Oh Deer What Can The Matter Be

Pardon the ridiculous kids song reference. for those of you who have no clue, you are better off. Friday I managed to get out for a ride, not crazy long, but a ride. As I was cruising the trails I stopped for Geese and their fairly recently hatched goslings, and got hissed at. You can't fully appreciate this if you've never pissed off a goose. After a little bit more riding I came upon a mom and dad duck and their recent additions. Ducks are cool, they just try and get away as if they would be saying "nah, don't want to hang now. Seriously, just leave us alone for now, OK?" No crazy hissing or trying to chase you like geese. Geese need to learn how it is, they might as well be puntable but they think they should chase a person, and we let them, I digress. Anyway, I played around on some hills for a bit and cleaned `em a couple of times, watched the waterfall for a bit, took in the nature, and froze my rear off, but enjoyed it.
So I figured I'd finish riding this one mile loop a couple of times and then head out. It was getting late and cold and I was OK with being done. So I started plugging along at a nice pace, hit this area where there is a pretty minimal decent carried out over about a quarter-mile some railroad ties protruding out in a couple spots, high brush on either side, gets you going at a decent clip. That is when it happened, and I guess everyone needs their first. Three deer the size of my car jumped out of the brush, spooked by my bike, and right in front of me. Somehow in the midst of all of this I managed to either lay my MTB down or go over the bars or something. All I know is I went to crushed limestone face first and the following occurred:

Helmet: -1 (visor was on and hit the ground first busting the foam on the front of the helmet)
Oakley XX Glasses: +2 ( Love my Twenties Oakley are the sh__, they hit immediately after the helmet and took zero damage)
Face: +1 (got dirty but no scratches, cuts, or bruising)
Specialized Rockhopper: +1 (The only damage was the Shimano Shifters got scratched)
Knee: -1 (I'll get back to this)

I think that about sums it up. I feel the incident left me at a +2. When I say that Im also going with a -1 for the knee which took a decent skinning. Most people would take this as bad and the only reason I gave it a minus one is picking rocks out annoyed me. I actually really got into the idea of a skinned knee. When I got home I said to my wife, "Check it out! Isn't that sweet? I can't remember the last time I skinned my knee." (I think that's a "boy" thing and likewise don't expect anyone other than guy to get charged up by it.) So if it weren't for the stinking rocks it would've been a +3. With the rock situation in mind, I could see why people would shave and argue "it helps it you have to clean out a wound." My legs are about as hairy as Sasquatch, and it made it a total pain search through and pick out junk. For this reason I will never argue anyone if they say they shave to better clean wounds, and likely will probably wind up shaven by summer.
That's it for now, but while I've got you, don't forget that Fat Cyclist's 2008 Jerseys go on sale TODAY at noon central time on the Twin Six website. All proceeds will go to help Fatty's wife Susan in her fight against cancer, and will help the Fatty Family as well. So go buy a jersey and we'll chat more tomorrow.