Never Badger a Badger

The OBS 1990 Grand Tour was in the SW corner of Colorado with a loop from South Fork to Pagosa Springs and Durango. A ride on the narrow gauge train to Silvertown and then ride over Red Mountain Pass to Ouray and Montrose. From there to Gunnison, Lake City and back to South Fork.

We were doing that long, lonely day from Gunnison to Lake City when a group of about six people topped a hill to find a badger eating a roadkill rabbit in the middle of the highway. They came to a stop when the badger made it very plain that he had no intention of giving up his breakfast. He flattened himself on the pavement in a defense posture and refused to move. Pound for pound, a badger is about the meanest critter around and certainly wasn't going to back down from some stupid people on bicycles.

One of the more foolish or foolhardy riders decided he was going to force the badger out of the way so they could get by. He began to move forward while waggling his front wheel back and forth and yelling, "Shoo, Badger, Shoo!" When he was perhaps six feet from the badger, it lunged at him and chomped down on the front wheel. The tire exploded in the badger's mouth with a cloud of talcum powder and a loud bang. The badger tumbled away and scurried into the ditch where it growled and hissed at them as they got past him.

The badger had taken such a chunk out of the tire that there was no way to repair it and he had to sit by the road and watch the badger finish its breakfast while waiting for the sag van to come by.