Bike Spiders from HELL

Remember the Cottonwood 200 club ride last Sunday? The route went out sixty first street; down the big hill; through Dover and on to Council Grove. I was doing my civic and biking duty by being a Sag at the top of the big hill, just outside Dover. I was the guy handing you bananas and apples and refilling your water bottles. It's the Bananas that caused the real problem. I hadheard, that when bananas are shipped here from South America that sometimes tarantulas slip into the packing crates and make it all the way to market. And since the bike club buys bananas by the case for the hungry hoard of bikers, I think that's where the spider came from. As I was sitting there on the water jugs he must have creep silently and slowly out of the crate and into my rear jersey pockets. I just wish I would have seen him then.

As the last group of riders left the Sag, up rode my buddy Jim the "Animal".

"Come on Don, lets race into Dover for some power bars and granola." "Gee Jim," I replied, "How healthy. How about a sausage Biscuit with butter and cheese on it and a greasy old egg thrown on top?" And with that I jumped on my bike and got a 200 foot head start before he realized I had left. He may have been slow to catch onto me leaving, but he hammered on his pedals and caught me in about 10 seconds.

We were now racing downhill at about 35 mph when Jim yells over; "Stop pedaling and hold real still. A big brown ugly spider is crawling up your back."Suddenly I could feel eight little legs making their way up my spine. I watched Jim slowly unfasten his Zefal frame pump, and gripping it like a tennis racket he proceeded to hit the spider with his best back hand top spin shot.

WHAP!

The pump made a dull thud of a sound as it hit me squarely across the back. I was thrown forward from the force and my chest was crushed against my Aero bars. This opened up some stitches from a previous accident. I could only moan and gasp for air as I swerved back and forth across the road.

The crafty spider had foreseen Jim's mighty blow and scurried up my back and now was perched on my left shoulder. In my peripheral vision, I could see a venomous hairy brown creature about three inches in diameter, clinging onto me for dear life. It had fangs about 1/2" long, and it lookedto me like poison venom was dripping profusely from them. Two little beady eyes looked back into mine, and I swear, I saw his twisted brown lips smile at me.

In a sudden move he leaped off my shoulder and two razor sharp pinchers claws caught my ear lobe and the spider dangled there. "JIMMMMM" I screamed as Jim took another back swing with his pump.

THONK!

Jim's last blow hit me right up side the head. For a few seconds I was seeing stars and a solar eclipse all at the same time. At 40 mph I started to pass out and ride off the road, but Jim made a desperate grab at me and managed to grasp the waist band on the back of my Lycra pants. He pulled open a 2 inch gap between my waist and the pants and a rather large SPIDER in distress dropped off my ear lobe and into my now open shorts.In rapid fire succession Jim pummeled me on the rear with several blows from his Zefal. Seeing a 3" lump moving left and right under my shorts, Jim would react with a new blow each time it moved. As we continued speeding down the hill, I was becoming more afraid of my toothless crazed good buddy Jim than I was of the tarantula.

It was a quiet Sunday morning as we blazed past the Dover Baptist Church at the bottom of the hill. The Sunday service was just letting out. The Pastor, in his best robes, was standing on the front steps still shaking hands with his departing parishioners, who were now treated to the sight of a person in terror, screaming profanity at the top of his lungs, while a very large man, with no teeth, clad in pink lycra shorts, continued to beat him about the rear with a large blunt object, while riding bicycles down the street.

The spider finally had had enough of Jim's poundings, as I pulled my bike to the side of the road. He sank his venomous laden fangs into my flesh and I gave out a cry that would wake the dead. All 150 pairs of eyes from the Baptist congregation were now turned and riveted on me. In agony, I quickly pulled down my shorts to get the creature out. I screamed at Jim that my rear was on fire with burning pain. He abruptly grabbed his water bottle and proceeded to squirt me with his grape Gatorade on my now bare naked butt.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a small child run up to the pastor and I heard him say;

"Are those the Sinners that You are always preaching about?"

Lying beside the road in pain, each and every Baptist drove by and shook their heads. Several pointed Jim and me out to their children, as examples of a life gone bad.........