Nature is taking it’s toll on me. Just one day after nearly losing my life to nature’s most ferocious mammal, I suffered yet another fright. This one probably took a half dozen years off my life because it ended up being a two for one. As I elaborate on this story, I want you to really try to put yourself in my shoes and empathize with me. On a side note, I should point out that I’m terrified of spiders. So in true form, even if you’re not scared of spiders I want you to pretend that they’re the worst things in the world and then you’ll get a greater appreciation of this adventure.

So there I am driving my car down the road. I was in the midst of a mini-road trip that included 4 hours in the car. I had just gnoshed some carrots and needed some agua to wash down the reminents. I reached down to my waterbottle, grabbed said waterbottle (all the while diligently looking ahead at the highway passing in front of me at 73mph), brought the waterbottle to my mouth, and felt something inside my mouth. It felt much like straw or grass or lint on the mouthpiece between my lower front teeth and under my tongue. So I drew the waterbottle away from my mouth and my eyes peered down towards my hand which was clutching the waterbottle, which is precisely when I saw THE BIGGEST SPIDER I’VE SEEN IN YEARS!

As much as I’d like to say that I let out a manly guttural yell, I will defer to the truth and say that it was a terribly feminine ear-piercing shriek. The tarantula jumped into my lap then onto the floor and scurried quickly under my seat. I yanked hard on the steering wheel and pulled my car over to the side of the highway, quickly jumped out and looked frantically for the spider. Mind you, my car is fairly full with a whole plethora of junk for this road trip, so manipulating the seat position is not very easy, and I’m therefore not able to investigate very well where the spider is hiding… and probably laying eggs.

Allow me to explain the two main reasons why this is so scary for me:
1) Much like a shark to blood, a spider can smell fear.
2) While a bear’s kill-to-size ratio is frightening, a spider’s is astronomically higher. A spider is about one 17,000th the size of a bear and twice as lethal, so roughly 34,000 times deadlier than a bear.

Unable to find the spider and unhappy that I’m parked on a blind spot of the highway, I hesitantly got in the car and drove the remaining hour to my destination… thankfully sans spider puncture wounds.

Chapter two:

Once out of the car, I unloaded the junk, moved the car seat enough to begin moving some of the stuff around the seat. Mayo was with me at this point, unimpressed by my lackluster story and not expecting to find any wild arachnids, right when I lifted a CD case there stood the eight-legged monster. After regaining my wits and explaining to Mayo that I am actually quite masculine despite my shrieks, I removed my shoe and pummeled the spider into a gooey mess.

Score for the week…
1 point for the bear
1 point for the smog
2 points for the spider
4 points for Teddy for surviving all of these near death experiences. In your face nature!

I think it was the legendary Indian chief, Pocahontas, who named the southern Appalachians the GREAT SMOKEY MOUNTAINS. In all their majesty and natural beauty, with awe inspiring whispy blue clouds surrounding seemingly endless green peaks, they truly are a sight to behold. However, little did Pocahontas know how true to their name they would eventually become.

I returned to outdoorsie Asheville yesterday after Tour of Utah and Tour of Somewhere-Far-Far-Away to a 4.5 hour ride. Towards the end of this outing, it felt as though I’d swallowed a shot of tequilla, tobasco, and thumb tacks. My throat was killing me! I had no idea what was going on until a longtime local informed me that this time of the year, the smog settles into Asheville. Frick! All the Ashevillian hippies are driving their Subarus with seven kayaks from one stream to the next and polluting the air I breath. How dare they!

Today was ride number one since yesterday’s kick to the throat, and I decided to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway towards Mount Mitchell for the primary reason of avoiding as much traffic - and smog - as possible. There’s an excellent section of non-stop climbing for about 15 miles to Mitchell, and I had just begun that when… I SAW A BEAR! I had the lightening quick reflexes and wherewithall to snap this miraculous picture before it tried to devour my head.

Next, after judo-chopping “Teddy Ruxpin” in the ear I was able to step back and snap yet another incredible picture.

…okay okay, truth be told, I didn’t take either of those pictures. However, I did in fact see a bear, which was roughly this large and probably twice as cute:

Probably not terribly ferocious, but we all know that where there’s a bear cub there’s probably a mother bear. And as Smokey the Bear says, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” So I nearly soiled my shorts, turned around, and hightailed it out of there!

Which brought me to the toughest of predicaments. You see, I was in the midst of climbing intervals and besides this awesome ascent to Mount Mitchell, there actually aren’t many climbs that mimic the kind of terrain I need like this particular road. In fact, the only other one I could think of somewhat close by would require me to ride straight through the soupy-air-pollution-center called Asheville and onto another section of the parkway that contains far more cars… which is the exact thing I’m trying to avoid! Alas, I stopped, waited a little while, turned around, and made a ton of noise as I ascended (very quickly, mind you) past the sighting of the blood seeking bear, and up towards Mitchell!

…only to reach a barricaded section of road about 3 miles later. Thwarted yet again. So the moral of this story, my friends, is to always under all circumstances ride your bike with bear mace.

It’s mid-August. Blog postings are becoming more and more sporatic. Coincidence? Nope. Perhaps it’s due to the recent eastern heatwave, although I doubt it. Much more likely is that after months of racing a bike this season, my creative juices are reaching a creaping standstill. This fact makes the virtual daily postings by BikeSnobNYC, which are ceaselessly witty and entertaining, all the more impressive. Or maybe not. He is apparently a professional blogger while I am a cat III blogger at best. Yet somehow life seems to go on…

As my friend, teammate, and companion in crosswords Tom Zirbel recently noted, the end of the season is remarkably close given that we can count the remaining races on just three fingers. I’m en route to the five day Tour of Utah currently, two weeks later is the US Pro championships in Greenville, SC, and the Tour of Missouri one week thereafter. (But does it ever really end? After a 72 hour off-season we’ll all be back at it with ‘cross, fall mountain biking, or simply training for next year. And that’s just one reason why we love it.)

Two pictures highlight today’s post. The first is a No Parking sign at a local Asheville bank. The handwritten warning towards the bottom is priceless. You ever see failblog.org? (Or maybe .net/.com I forget…) It’s worthy of many hours of similar entertainment.

Next is a homemade burger I ate during my time home at Mayo’s house. The scale is poorly established, but it was at least a half foot tall, highlighted with sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions, avocado, crisp lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and of course katchup and mustard on a toasted roll. The picture came from my iPhone. I noticed last night after scrolling through the pictures contain one quarter food-related pics. Umm, I like food.

…Or perhaps they’re more observations than stories, per se.  Anyway here they are:

One, I’m again in the surprisingly sleek and modern Detroit Airport as I am returning to Asheville, NC. I walked passed the airport McDonalds and was flabbergast to see how busy it was. The front row of emplyees - that is, not including those hard workers hidden behind the industrial strength microwaves - totalled 13. More impressive were the 38 people in line waiting to order. Thirty eight! Wowoweewow.

Two, I’m at my gate where there’s a nice enormous flat screen TV to keep the waiting hoards entertained. CNN just reported a story about a 5.4 magnitude earthquake that hit California two days ago. I’m no geologist nor seismologist, but 5.4 sounds destructive. So what is the headline CNN reports? I quote, “EARTHQUAKE CAUSES POOL WATER TO SLOSH”.

Now that’s newsworthy! Apparently some nose-to-the-grindstone investigative reporter had his or her camera conveniently by the swimming pool to report this earthshattering story. Thankfully there was footage to prove this wasn’t some sort of hoax. You heard it here people, the water sloshed!

Sent from mobile device.

According to Consumer Reports, ”The average American is exposed to 247 commercial messages each day.” That seems like a low-ball estimate because I’m quite sure that the average Tour de France viewer on Versus is exposed to at least 247 commercials every hour. However, the point is made that we see a lot of advertisements.

MORE to the point, I hope you’ve all seen the Nivea body wash for men commercial, because I laugh out loud every time I see it. It pokes fun at Axe and Old Spice ads which suggest you’ll score with the ladies if you smell good. In particular there’s one little Asian kid who takes a whiff of Nivea and claims, “This will not increase my ability to mate!”

Bwaaa ha ha ha! “Mate” that’s classic. Go watch the Tour and you’ll see what I mean.

Makes me want to go drink some Bacardi Mojito, because Lord knows it’ll increase my ability to go clubbing.