Quoted message said:
I believe I could recruit a good audience, if you would come up and
show us how it is done, with this particular bird.
Donga
Goodness me man, where is your OOMPH?
Have you ever played football?
I did, while at school, and often went home afterwards with bruises and
cuts.
I was well into body contact Rugby Union, where guys attack each other
at speed,
and sometimes break necks in scrums.
Many a tackler was waved aside and a try scored. Someone comes at you to
tackle you down,
so you push the [censored] away. Sometimes it works, somtimes not.
Football was for me potentially 100 times more dangerous than cycling
ever could be.
You are going to tell me you cannot protect yourself from a little iddy
biddy birdie?
OK, you'd be unlucky if you lost an eye from a bird attack, but really
the chances of this happening
is quite remote, and reduced to an order of magnitude if
you wear good eyecover. Some cycling glasses are deliberately "styled"
to look mean and cool, and are plain ferkin useless. You want the more
daggy looking
wrap arounds, which close around the face more, thus keeping the air
still behind the plastic,
while keeping out the UV coming from the side direction. They look
uncool, but they ain't BS..
Cycling isn't a fashion parade, its physical business.
I got swooped twice today, while out riding 100km, no problems, as
usual.
I've been told I come from a family of wimps. But I deal firmly and
fairly with the birds.
I'll give you a tip. You are most prone to bird attack when you are
riding up a hill out of the saddle, and don't have a
spare hand to brush a bird from your face. By the time you sit down and
try to wave em away,
they have already scored a hit. So use better goggles.
But I don't bother tryna wave em anywhere.
We ARE fortunate that Wedge Tailed Eagles don't want to nest in suburbia
and swoop cyclists.
Then i would say we might have a real bother, but after about 111,000
km, I am not at all bothered by maggies.
The motorists are the real worry, not the little birdies.
Patrick Turner.