When I rode my bicycle out in the Central Valley of California, I always had to keep my eyes open for ground squirrels.
Those big, fat suckers would hang out in the shade of a haystack at a roadside dairyfarm, then kick up a small cloud of dust as they scampered across the road. It was always the squirrel's agility, not my bike handling skills, that averted disaster.
A 61-year-old wasn't so lucky. In spite of four transAmerica bike trips, Anthony Ricupero lost his first squirrel vs. bike tangle last weekend on a club ride near Greenwich, Conn.
No feeling
Darting out from the side of the road, the squirrel got caught in the front wheel spokes and Ricupero did a header onto the road over the handlebars. A scary few minutes followed, according to the Greenwich Time:
Ricupero said he lost all feeling in his body for several minutes while lying on the roadway.
“Slowly, feeling started coming back,” he said. “You start seeing the finger wiggle and you say 'Thank God.' “
Helmet
Ricupero is scheduled for back surgery to repair a vertabrae that's pinching a nerve and will have to wear a back brace. He said that luckily he was wearing a helmet.
As for the squirrel, his buddies pried it out of the spokes.
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