When I was younger I was a lot more anxious and irritable, but I might be mellowing with age, and I think bicycling has helped to smooth out my nerves, or else deaden them.
I never liked dogs much and naturally find them much more fearsome when I'm on my bike. Barking back seems to confuse and discourage them, but it frightened my riding companions when I tried it on a group ride. Dog-lovers tell me the beasts only want to play and will stop chasing if I stop moving, but I've never wanted to experiment, until this afternoon when I had an encounter with a yappy little dog in Cornwall Park.
I was riding kind of fast, up to 10 mph, on a park bike trail, when some sort of little rat terrier or chihuahua-type thing came tearing out of the bushes after me. It was smaller than my cat and would have had to make a wild leap to reach my knee, but looked like it could leave some nasty puncture wounds in my ankle with its ratty little teeth. I thought I could get away easily, but it ran along side me, then dropped behind, came around my right side, and got ahead of my front wheel so I had to brake suddenly. A rather large women who had been sitting in the grass near the path followed, calling uselessly after the little monster, which was running circles around me as I slowed down.
"He's gonna get hit!" I warned her in alarm. Figuring the dog wouldn't stop until I did, but not wanting to risk my ankles, I rode a loop around some rhododendrons and doubled back toward the woman with the dog following. She looked a little apprehensive, expecting maybe to face a rant from a self-righteous cyclist in addition to having to chase down her dog. I meant to lead it back to her but the perverse little thing took off into the bushes instead, so I just laughed and said, "I thought I could out-run him, but he's fast!"
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