point, up rode my buddy Jim the
“Animal”.

“Come on Don, let’s race into Dover for some power bars and granola.” “Gee
Jim,” I replied, “How healthy. How about a sausage biscuit with butter and
cheese on it and a greasy old egg thrown on top?” And with that I jumped on
my bike and got a 200-foot head start before he realized I had left. He may
have been slow to catch onto me leaving, but he hammered on his pedals and
caught me in about 10 seconds.

We were now racing downhill at about 35 mph when Jim yells over: “Stop
pedalling and hold real still. A big brown ugly spider is crawling up your
back.”

Suddenly I could feel eight little legs making their way up my spine. I
watched Jim slowly unfasten his Zefal frame pump, and gripping it like a
tennis racket he proceeded to hit the spider with his best back hand top
spin shot.

WHAP!

The pump made a dull thud of a sound as it hit me squarely across the back.
I was thrown forward from the force and my chest was crushed against my aero
bars. This opened up some stitches from a previous accident. I could only
moan and gasp for air as I swerved back and forth across the road.

The crafty spider had foreseen Jim’s mighty blow and scurried up my back and
now was perched on my left shoulder. In my peripheral vision, I could see a
venomous hairy brown creature about three inches in diameter, clinging onto
me for dear life. It had fangs about ½-inch long, and it looked to me like
poison venom was dripping profusely from them. Two little beady eyes looked
back into mine, and I swear, I saw his twisted brown lips smile at me.

In a sudden move he leaped off my shoulder and two razor sharp pinchers
claws caught my ear lobe and the spider dangled there. “JIMMMMM” I
screamed, as Jim took another back swing with his pump.

THONK!

Jim’s last blow hit me right up side the head. For a few seconds I was
seeing stars and a solar eclipse all at the same time. At 40 mph I started
to pass out and ride off the road, but Jim made a desperate grab at me and
managed to grasp the waistband on the back of my Lycra pants. He pulled
open a 2-inch gap between my waist and the pants and a rather large SPIDER
in distress dropped off my ear lobe and into my now open shorts.

In rapid-fire succession Jim pummelled me on the rear with several blows
from his Zefal. Seeing a 3-inch lump moving left and right under my shorts,
Jim would react with a new blow each time it moved. As we continued
speeding down the hill, I was becoming more afraid of my toothless crazed
good buddy Jim than I was of the tarantula.

It was a quiet Sunday morning as we blazed past the Dover Baptist Church at
the bottom of the hill. The Sunday service was just letting out. The
Pastor, in his best robes, was standing on the front steps still shaking
hands with his departing parishioners, who were now treated to the sight of
a person in terror, screaming profanity at the top of his lungs, while a
very large man, with no teeth, clad in pink lycra shorts, continued to beat
him about the rear with a large blunt object, while riding bicycles down the
street.

The spider finally had had enough of Jim’s poundings, as I pulled my bike to
the side of the road. He sank his venomous laden fangs into my flesh and I
gave out a cry that would wake the dead. All 150 pairs of eyes from the
Baptist congregation were now turned and riveted on me. In agony, I quickly
pulled down my shorts to get the creature out. I screamed at Jim that my
rear was on fire with burning pain. He abruptly grabbed his water bottle
and proceeded to squirt me with his grape Gatorade on my now bare naked
butt.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a small child run up to the pastor and I
heard him say: “Are those the sinners that you are always preaching about?”

Lying beside the road in pain, each and every Baptist drove by and shook
their heads. Several pointed Jim and me out to their children, as examples
of a life gone bad…