Our Tour of Hope team has had some incidents biking this summer. Mine was not with steel and rubber, but with...feathers!

I have been upping the distance. I lost my nerve for the local criteriums but have continued doing the course on my own. It is a good mile loop with a screaming curvy downhill and 5-6% steady climb. I was doing loops and noticed a number of families of momma and daddy geese and a peloton of chicks. There was one family at the side of the road at the start of the climb so I swung a bit wider to avoid scaring them.

Instead of backing away from the road as I would have done in daddy goose's webbed feet, he started moving out a bit to stake claim to his territory. The last thing I wanted was a goose bite so I just moved over a bit more. Well as you guessed it about lap 8 I was getting tired and came around the bend paying attention to my HR, not the road. All of a sudden, all I could see was an explosion of feathers and a barrel goose chest coming at me.

Somehow I avoided a bad bite, a serious fall and a massive heart attack, all of which were a distinct possibility.

I didn't stick around to get his license plate. And in this case, I do not think a letter to the Department of Natural Resources will do much good, except it would give them a good laugh.

Jim