While carrying my bike around a closed gate on Elysian Park Road during the beginning part of another awesome edition of last night’s RIDE-Arc ride, in the darkness I somehow managed to spy something scurrying along the ground out from under my feet and my first thought was I’d disrupted some poor lizard’s evening.

Never In my wildest did I think I’d come across what was before me, but when it came to a full, very unlizard-like stop, a few feet downslope from me, I trained my bike’s headlights on it and could not contain my enthusiasm.


(click to triplify)

“Scorpion!” I yelled, and that drew the interested attentions of a few other fellow cyclists nearby who “whoa’d” and “no way’d” along with me. “How big is it?” someone asked. “Because it’s the little ones you have to watch out for!”

Good to know because this one certainly wasn’t b-i-g big, about three inches from pincer tips to surprisingly laidback stinger. Of course rather than move away I proceeeded to unholster the cam while simultaneously holding the bike tilted so as to keep its light source pointed on the obliging creature while kneeling to get closer.

“Good eyes,” said another cyclist to me who stepped up and brought his cam to bear on it to snap some frames alongside me.

Other snaps from the ride, which included crashing a film set in Griffith Park and being escorted out by every park ranger on duty that evening, are here.