I was just cleaning out my inbox and happened upon this.  One my TeamSpine mates wrote it.  He also races for Cal, so many of you know him or know of him.  More importantly, he’s an astrophysics PhD candidate and spends a bit too much time up in his own head.  Read on…

Hey Guys:
      This is kind of embarrassing. About 5-6 times this year at the end 
of a hard solo ride, I've crossed paths--or so I believe--with a 
flock of very large turkeys around Berkeley. Not just any kind of 
turkeys--big, angry, wild punk-rock turkeys.

It never happens when someone is with me to corroborate the story and 
no one else claims to have ever seen them.

Is it me? Is there some sort of lysergic mold growing in my water 
bottles? Are they really there or am I losing it?

Just today, I heard the tell-tale "gobble, gobble" ruckus on Wildcat 
Canyon Road and sure enough the band of birds was there. It was the 
end of a long hard ride and no one else was there to witness it. It 
was just me and the turkeys---like it always is.

  I've run into the flock on La Loma on the east end of Virginia on 
two separate occasions.  One of those times when I stopped to rub my 
eyes in disbelief, three of the biggest ones started chasing me on my 
bike---gobbling away at me belligerently. I beat a hasty retreat; how 
would I explain the peck-rash to my cycling compatriots if I fell 
victim to an assault by wild poultry? People would think it was self-
afflicted--like some cry for help from a delusional bike racer.

Please, if anyone out there has seen this gang of feathered thugs, 
let me know. You're not crazy...and you're not alone.

-Paul R.