My family puts out a live squirrel trap in our backyard and we have caught at least a dozen squirrels. Within milliseconds, the squirrel has a name and is considered a new family pet. The last one was named Mustard by my daughter Mia. We take the squirrels up the canyon and let them go. I wonder if they are "homing squirrels" and travel back to my yard.Here is a crazy letter to Lennard Zinn from Velonews.com.
Dear Lennard,
Two weekends ago a riding buddy's brother was eight miles in to a century when he sucked a squirrel in to his front wheel while traveling at a good 25-30 mph. He fractured his #10 thoracic vertebrae, but there was no spinal cord damage, so he will recover, albeit with some new and permanent internal hardware.
From what we can surmise, the squirrel got in the wheel and sheared the fork in half. The big chainring is bent, so it appears he came down on on the ring and then on to his right side, hard enough to damage the shifter, but not bend the bars.
We were all just surprised that a squirrel could shear a fork in half like that. Have you ever seen something like that happen before? I would have expected the wheel to just lock up, but I guess at 25-30 mph the force must be a lot more than I would have guessed, and as I understand it, carbon fiber does not do well under compression/impact. And the squirrel does appear to have hit the fork dead center — at the point of highest leverage.
Any thoughts?
Steve
Dear Steve,
I have seen this before — not in person but in photos people have sent me of dead squirrels and sheared-off carbon forks. The rider would be just as injured even if the fork had not failed — just the front wheel stopping so abruptly would have put him on his face. Watch out for those squirrels!
Lennard
Two weekends ago a riding buddy's brother was eight miles in to a century when he sucked a squirrel in to his front wheel while traveling at a good 25-30 mph. He fractured his #10 thoracic vertebrae, but there was no spinal cord damage, so he will recover, albeit with some new and permanent internal hardware.
From what we can surmise, the squirrel got in the wheel and sheared the fork in half. The big chainring is bent, so it appears he came down on on the ring and then on to his right side, hard enough to damage the shifter, but not bend the bars.
We were all just surprised that a squirrel could shear a fork in half like that. Have you ever seen something like that happen before? I would have expected the wheel to just lock up, but I guess at 25-30 mph the force must be a lot more than I would have guessed, and as I understand it, carbon fiber does not do well under compression/impact. And the squirrel does appear to have hit the fork dead center — at the point of highest leverage.
Any thoughts?
Steve
Dear Steve,
I have seen this before — not in person but in photos people have sent me of dead squirrels and sheared-off carbon forks. The rider would be just as injured even if the fork had not failed — just the front wheel stopping so abruptly would have put him on his face. Watch out for those squirrels!
Lennard
Here is a link for more photos - amazing.
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