stop in my tracks

ON Saturday I was convienced to ride with the STP (Seattle to Portland) training TEAM. They all met out in Shenandoah (about 80 miles west of DC). It was a hell of a climb started at 1000 elevation and we CLIMBED to about 2600...I would say about 15/20 miles was climbing. Needless to say my body was in 100 prepared and the weather was a tad warm (100 degress by 11AM). Anyway, around mile 15 I cam across this...

Now, I was just minding my business peddling up this mountain...then out of the bushes comes this...SERIOUSLY - I was about 25 yards away - that blurry imagine in the background was me. I stopped in my trackes and thought...WHAT DO I DO??? I my instict was to say very still and just let it do it's thing. Now some people might now be surprised but...that was way TOO close for my comfort. I waited about 5 solid minutes and then it crossed over and was gone. I then got back on my bike - the picture was taken by an on looker who was way above the scene. Coach Ed asked him to email it over.

That wasn't the only cool part of the wide; another high was soreing down the mountain, I maxed out around 37MPH...it was AWESOME!! The decent was 1/2 the time it took to climb.