For one, I'm in much better shape than I was when I did this ride last. Last time Dale and I had to stop several times going up the hill to rest our bodies. This time we stopped only twice and for much less time.
The other thing that made this ride different is that as I began to fly down the other side of the Port Hills I saw the shadow of a bird just in front of the shadow of my bike. As the shadow stayed there for a few seconds I thought, wow that bird isn't going anywhere I'd love to turn around and see it. I was just slowing down a bit so that I could look up safely when BLAM I was smacked in the head by the bird! I had no idea what exactly had happened and I turned to look up at my predator. I had only just caught a glimpse of the bird before I realised it was swooping down for another pass and BAM! it smacked my helmet again. I decided to not look up at it again lest it claw out my eyes and kept my helmet as the highest point of my body. The bird swooped and slammed into my helmet another six times bringing the total to 8 before it gave up. For those of you who don't know what a Magpie is here's a link. And here's a picture.
I figure the bird went for me either because I was too close to its nest, had a very shiny helmet, or some combination of the two.
Pretty exciting.
Eight times is really unbelievable. You must have done something terrible to a magpie in a former life.
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