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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!houxm!hou2e!pskay
From: pskay@hou2e.UUCP (Paul Kay)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: Country Road Commuting
Message-ID: <479@hou2e.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 16:56:43 EST
Article-I.D.: hou2e.479
Posted: Mon Feb 25 16:56:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 06:53:29 EST
References: <281@tekigm.UUCP> <3988@Glacier.ARPA>, <357@enmasse.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Merrimack Valley
Lines: 39

If you are riding on roads in the midwest or west, you will
find that the major difference to commuting in the country is
the traffic is easier to cope with. Fewer cars and fairly wide
roads make life easy. (Can you tell I grew up in Michigan?) If
you are talking East though, You are on your own. I gave up bike
commuting the second time a truck tried to run me into a bridge.
That and the places I found while out pleasure riding where a barn
cuts into the road, or the shoulder ends in a phone pole, linked
to drivers who could care less about a rider have proven to me
that I ain't got "the right stuff". I guess it all depends on
the route available.

As to doggies, a friend of mine who trained by riding in rural
Mass. (small farms, big dogs), had the following strategy:

	1) Shout "NO!" That dog knows he shouldn't be there and
	   will (usually) give it up.
	2) Pull out your trusty Zephal HP pump and smack that
	   sucker on the nose. It won't hurt him much, or the pump
	   at all.

I can't vouch for 2, the first always worked for me. Mostly
though, except for the occasional suicidal squirrel, animals are
not much trouble.

			Paul S. Kay

			UUCP: ...ihnp4!hou2e!pskay
			      ...ihnp4!mvuxe!psk (the real me)
			USPS: Bell Labs, 1600 Osgood St.
			      N. Andover, Mass.*

* Please note change from UNIX 5.0. Merrimack Valley is back in
    Mass. It has never been in Maine, no matter what mm says!

Any opinion here, except the location of the Labs, may not even be
	mine, let alone that of my management.