bike path vampires, or, what to worry about when the Roaming Larcenous Telepath threat level is low
One of the awesomer things about my new apartment is its proximity to the bike path. When I tell other grad students where I live, they often exclaim, aghast, that it’s “so far!” It’s really not. It’s less than three miles from where I work and I can bike it in about 15 minutes. I am told that the city of Madison has special snowplows specifically for the bike paths, so I should be able to commute without too much difficulty throughout the winter.
Also, I’ve discovered that in my new location, I am much closer to places that were always a pain to reach before, like, say, real grocery stores (Capitol City Foods so, SO does not count, no matter what they told the new post-doc about living downtown). There’s even a Sally Beauty within about two miles, so I can keep stocked up on my many grooming supplies.* And finally, the bike path is in WAY better shape than most of the roads around here, so it’s a nice smooth ride when I can keep to it.
At night, however, when it is cold and there are still puddles everywhere although at least it’s finally stopped raining, and the bike path is really, REALLY dark, it is kind of scary (although there are reflectors along the edge whenever it curves at all). Naturally, all I could think about the whole way home was vampires, and how even a very small and weak vampire could definitely overtake a bicycle, and how crashing into a vampire on your bicycle is probably not covered by renter’s insurance** (although actually, it seems pretty obvious that the curséd undead should not count as “Act of God”).
What I really should have been worried about was rabbits, which were a) everywhere and b) apparently very depressed. One of them ran back and forth across the path in front of me like three times–I want to die! Wait, no! Yes! No!–and another one paced me alongside the path for a nerve-wracking minute during which I was sure he was going to leap under my front wheel at any moment. Carly recently mentioned the current plague of insane Madison chipmunks, but I’ve mostly just seen the rabbits, and a few squirrels–although I did see a squashed chipmunk on Tokay this weekend. I assume it was hit by a car rather than a bike.
Perhaps these particular suicide rabbits thought I was some kind of strange cycling rabbit robot, based on the placement of my back light. It is red and sort of triangular with clipped off corners, and I used to clip it to my backpack when I biked in the dark but now that I have panniers, I don’t ride with a backpack anymore.*** Anyway, the light could be mounted on my rear rack, if I had the mount for it, but I have no idea where it went and I haven’t gotten to the bike shop to ask them to rig something up yet. Consequently, when I ride after dark I have to clip the light to the back of my pants, where it blinks merrily in case anyone was in danger of missing my butt. Fortunately, I never looked that dignified to begin with.
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*Developer, activating powder, lightener–you need all three of the preceding to make bleach–color-protective shampoo, color-sealing treatment, color-protective conditioner, super moisturizing hair masque conditioner, special protein serum to mend breakage… I don’t just wake up with beautiful, effortless pink hair, dear reader.
**I have friends who do not have renter’s insurance. They will be sorry when vampires burn down their apartments and/or bite passersby on the front steps.+
***Although my back still hurts. Tomorrow I am going to the chiropractor, hooray!
+Renter’s insurance includes liability.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:54 am
Cabell, a very small and weak vampire would not dare to mess with you. Probably even a medium-sized one would have doubts. Aren’t you nearly one of their own, anyway? There’s the garlic thing, and the pale complexion… I’m sure you could make out a convincing case before you got bitten.
Talking of suicidal rabbits, you are not the first to have noticed this tendency.
September 11th, 2007 at 8:46 am
The Southwest Trail is moderately scary at night, but the Capitol City Trail is super scary at night. A lot of it is through woods and is twisty and turny and has no reflectors. I’m not so much afraid of vampires as I am of trees.
Re: rabbits. Usually I just see them running along side the trail, darting halfway to the side of it then shooting off the other way. I haven’t actually seen any cross the trail. Hm.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:34 am
The SW path is, indeed, kept reasonably clear through the winter, though depending on what you have to do to get to the path, the same can’t be said for the surrounding neighborhood streets — plowing quality varies widely on the minor streets, and even through streets like Gregory are sloppy a lot of the time. Use the effects of the sidewalk-clearing ordinance to your advantage.
The city of Madison does have a long-range plan to light the SW path, though the target completion date isn’t until late ‘10. In the meanwhile, I’d picked up a second headlight to increase the probability of seeing the crazy critters before running ‘em down.