Squirrels are scaring me
 

Lately on the rides I do there have been a lot of squirrels doing the last minute dash of death across my front wheel. In every case I’ve just kept my line and hoped for the best.

After a recent unrelated crash I am paranoid of breaking my collarbone again as I’m still healing.

Are crashes with squirrels getting caught in the wheels common or is this just the post crash jitters?

wtf is with these squirrels making them dash across? Is it the freehub noise?

It's their instinct to dart back and forth hoping that gives them a chance to escape. They just don't realize that you aren't a predator that is after them.

I had and still have the same issues with squirrels. While my previous bikes all had very quiet free hubs my new bike has a noisy free hub. Squirrel problem still the same.

However if you wouldn't coast, your free hub wouldn't be making noise!

1. Glad to hear you have recovered and are riding about.

2. I think this is just post crash jitters. I think the chances of a dashing squirrel caught in the spokes are pretty low. But if you are still worried, buy a wheel with 32 spokes.

It's just the post crash thing. Bring injured really sucks and now you're more keenly aware of things that have the potential to do it again.

If you're really worried bring a cat with you.

Face your fears head on! :-)

Ride 40 spoke wheels with CXray spokes. Most squirrels won't fit, and those that do will get sliced and diced into easily digested cross-sections.

Heh, I did not even know spoke count can > 32!

Touring bikes sometimes have such wheels.

But what I have noticed is that a lot of these squirrel-in-the-wheel injuries have photos of the bike that show they have those weird Campy spoke patterns with big gaps.

Having said that, my wife has a work colleague who had normal wheels and a suicide squirrel put her in the hospital with a head injury (and destroyed the bike wheel and fork).

One of the best pieces of advice I've come across on Bikeforums is (if there's enough time to do so) to aim at the squirrel. That's what they expect predators to do. They'll stop darting back and forth and sprint off the road and away from you.

Ran over one once, with no negative effects for me.

It should be your job to scare the squirrels-not the other way around.

What about the squirrel??

I’d guess nothing good happened to it.

He had it coming.

Sail rabbit. Lol.

Squirrels don't scare me.

Now clowns -- they're scary.

Inattentive teenage morons (am I being redundant here?) on e-bikes scare me more than either clowns or squirrels.

That said, I have only seen one clown when riding. He was waving one of those signs indicating that the Irvine Co. has a new community that is now open for down payments.

Wait until you experience domesticated rabbits...

Unlike squirrels, the bunnies in Irvine mostly veer away as I approach.

the rabbits dart out in front of my wheel spontaneously, leaving about 3' to react.

This time of year, deer are a serious concern around here. I had a very near miss on a very dark path many years ago. Collide with one of those things and you might stay collided for a while.

Quite a few of the vintage English three speeds came stock with 40 spoke rear wheels. These days you see them on tandems.

And yes, higher spoke count wheels can mitigate squirrel pass through, but YMMV.

Not even a slight negative emotional effect?

Squirrels are just rats with bushy tails. Jonathan Winters would definitely sail one given the chance.

Okay, okay! Yes, I felt sorta bad. Happy now?