It was a mere four months ago that BentJay was taken out by either a chipmunk or a squirrel, depending on who was telling the tale, but we all moved forward knowing that it was a chance occurrence and that no rodent would again harm a triker.

Sadly, I must shock us all out of complacency and share that another triker has fallen to rodent aggression.  This time it was Tourezrick of the BentRider Online forums who suffered a brutal attack at squirrel hands while commuting on his delta trike.  Here, then, is his tale of woe:

It started out as a noble idea - get a delta trike to replace my TE, put an electric assist and trailer (and solar panels, air horn, porta potty, hot tub . . .) on it so I can run errands, get exercise and not use the car. Everything was working so well up to today, 300 carless errand miles and not a single problem!

Where I live lies over a series of terminal moraines from the last ice age - flat, we're not, lots of short (and some mile longers, too), steep hills to negotiate. Rode to Bill's Barber Shop for my monthly tune-up, told Lisa, my barber and a few interested customers about the trike, motor and solar rig. Finished my spiel and headed home.

Going down hill about 20 mph, slowed for a left turn at John Humphrey Woods down to about 12, out runs a squirrel and I hit him with the front motor hub. The quill turns in the fork tube and down I go on the right, me, trike, battery, trailer, solar - the works. A woman stops at the stop sign on the corner (no, I didn't have a stop sign) and gets out and asks if I'm ok. I say yes, just some bike damage, road rash on the right shin and sore right ribs from hitting the curb, but she calls 911 anyhow because I can't get up - right leg caught in the chain and 146# of trike, motor, batts and solar rig all piled on me. I ask her to tell the 911 dispatch that I'm ok, but then she sees the rash, steps on/in the squirrel and starts to hyperventilate and starts to get agita - squirrel guts in your open toe shoes can have that effect. The show is on, but all ends well, except for the squirrel, which was pronounced dead on the scene by the paramedics.

In the end, a good story and laugh for all present, save for the squirrel, whose Mrs. is prolly saying, "I send the fool to the store for a pound of nuts and some milk and he goes and gets run over by a recumbent trike!"

One time is chance.  Two times are suspect.  But a quick search of Google shows that these attacks are far more frequent than we had at first imagined.  Be careful out there.  Watch your nuts.