Now that the weather is warming up and the days are longer so that down jackets and stadium lighting are no longer required for a training ride there appear to be more cyclists out on the road. This has a number of advantages, not the least of which is that there are more rabbits to be chased. I am not referring to the small, long eared, burrowing lagomorphs (more commonly known as Oryctolagus cuniculus) that were introduced to Australia with disastrous effect. Rather I am referring to two wheeled variety (Outthefrontus cyculus) which appear to have greatly attract cyclists, especially when said cyclists are in a pack.
From my observations I have noticed that this attraction manifests itself in a frenzied need to chase the rabbit and overhaul them in the shortest distance possible. Think Jack Russell Terrier (Canis familiaris) on a caffeine overdose. If the rabbit is unaware of the chase then so much the better! I have also observed that ego comes into play during the chase, especially if the rabbit happens to be a doe and even more so if said doe unthinkingly passed the pack as if they were standing still.
Take the other morning as a case in point. A doe, in the company of a couple of bucks (by which I purely mean male rabbits of course), passed a pack of cyclists that were out on a training ride. This triggered the chase reflex and a spirited pursuit ensued. The pack tasted sweet victory and caught the doe. We won't mention that there were at least eight chasers rolling over in echelon trying to catch non-drafting rabbits. After all it's the catch that matters, not the method of the catching.
At this point I would like to make a couple of humble suggestions about how to behave in such a situation. As a chaser you could either:
- sit in behind the rabbit, glorying in the fact that you KNOW you could pull them in any time you wanted... but you are just leaving them out there to fry. (Think Felis catus with an M. musculus.) This makes you look both strong and tactically savvy; or you could
- race past them at the highest speed possible - giving them a safe gap so you don't knock them off with the strength of the air displaced by your passing - pretending that you have never even noticed that they are there in the first place and that this is the speed at which you always ride. This makes you look both amazingly powerful and not at all threatened by silly rabbits.
What you should NEVER do is get your bunch halfway past the doe, drop your speed significantly so you are now going slower than the doe and then pull left on top of the doe, forcing her into the dirt.
The reason you shouldn't do this is not because it is unsafe for the rabbit. Neither is it because the rabbit might actually be doing their own training and such an action would right royally mess them up. I mean let's face it, the rabbit is purely there for your entertainment. It should throw up its furry paws in surrender, spear off the road and die of fright in the ditch, shouldn't it?
No, the reason you shouldn't do such a crazy thing is that it LOOKS like you were on the rivet to catch the rabbit, even though (as in the situation of the aforementioned example) you were mob handed and the rabbit was not drafting. It LOOKS like you only just caught the rabbit and then blew up, exploded, died in the... well, you get the picture. Of course this wasn't the case at all!! It just LOOKS like it. And when ego is involved appearance is everything!
In summary:
- By all means chase the rabbits if this is how you motivate your training;
- By all means catch the rabbits. Congratulations - you just won a race the other rider didn't even know they were in;
- By all means pass the rabbit - but please do so in a safe manner rather than pushing them off the road.
