Stowaway

Little Miss Sami sat on her fanny, riding her bike in the wind.
Out popped a spider and rode right beside her, creeping her out to no end!

This is a close up of the spider the appeared halfway through a 46 mile ride on Monday. He was perched perfectly atop my bike computer, making it impossible to check anything other than speed and distance. He moved around a little, but stayed between my computer and aero bottle for over 20 miles. I had the "Little Miss Muffet" nursery rhyme in my head the entire ride back. Here's a picture I found that shows how scary this spider actually was.

I thought about trying to flick him off, but with the position he was in, I figured if I tried to do that, he would end up on my leg. Every time I felt something on my legs, I jumped, thinking the spider flew off and was going to bite me.

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And yes, I'm certain it was male because I refuse to believe anything that creepy could be a female. I noticed that he wouldn't move around if I was going over 17 mph or if the road was bumpy, so that became extra incentive to ride fast and get home. I was pretty lucky with the traffic lights for the last 30 blocks.

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Back at home, I used the leftover contents from my aero bottle and a stick to dislodge the little guy. If you're a creature-lover, don't worry: I didn't smush him, I let him go. I figure we need all the help controlling the insect population we can get. I did some research online and I found out this is a spotted jumping spider or daring jumping spider. They can jump up to two feet! They don't catch they food in webs, they stalk insects and (duh) jump on them. Hence the very scary eyes. Better to see you with, my pretty!

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Oh yeah, the ride went well. For those KC natives, I went from 75th and Roe to 215th and Metcalf. It's a nice ride with some decent hills for 46 miles on the head. The back 20mi were into the wind (and with a spider) so they were much harder than the front half. Once I got home, John and I left for an easy 5 mile run. I was feeling pretty good, just a little sluggish on the up hills. I'm really looking forward to having fresh legs one of these days. Less than 3 weeks and counting...