Spider webs can be so beautiful, but they, and their makers, are my bike riding nemeses. How is it that you’re riding down a bike trail or hiking along a trail and when you encounter a spider’s web it is always at face level? It seems my legs are never taking them out, just my face. What? And I like this, I was riding on a wonderful trail in Cincinnati, enjoying the scenery just feeling fine. There were a couple of bike riders on the trail in front of me. Now this trail is ten feet wide and the trees are an additional five or so feet back from the pavement. How is it, then, that a spider can even shoot a web across that expanse? Even worse, how is it that, though there were riders in front of me, a web should smack me across the face. I mean, is there an arachnid labor union where spiders meet and conspire on the exact height to put a web? Are they poised to shoot a web across the way to make sure they restore the silken trap after the previous riders go through? And get this, the other day I was riding on the road, for goodness sake, and yep, I caught a spider’s web in the face. Crazy! Some days are just like that, aren’t they? Something trying to entangle and distract you from the task at hand.
