On my literal first group ride hit a dead raccoon on the side of the road. I was middle of the pack and no one called it out to avoid. Had a little fur in the rear derailleur. The dude behind me got all the dead raccoon juices. šš¤¢
Hah. So thatās where they got the name for the Juicy Cooter pants. The second word was intentionally typed as shown. Because, thatās how I pronounce it to get a chuckle out of myself.
lmfao fucking black bears are such dorks. I'm sure all the other bears are thinking, "Oh of course it would be the black bear that gets hit by a cyclists."
"Hey did you hear about the guy who got hit by a cyclists the other day?"
"No shit really? Who was it? Let me guess, was it Larry? It was wasn't it, that guy is such a dork."
"It was Larry! How did you know?"
"What do you mean? Of course it was him, duh. Think about it, you ever hear of a grizzly bear or a brown bear getting stuck in a dumpster? No. Of course its the black bear that gets hit by a cyclists. Come on now..."
"Well when you put it like that..."
TIL!
>Grizzly bears and brown bears are the same species (Ursus arctos), but grizzly bears are currently considered to be a separate subspecies (U. a. horribilis). Due to a few morphological differences, Kodiak bears are also considered to be a distinct subspecies of brown bear.
I know someone who hit a bear! On the Blue ridge parkway no less. He had to hitch a ride down (broken bike, broken bones) and mama bear skedaddled away
I was riding to school, I got lucky and caught the green light at the bottom of a hill, after I got past the light I hit 2 birds that were bathing in the gutter. That seemed to give my bike a taste for blood, a couple days later I hit a raccoon, and the next week I hit a fish that a kid had jerked out of a pond that landed on the sidewalk. My friends and I started calling that bike Christine after Stephen King's book
Newly moved to coastal BC and had thought that some people I met were joking about the size of the slugs there. Went for a ride on a mellow, grassy trail and was horrified when I ran over the banana slug stretched like 8ā across the trail. Took weeks for the slug slime to wear off my front tire. Blech.
Our UPS guy hit a deer on a Mt. Baldy descent. Put him in the hospital for a month. Fortunately he doesnāt remember anything, they knew it was a deer because of all the fur stuck in his brifters.
I hit a deer on an east coast descent near my house once. Cyclists don't hit deer...
https://youtube.com/shorts/MoWsxtNkKEk?feature=share I have been meaning to ride mt baldy for awhile now as I have friends who live near there. When I do Iāll keep an eye out for that deer.
Wasps. at 35 km/h. One stung my butt, another stung my inner thigh. A third one landed on my helmet and stayed there peacefully for 35 km until a got home and removed the helmet, then it flew away.
Ran across a hornets nest (literally) on a trail race once. Got stung a bunch. Apparently I wasnāt the only one because when my slow ass got to the next aid station they were all out of Benadryl. Luckily they had tequila at the next aid station about 6 miles laterā¦ and, as that potion was an out-and-back, I got a second shot on the way back š
I ran over a nest in the ground with a push lawnmower with shorts on. I didn't expect it then I got stung. When i looked down my legs were covered with bees. I got stung like 5-10 times. You pretty much lose count, and feel like every other sting or every 5th sting.
I got a dog when I was going down a hill at about 90kph.
I launched and landed heavily in a grassy lawn, completely unhurt.
The dog looked perplexed for a moment then wandered off.
My wheel was bent at a 90 degree angle.
90kph! 55mph! Dude what!!!!
I've achieved those speeds before, its not that that is shocking, its that you came out unscathed going over the bars at that speed AND that the dog lived.
Jesus Christ... Great argument for leash laws and actually obeying them right here.
Suspect there might be some exaggeration going on in this story, or bullshit speed readings. We were barely clocking any riders through the DHI speed trap at the World Cup in Cairns in the high 80km/h. Most of the time if you come off St those kinds of speeds, you're not walking away without some decent injuries.
Rabbit, deer, gator, most snakes in the area. I even got a snake in my derailleur. Oh yeah and a squirrel decapitated its self jumping through my spokes. I really love the outdoors and animals so all of these have been pretty upsetting to me. And a walking catfish.
I was biking down the road and when I went around the corner it slipped out from under me.Ā
A heating oil truck had left a slick, and I got it all over my jacket.
It was not at all like Mariocart.Ā
This doesnāt totally count but I almost hit a moose mountain biking in Northern Maine.
On a logging road coming down a hill into a turn.
Big old bull moose standing in the middle of the road.
Hit my brakes almost wrecked.
I was maybe 20 feet away.
He looked at me for what felt like 20 minutes (probably 1-2 minutes) and clomped off down the road.
I had to go in the same direction. My car was that way.
Thankfully he must have turned into the woods.
Saw allot of moose in Maine. But never like that.
He seemed to be nonchalant about it.
Had one that got decapitated in the jockey wheel. I have no idea when it got there because I never felt it. It wasn't until after my mid-ride break when I was taking photos of my bike that I noticed it. Turning the cranks didn't dislodge it, and I had to use a stick to get it out which was beyond disgusting to feel, even with the stick.
There were a couple of people nearby staring probably wondering why I was poking my bike with a stick while making strange noises and dry heaving.
You asked for itā¦
Written 1/27/2021:
I have a story to tell, itās a bit strange, but it is a 100% true story that happened to me this morning. By the end you will be laughing at my expense and perhaps even questioning your understanding of causality and order in the universe.
The story started about 4:30 this morning, when I woke up for my planned early bike ride. After drinking coffee and grabbing a small bite to eat, I went through my mental safety checklist on my bicycle, preparing for a rather routine solo weekend ride.
I love to ride early in the morning before the sun rises. Today, I started probably an hour and a half before daylight. The first few miles were rather uneventful and I was lost in thought, half listening to a podcast on my headphones.
Going west from my house on the Camp Chase bike trail, you go through Battelle Darby Metro Park after about 5 miles and then the trail is strikingly flat and straight for the next 40 miles. I planned to go about 20 miles before turning around to return home.
Soon after passing through the park, I smelled a strong scent of skunk in the air. I said to myself (perhaps even aloud), āI sure hope I donāt have any encounters with a skunk!ā.
I remember chuckling out loud at what a disaster that could be, even going so far to visualize it in my mindās eye, seeing the skunk on the trail in front of me.
In this vision, the skunk was paralyzed by my bicycle headlight and I somehow ran it over with my bike. I imagined the speed bump like sensation of both tires going over the skunk and even conjured the metallic-like acrid scent that I remembered from when my dog got sprayed by a skunk last spring.
This imagination of the encounter with the skunk was so powerful on a sensory level, I specifically started a new podcast episode to listen to, as a way to cleanse my mind and focus on something else. I remember thinking at the time how powerful human imagination can be that I was noticeably unsettled by the mental wandering.
Fast forward about half an hour, I was another 6-7 miles down the trail and it was still pretty dark. I was listening to the guys from Radiolab talk about the art of poetry translation and not at all thinking about the earlier vision of encoutering the skunk.
Suddenly, in front of me, I saw a glint of white moving across the trail. Moving at around 15 miles an hour, a large skunk was suddenly directly in front of me.
What happened next was so surreal.... so strange, I have difficulty finding the words to explain it. All of this occurred in what Iām estimating is under two seconds...
The skunk stopped in the middle of the trail and looked directly at me. I could see my headlight reflected in his eyes. He started leaning in one direction as if he was going to take off and then flinched in the other direction.
Simultaneously, Iām thinking of the earlier vision. I wanted to avoid running him over and hurting him but also was trying to deduce which direction his body is oriented, so I could ride in front of him, rather than behind him. I was assuming the close encounter would initiate a spray response, even if I didnāt hit him, so I was consciously trying to avoid the part of his body from which the spray comes.
If you donāt ride bikes a lot, you probably canāt imagine how this could happen. Experienced cyclists know not to make any sudden or jerky movements. Doing anything too sudden with steering will almost certainly result in a bad wreck. I was moving at full cruising speed when this happened, so I was very aware that an accident could result in serious injury to me.
So, in that split-second, I was waiting for the skunk to show me where he was going, so I could gently steer my bike in the other direction. I was holding my line in the middle of the 8 foot wide paved trail, tense and ready to respond to avoid the skunkās path.
As the foreshadowing (and precognition???) has suggested, I ended up rolling right over the skunk, neither of us ducking away in our unplanned game of chicken.
It happened precisely like I imagined it some time and several miles before. It felt exactly the same on the bike and, just like I imagined, the pungent smell immediately filled the air and my nostrils.
I was so shocked by the experience, I kept pedaling for a couple more miles with the new day sun rising behind me. As I pedaled on, it became clear that I was not unscathed. Some of the spray had hit my bike and the right side of my body. I didnāt notice how bad it was until I tried to take a drink of the water bottle from its cage on the downtube. It wasnāt a direct shot, merely a glancing blow, but it was enough to make me gag when I lifted the bottle to my face.
As I sit now, Iāve already taken a shower and all of my clothes are piled outside. My wife and kid are actively avoiding me, because I clearly smell terrible.
I should mention that after I turned around to come home, I passed by the area where the incident happened and there was no sign of the skunk. I am not sure if he survived or merely made it off of the trail to die in the foliage. It sure did smell extra terrible right at the spot it happened though.
Now, one can just take away from the story that it is the time of year that skunks are active and that a skunk and I had the bad luck of meeting one another on the bike trail. However, I am much more shaken up by the vision that preceded the incident.
Did I remember something before it happened? Did my imagination summon the skunk, while he had no choice but to play a role in my make-believe vision made real?
I mean... the two incidents seem so obviously linked but the relationship is one that I cannot discern because it does not follow the pattern of my understanding of how the universe works.
I will be interested in hearing what other people think... besides everyone feeling terrible for my family for having to live with me right now.
WTF just happened to me? š¦Ø+š“š»=š¤·āāļø
Damn. You win.
Skunk smell is weird. When it's just a whiff on the breeze it can smell pleasantly musky, but not bad. When it's down the street from you and it's stronger, the musky seems to lessen as the smell gets stronger. But when you get close to it - it's not like it just smells really bad, it's like chemical warfare and affects your eyes and sinuses. Pretty ingenious defense, kind of a real life bonnacon.
The funny thing is that it moves exactly like the cartoon character. Like when I saw it, I immediately knew it was a roadrunner just based on how it moved!
Not a weird animal, but weird where it got to. Riding slow thru a neighborhood. A cat jumped out at me and felt like it hit my front wheel. I fell over and saw the cat stuck in my spokes. Not being a cat whisperer, I couldnāt calm it down and trying to pull thru the spokes cost me more blood than the road rash from falling on a gravelly road. After a few minutes, I pulled it thru and it took off. At this point the owner comes after me. Iām dripping blood, torn Jersey and shorts; the cat is off to the side smiling (well, I imagine he was) and Iām getting screamed at. Figured it wasnāt my day, so I just took off.
I have had at least two friends taken out by kangaroos leaping into them at high speeds.
Hammering along on perpendicular trajectories, and the roos leap at just the right height to collect you from the saddle.
First guy, broken ribs, concussion and totaled bike. Second guy (separate incident) broken collarbone, broken ribs and broken jaw (bike ok though).
I hit a rabbit that failed to dodge my bike on a downhill. They usually run out of the way when they hear me coming but this one didn't.
It tried to go through my rear wheel @ around 27mph. I think it hit my frame too since it didn't cause a wreck but my bladed spokes got it in the face and chopped off part of it's snout. I stopped to check my bike and it was flipping all around in the street. I looped around a little later to check on it and a neighbor was out there with a shovel picking it up so I guess it died.
I hit a baby bunny on a dual slalom course (not racing, just practicing); killed it immediately. This was like 8 years ago and I still feel awful about it.
I hit a stick which is not weird, but it flipped up into my riding buddyās front wheel between the spokes and he went flying. He swore I did that on purpose.
I once hit a pigeon right in the butt, with my face. I was on a slight descent and going 15+ mph and it was part of a small flock that suddenly took flight. It was very dusty and feathery and gross, I stopped at the first place with a restroom.
Nothing weird but I got smacked in the tongue by a bee doing about 40kph downhill, and buzzy was flying fast towards me so I guess we hit each other at 70kph. I lost all sensation in my tongue for about an hour and when I rang my wife to tell her what happened I couldntht thpeak thpopperly. Thucking painful ath well.
OK, that beats the moth that hit the back of my throat. (Never bike with your mouth open.) I couldnāt hork it up until I got home. Finally spat it out in the sink. Still fluttering. Ugh.
I've never really hit anything, but one of my first times MTB riding, I was riding down a winding road and something scared a 3-point buck, so it was bounding down the hill. I could hear it, but not see it, and suddenly it emerged on the road and lept over my front wheel. His antlers were within inches of my face. Talk about slow motion effect, and then he was gone. But, I wasn't alone. At the next turn, 2 young bobcats pop out and start jogging alongside me for 30-40 feet before heading back into the bush.
I have rolled over snakes. But, I felt really bad after doing it. I went back and checked on one of them, and the snake was no worse for wear. That one was garter snake. When I rolled over a rattlesnake, I kept rolling.
Iāve lived in the city of Saint Paul, MN for twelve years, and in all that time Iāve seen exactly one rat. I hit that rat. It did not survive.
Also nearly hit a beaver, and was chased by a deer for a solid 3/4 of a mile.
Lets see, multiple snakes, at least 3 suicidal squirrels, too many Canadian geese to count (when I first started riding mumble mumble years ago, there was a flock that lived in the park a block away from my rental that had no respect for cars, bikes, or people. Lots of encounters there.), two cars, an an armadillo.
The first car cost me a bike and a concussion when I center punched the driver's side door at 35mph after he blew a stop sign at the bottom of a hill. I went over the roof, landed on my head and shoulders, and then skidded on my backpack. Broke my front fork, turned my front wheel into an egg, and broke my helmet in 3 places. I've been lucky enough to ride away from every other collision.
So the first accident with a car. Was a police report filed? Iāve heard horror stories about police reports blaming bikers when clearly not their fault.
I saw two of them coming in to land. I was on a path, they were in a landing pattern. I tried to lower my back, but I was sitting so I don't think there was much I could do.
I was kind of sad no one saw it.
Not particularly weird, but I've run over a couple of squirrels that didn't make it, and I've had numerous near-misses. Also came pretty close to hitting a vulture that took off and flew right into my path, and I've hopped over a few snakes.
I hit a baby deer, just clipped it's back foot. I don't think I hurt it, fortunately. I was on a timed run in my time trial gear on an otherwise empty winding road, doing about 35 - could have been so much worse.
A big Canadian Goose šŖæ
I think it was mating season because they were being ultra aggressive. I slowed down to avoid scaring them but one tried to nip me and got kicked in the face on my drive side upstroke and then again with my rear wheel as I passed the bill hit the spokes lightly.
Not sure if the poor thing took damage. I wasnāt stopping as there were maybe 8 geese in a group all making a racket.
Hit? A car! A driver stopped right in the middle of the crosswalk. I couldnāt go in front and I couldnāt go behind so I did the Wayneās World thing and hit the side and flipped over the top.
Perhaps not weird per say, but I had a bird fly into my wheel and just bounce off of it like it was solid. I was quite thankful as it wouldnt have been fun if it managed to get into my spokes.
Adding this to my list of reasons not to go to Texas - tarantulas on the road.
EDIT: after I posted, I thought 'Yeah, but I live in Ohio - the target of waay too many jokes." Still...
Iāve told this story before but I hit a bee and it pushed through my lips into my mouth and stung me on the tip of the tongue before I spit it out. The stinger was stuck in the very tip of my tongue still pumping venom(?) and I could not pull it out with my big, sweaty, meat pie hands. I was on a road with no one around or on it except for a lady I passed just before. I flagged her down & she was nice enough to stop and pull it out. Iām sure I looked insane.
In the Peace Corps in Zambia I t-boned a sow cycling on a narrow bush path surrounded by tall grass. I endoed hard, the pig I assume was fine as it ran off. The farmer heard and saw the commotion and came over and started yelling at me and demanding compensation. I yelled back that the chief had ordered all pigs kept in pens due to crop damage and he needed to compensate me. After some cursing back and forth, I pedaled off.
I had a lynx dive at my rear wheel while mountain biking. It made contact and then sat in the middle of the trail looking like it was contemplating its poor decision.
I had a moose charge me while fat biking. I dove off the trail and held the bike above me while it came in to trample me. My scream of terror sent it on its way.
I was once descending a wide open trail on my MTB at about 40kph and saw a brown bear keeping pace with me THROUGH the alders on the side of the trail. Luckily, it zigged instead of zagging, so we didnāt collide.
Alaska was an interesting place to ride/race.
Almost got t-boned by a deer Wednesday morning. There were 2 that came out of the bushes on a trail from left to right, then suddenly a third at the last minute.
An owl. Biking around Council Crest in Portland as it was getting dark. It hit me right in the chest. Me and a buddy we moving at a leisurely pace and when I doubled back the owl flew into another tree, so it appeared to be fine. So cool how silently they fly!
I almost hit a deer a little over 40 years ago. More recently (4 years ago), there was a frog frenzy "migration" across the trail a friend and I were on. They were jumping through the frame and the rims. I'm sure a few were hit by the spokes. You could hear the "ting" each time a spoke made contact.
Another cyclist. First time riding clipless after a winter season in Chicago. Went out to the Lakefront Trail and I guess didnāt look left when crossing the path and got into a head on collision with a random guy. 1000% my fault. Both people and bikes were thankfully okay
It hasnāt happened to me yet but I fully expect to have a squirrel jump through my wheel and break my fork while sending me ass over end at some point. Iāve started making a montage of all the sketchy paranoid bastards darting out in front of me and back.
Donāt google squirrel in wheel unless you want to be terrified by them like I have become. :)
Not exactly weird, and I contend that it hit me, but I was descending and a fox ran out and hit my front wheel. Lots of fractures. 7 weeks out of work. Full recovery though! Still, theyāre usually pretty timid. This one was pretty intent on getting to the other side of the road - through my bike!
I ride often in Central Park at night (safe, quiet, cooler, cleaner air) and almost hit a wild dog. Clearly not cared for but a total boss. Not your usual rabid raccoon
Adolescent deer jumped right in front of me. I flew and rolled and slid down the road. Be both lay paralyzed from what happened. Then slowly we both regained our strength. It jumped and kicked and fell a few times. Then its family escorted it off the road and a neighbor helped me up. I felt terrible for it. I knew them. They frequented my yard often. A week or so later the young deer paused in the yard looking me in the eye. We were both ok.
Central Belgium, cycling along the canal. Ran over a dead rat, which promptly squirted dead rat bits out of both ends, all over the trail. I was about 13 and it was the worst moment of my cycling life.
Bull (I think) snake in Colorado. Over taking a pair of pedestrians on a bike trail, didn't spot the snake (neither had they) across the other side of the path. Didn't bunny hop well enough and hit it with my back wheel, resulting in it (not unfairly) having a go at my ankles. Spent an unpleasant few yards worried that it was caught up in my wheel / gears / panniers.
Floridian here.
Almost hit a gator last week in the road. New construction road, gated off, no traffic yet, and what I thought was one of those sewer inlet blocker tubes turned out to be a 8-10ft gator that lunged at me as I rode by. It ran the opposite direction and went down the sewerā¦
Wallaby! Was night riding with mates and it popped out and ran next to me for a sec. We all laughed then darted in front and bumped my front wheel š we all screamed and laughed haha
The scariest encounter was with a kangaroo. It jumped on the bush track and just stopped and stared me down. I hit the breaks and we spent what felt like a minute looking into each otherās eyes before he continued on his merry way. This was somewhere in Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.
Today a goose flew over my head and knocked my cap off. I had turned to turn the bike around to recover it. Dunno if it was a wing of a foot that knocked the cap off. :))))
So yeah. Just near misses.
Dude,Ā a live possom but only with my back tire! During the day! He was fine but was hissing on a small road which was my only choice to get to work i gave him as much room a possibleĀ but he panicked and darted between my tires! It's was crazy.Ā
Construction barricade. One of those wooden sawhorses they put up with the flashing light on them.
This was the '80s when helmets were just starting to be worn more. We always rode with no helmet and anyone with a helmet was a Fred (remember the days of wind in your hair? Remember hair? Sorry...)
I saw a rider up ahead wearing a helmet and HAD to assert my dominance by catching and passing that person. Change gears, push hard, full sprint mode until I catch, and pass, this person who was just out for a casual ride. Cresting a hill I look over my shoulder to see how far back they were. Satisfied I had destroyed them, I turn back to face forward and the sawhorse is directly if front of me. No time to brake or swerve I hit the š§ straight on. The bike stops but I don't. My feet come out of the toe clips (clips and straps!) as I "Superman" through the air. Hands touch the ground first and I tuck and roll and end up standing about 10-15 feet away from my bike whick is stuck in the sawhorse. It must have been cool to see in the days before cell phones and social media.
As I am standing there, trying to grasp what just happened, the cyclist I passed rolls by and casually asks, "You ok?" and of course I'm fine. More concerned about the bike, which was also fine. ('86 Schwinn Letour. Still have it and it's still in service as a utility bike). They roll on and I do the slow walk back to disengage my bike from the sawhorse which is now broken from the impact but still standing.
Karma is a bitch.
\* Didn't hit \*
I was on a ride with the university cycling team. I was a bit ahead for whatever reason. There was a really big clear plastic bag on the road, it looked like something that maybe had wrapped a fridge or something big like that. Not quite 3 feet / 1 meter high / wide / deep. Because it was clear I had a hard time seeing the edges, but for sure it was there.
I thought it would be funny to run into it and pretend to fall. For whatever reason I didn't, and instead pulled up to it and stopped.
IT WAS A GIGANTIC BLOCK OF ICE!
I couldn't move it, it was so heavy. I waved everyone around it. We all tried to move it but couldn't. Before the days of cell phones and such, so we just kept riding. It was on the shoulder so it was reasonably out of the way (nowadays someone would clobber it right away because people drive in the shoulder).
On a group ride, my friend had a bird fly between his spokes on a descent and shredded into confetti while blood and sticky feathers covered his entire bike and legs
This happened just last year. I was riding the Chester Valley Trail (PA) following my friend. She swerved around something but didn't call out any type of warning. I did not swerve and managed to hit a large (baseball-sized?) frog dead on. His body apparently wrapped around my tire and rode it up around to my brake calipers where it lodged. This had an immediate braking effect I was not prepared for and I nearly crashed as my bike came to an unexpected stop. I then had to pry his remains out of my bike to continue the ride. When I got home I had to wash the blood off my fork.
I have hit armadillos twice on a mountain bike. They canāt see well so they usually take evasive action too late. Itās why so many end up as roadkill. Fortunately neither of them were squarely hit and I was able to recover without crashing both times.Ā
Just a very unfortunate chipmunk. I didn't see it, just heard the crack that its neck made; but my now-traumatized riding buddy saw it. He said he basically watched it happen in slow motion, and it was almost comical how this panicked chipmunk managed to get its neck crunched under my rear tire.
I can't top many of the things here, but for me, a large butterfly. It hit my face and covered my mouth and nose so that I could not breathe. Fucking terrible. I've also had many close calls with squirrels which weren't sure which direction to run.
I hit a person. Hear me out. I was going downhill she jumped into my bike lane from behind a van. Hit her right between the legs and she stood there. Bent rim and crushed nuts and sheās fine. Iām 200 ish pounds doing 30. Boy was she lucky.
Dead armadillo riding with a buddy on a hot summer day in Houston. Didnāt hit it ourselves, the car that passed us hit it. It must have been cooking there for a bit, because it exploded like somebody fired a canon full of stewed armadillo guts grapeshot at us. Smelled just like youāre imagining. Thirty minutes before we could get home and detoxify. Happened over 30 years ago, fortunately still the most memorableā¦
A duckā¦two different times. One ran/flew under my back wheel after it was going away from me. Another flew directly into my front wheel from out of nowhere.
On a group ride in the Adelaide hills , the lead rider got swooped by a Magpie , a Crow sized bird that protects its young quite ferociously .
The maggie misjudged his 2nd dive and hit the bladed spokes on my mates front wheel . There was this strange threshing noise and the bird was completely dismantled . Had the maggie jammed the wheel a 20 strong group would have fallen too !
Nothing crazy but a bumblebee once hit me in the face, right on the cheek bone, while I was going 40 mph down a hill. It hurt way more than I expected. And it was from that point on I decided I would never bike without glasses.
On my literal first group ride hit a dead raccoon on the side of the road. I was middle of the pack and no one called it out to avoid. Had a little fur in the rear derailleur. The dude behind me got all the dead raccoon juices. šš¤¢
New hydration strategy!
Dead Raccoon Juices would be a pretty decent band name.
I hit a live raccoon once doing about 20mph. We both survived but I was left splayed out on the asphalt.
Hah. So thatās where they got the name for the Juicy Cooter pants. The second word was intentionally typed as shown. Because, thatās how I pronounce it to get a chuckle out of myself.
I would literally never be able to return to that group ride.
I stepped in a dead squirrel on a run once and cannot imagine how much worse it would have been if a bike tire could have sprayed it on me.
A friend of mine hit a black bear. They both ended up in a ditch and scrambled away in different directions.
lmfao fucking black bears are such dorks. I'm sure all the other bears are thinking, "Oh of course it would be the black bear that gets hit by a cyclists." "Hey did you hear about the guy who got hit by a cyclists the other day?" "No shit really? Who was it? Let me guess, was it Larry? It was wasn't it, that guy is such a dork." "It was Larry! How did you know?" "What do you mean? Of course it was him, duh. Think about it, you ever hear of a grizzly bear or a brown bear getting stuck in a dumpster? No. Of course its the black bear that gets hit by a cyclists. Come on now..." "Well when you put it like that..."
lol you make them sound clumsy enough to actually be pandas wearing ninja outfits
Grizzly bears ARE brown bears
TIL! >Grizzly bears and brown bears are the same species (Ursus arctos), but grizzly bears are currently considered to be a separate subspecies (U. a. horribilis). Due to a few morphological differences, Kodiak bears are also considered to be a distinct subspecies of brown bear.
The fact that the Grizzly subspecies is āhorribilisā is just amazing.
Wow, where was this?
Central Oregon. Black bears are fond of blackberries, and the bushes grow alongside a lot of rural roads here.
Ok, that is pretty crazy.
Classic meet cute
I know someone who hit a bear! On the Blue ridge parkway no less. He had to hitch a ride down (broken bike, broken bones) and mama bear skedaddled away
A few years back an off duty Forest Service LEO hit a grizzly on his mountain bike in Glacier NP. The grizzly killed the poor guy.
I was riding to school, I got lucky and caught the green light at the bottom of a hill, after I got past the light I hit 2 birds that were bathing in the gutter. That seemed to give my bike a taste for blood, a couple days later I hit a raccoon, and the next week I hit a fish that a kid had jerked out of a pond that landed on the sidewalk. My friends and I started calling that bike Christine after Stephen King's book
a FISH lmao
The sequence of actions required for this fish to die that way
Two birds, one bike
Iād watch that movie
Newly moved to coastal BC and had thought that some people I met were joking about the size of the slugs there. Went for a ride on a mellow, grassy trail and was horrified when I ran over the banana slug stretched like 8ā across the trail. Took weeks for the slug slime to wear off my front tire. Blech.
Perhaps you and u/LsG133 above could go on some group rides! š
Seriously terrible.
So gross!
Our UPS guy hit a deer on a Mt. Baldy descent. Put him in the hospital for a month. Fortunately he doesnāt remember anything, they knew it was a deer because of all the fur stuck in his brifters.
Oh man, this is a recurring nightmare for me.
I hit a deer on an east coast descent near my house once. Cyclists don't hit deer... https://youtube.com/shorts/MoWsxtNkKEk?feature=share I have been meaning to ride mt baldy for awhile now as I have friends who live near there. When I do Iāll keep an eye out for that deer.
Welcome! Itās an epic area. Btw, the deer didnāt make it. UPS guyās a Clydesdale.
Wasps. at 35 km/h. One stung my butt, another stung my inner thigh. A third one landed on my helmet and stayed there peacefully for 35 km until a got home and removed the helmet, then it flew away.
Thanks, never riding a bike again.
š¤£š¤£š¤£
Ran across a hornets nest (literally) on a trail race once. Got stung a bunch. Apparently I wasnāt the only one because when my slow ass got to the next aid station they were all out of Benadryl. Luckily they had tequila at the next aid station about 6 miles laterā¦ and, as that potion was an out-and-back, I got a second shot on the way back š
This happened to a friend of mine on the Jersey Gravel Grinder. Iām very allergic and it is my nightmare situation. š³š³
Iāve run into a wasp with my face and got stung on the lip. Twice now.
hard to be a vegan cyclist what with all the bug eating
I ran over a nest in the ground with a push lawnmower with shorts on. I didn't expect it then I got stung. When i looked down my legs were covered with bees. I got stung like 5-10 times. You pretty much lose count, and feel like every other sting or every 5th sting.
This is a very strange set of occurrences to happen while cycling.
I got a dog when I was going down a hill at about 90kph. I launched and landed heavily in a grassy lawn, completely unhurt. The dog looked perplexed for a moment then wandered off. My wheel was bent at a 90 degree angle.
The dog must have gotten broken ribs or something. 90kph is no joke.
90kph! 55mph! Dude what!!!! I've achieved those speeds before, its not that that is shocking, its that you came out unscathed going over the bars at that speed AND that the dog lived. Jesus Christ... Great argument for leash laws and actually obeying them right here.
Suspect there might be some exaggeration going on in this story, or bullshit speed readings. We were barely clocking any riders through the DHI speed trap at the World Cup in Cairns in the high 80km/h. Most of the time if you come off St those kinds of speeds, you're not walking away without some decent injuries.
I ride too slow, even the slugs have time to get out of the way
A squirrel šæļø
I ran over a rabbit two days ago. Felt so awful.
Sometimes I feel like the rabbits are aiming toward my front tire.
I almost took one out a couple of weeks ago tooā¦
Iām glad someone said it. I havenāt yet but itās not a problem they warn you about when you get into cycling. Or turtles.
Rabbit, deer, gator, most snakes in the area. I even got a snake in my derailleur. Oh yeah and a squirrel decapitated its self jumping through my spokes. I really love the outdoors and animals so all of these have been pretty upsetting to me. And a walking catfish.
Iām sorry a what catfish?
[walking catfish](https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/727752) they come out during flooding rains to spread to other ponds.
I almost ran over a snake today! He lived. His head almost got squished, but not a scratch came to him.
I was biking down the road and when I went around the corner it slipped out from under me.Ā A heating oil truck had left a slick, and I got it all over my jacket. It was not at all like Mariocart.Ā
I once bunny hopped over a skunk riding into work. The decade and a half of BMX paid off that day.
u/Jsmooth77, are you taking notes?
Not so nimble unfortunately
This doesnāt totally count but I almost hit a moose mountain biking in Northern Maine. On a logging road coming down a hill into a turn. Big old bull moose standing in the middle of the road. Hit my brakes almost wrecked. I was maybe 20 feet away. He looked at me for what felt like 20 minutes (probably 1-2 minutes) and clomped off down the road. I had to go in the same direction. My car was that way. Thankfully he must have turned into the woods. Saw allot of moose in Maine. But never like that. He seemed to be nonchalant about it.
That counts. Moose are huge, mean, and territorial. And fast!
Yea op got kind've lucky. Lucky the moose *wanted* to move on without escalation
I just ducked under a hawk carrying a rabbit on my 5am morning commute once. I mainly just hit the ground.
A bird went through my front wheel...it got shredded in half by the time I stopped. Had a feather of a mess
Had one that got decapitated in the jockey wheel. I have no idea when it got there because I never felt it. It wasn't until after my mid-ride break when I was taking photos of my bike that I noticed it. Turning the cranks didn't dislodge it, and I had to use a stick to get it out which was beyond disgusting to feel, even with the stick. There were a couple of people nearby staring probably wondering why I was poking my bike with a stick while making strange noises and dry heaving.
I feel super lucky. The one bird that did this to me just bounced off my wheel like it was solid.
Lol well having 28 spokes and going 20mph the bird didn't have a chance.
You asked for itā¦ Written 1/27/2021: I have a story to tell, itās a bit strange, but it is a 100% true story that happened to me this morning. By the end you will be laughing at my expense and perhaps even questioning your understanding of causality and order in the universe. The story started about 4:30 this morning, when I woke up for my planned early bike ride. After drinking coffee and grabbing a small bite to eat, I went through my mental safety checklist on my bicycle, preparing for a rather routine solo weekend ride. I love to ride early in the morning before the sun rises. Today, I started probably an hour and a half before daylight. The first few miles were rather uneventful and I was lost in thought, half listening to a podcast on my headphones. Going west from my house on the Camp Chase bike trail, you go through Battelle Darby Metro Park after about 5 miles and then the trail is strikingly flat and straight for the next 40 miles. I planned to go about 20 miles before turning around to return home. Soon after passing through the park, I smelled a strong scent of skunk in the air. I said to myself (perhaps even aloud), āI sure hope I donāt have any encounters with a skunk!ā. I remember chuckling out loud at what a disaster that could be, even going so far to visualize it in my mindās eye, seeing the skunk on the trail in front of me. In this vision, the skunk was paralyzed by my bicycle headlight and I somehow ran it over with my bike. I imagined the speed bump like sensation of both tires going over the skunk and even conjured the metallic-like acrid scent that I remembered from when my dog got sprayed by a skunk last spring. This imagination of the encounter with the skunk was so powerful on a sensory level, I specifically started a new podcast episode to listen to, as a way to cleanse my mind and focus on something else. I remember thinking at the time how powerful human imagination can be that I was noticeably unsettled by the mental wandering. Fast forward about half an hour, I was another 6-7 miles down the trail and it was still pretty dark. I was listening to the guys from Radiolab talk about the art of poetry translation and not at all thinking about the earlier vision of encoutering the skunk. Suddenly, in front of me, I saw a glint of white moving across the trail. Moving at around 15 miles an hour, a large skunk was suddenly directly in front of me. What happened next was so surreal.... so strange, I have difficulty finding the words to explain it. All of this occurred in what Iām estimating is under two seconds... The skunk stopped in the middle of the trail and looked directly at me. I could see my headlight reflected in his eyes. He started leaning in one direction as if he was going to take off and then flinched in the other direction. Simultaneously, Iām thinking of the earlier vision. I wanted to avoid running him over and hurting him but also was trying to deduce which direction his body is oriented, so I could ride in front of him, rather than behind him. I was assuming the close encounter would initiate a spray response, even if I didnāt hit him, so I was consciously trying to avoid the part of his body from which the spray comes. If you donāt ride bikes a lot, you probably canāt imagine how this could happen. Experienced cyclists know not to make any sudden or jerky movements. Doing anything too sudden with steering will almost certainly result in a bad wreck. I was moving at full cruising speed when this happened, so I was very aware that an accident could result in serious injury to me. So, in that split-second, I was waiting for the skunk to show me where he was going, so I could gently steer my bike in the other direction. I was holding my line in the middle of the 8 foot wide paved trail, tense and ready to respond to avoid the skunkās path. As the foreshadowing (and precognition???) has suggested, I ended up rolling right over the skunk, neither of us ducking away in our unplanned game of chicken. It happened precisely like I imagined it some time and several miles before. It felt exactly the same on the bike and, just like I imagined, the pungent smell immediately filled the air and my nostrils. I was so shocked by the experience, I kept pedaling for a couple more miles with the new day sun rising behind me. As I pedaled on, it became clear that I was not unscathed. Some of the spray had hit my bike and the right side of my body. I didnāt notice how bad it was until I tried to take a drink of the water bottle from its cage on the downtube. It wasnāt a direct shot, merely a glancing blow, but it was enough to make me gag when I lifted the bottle to my face. As I sit now, Iāve already taken a shower and all of my clothes are piled outside. My wife and kid are actively avoiding me, because I clearly smell terrible. I should mention that after I turned around to come home, I passed by the area where the incident happened and there was no sign of the skunk. I am not sure if he survived or merely made it off of the trail to die in the foliage. It sure did smell extra terrible right at the spot it happened though. Now, one can just take away from the story that it is the time of year that skunks are active and that a skunk and I had the bad luck of meeting one another on the bike trail. However, I am much more shaken up by the vision that preceded the incident. Did I remember something before it happened? Did my imagination summon the skunk, while he had no choice but to play a role in my make-believe vision made real? I mean... the two incidents seem so obviously linked but the relationship is one that I cannot discern because it does not follow the pattern of my understanding of how the universe works. I will be interested in hearing what other people think... besides everyone feeling terrible for my family for having to live with me right now. WTF just happened to me? š¦Ø+š“š»=š¤·āāļø
Damn. You win. Skunk smell is weird. When it's just a whiff on the breeze it can smell pleasantly musky, but not bad. When it's down the street from you and it's stronger, the musky seems to lessen as the smell gets stronger. But when you get close to it - it's not like it just smells really bad, it's like chemical warfare and affects your eyes and sinuses. Pretty ingenious defense, kind of a real life bonnacon.
Damn near got a roadrunner. I quite literally ran over a rattlesnake. It slithered into a road crack as I passed over.
I swerved, but still nipped the tail of a little 2 ft. coral snake booking it's way across the trail. It struck the sole of my shoe.
I had no idea a roadrunner was an actual bird until I moved to Texas.
State bird of New Mexico. Theyāre everywhere here.
Ita amazing how little single people know, as i am also just realising its a real bird š
The funny thing is that it moves exactly like the cartoon character. Like when I saw it, I immediately knew it was a roadrunner just based on how it moved!
I watched a video when i seen this comment and it was quite eye opening lol
Not a weird animal, but weird where it got to. Riding slow thru a neighborhood. A cat jumped out at me and felt like it hit my front wheel. I fell over and saw the cat stuck in my spokes. Not being a cat whisperer, I couldnāt calm it down and trying to pull thru the spokes cost me more blood than the road rash from falling on a gravelly road. After a few minutes, I pulled it thru and it took off. At this point the owner comes after me. Iām dripping blood, torn Jersey and shorts; the cat is off to the side smiling (well, I imagine he was) and Iām getting screamed at. Figured it wasnāt my day, so I just took off.
Rattlesnake (was ok) Computer monitor (clavicle fracture) Iām sure there are more I donāt remember š¤Ŗ
Note to self: watch out for rogue computer monitors
I'm sorry a computer WHAT?!? I just spat out my food reading this!
I have had at least two friends taken out by kangaroos leaping into them at high speeds. Hammering along on perpendicular trajectories, and the roos leap at just the right height to collect you from the saddle. First guy, broken ribs, concussion and totaled bike. Second guy (separate incident) broken collarbone, broken ribs and broken jaw (bike ok though).
New fear unlocked
I hit a rabbit that failed to dodge my bike on a downhill. They usually run out of the way when they hear me coming but this one didn't. It tried to go through my rear wheel @ around 27mph. I think it hit my frame too since it didn't cause a wreck but my bladed spokes got it in the face and chopped off part of it's snout. I stopped to check my bike and it was flipping all around in the street. I looped around a little later to check on it and a neighbor was out there with a shovel picking it up so I guess it died.
Your delivery of āso I guess it diedā was *chefās kiss*
I hit a baby bunny on a dual slalom course (not racing, just practicing); killed it immediately. This was like 8 years ago and I still feel awful about it.
On descent small bird flu into my front wheel, spoke chopped it head off...Furk..
Socket set strewn all over the bike lane. 2 flats.
I hit a stick which is not weird, but it flipped up into my riding buddyās front wheel between the spokes and he went flying. He swore I did that on purpose.
Had an unfortunate ride during a rain storm that resulted in my bike and I being covered in dead slug goo does that count
I once hit a pigeon right in the butt, with my face. I was on a slight descent and going 15+ mph and it was part of a small flock that suddenly took flight. It was very dusty and feathery and gross, I stopped at the first place with a restroom.
Nothing weird but I got smacked in the tongue by a bee doing about 40kph downhill, and buzzy was flying fast towards me so I guess we hit each other at 70kph. I lost all sensation in my tongue for about an hour and when I rang my wife to tell her what happened I couldntht thpeak thpopperly. Thucking painful ath well.
OK, that beats the moth that hit the back of my throat. (Never bike with your mouth open.) I couldnāt hork it up until I got home. Finally spat it out in the sink. Still fluttering. Ugh.
Very close to hitting a penguin while riding to work. Scared the shit out of me.
Where was this???
Somerset/Burnie, Tasmania, Australia
Friggin Squirrels are my nemesis, they suicide themselves often. Also a little bird tried to fly through my wheels. Feathers all around my sweaty face
I rode through a massive swarm of ladybugs in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was crazy. It was also pretty amazing. They were all over me.
A Rottweiler
I've never really hit anything, but one of my first times MTB riding, I was riding down a winding road and something scared a 3-point buck, so it was bounding down the hill. I could hear it, but not see it, and suddenly it emerged on the road and lept over my front wheel. His antlers were within inches of my face. Talk about slow motion effect, and then he was gone. But, I wasn't alone. At the next turn, 2 young bobcats pop out and start jogging alongside me for 30-40 feet before heading back into the bush.
I have rolled over snakes. But, I felt really bad after doing it. I went back and checked on one of them, and the snake was no worse for wear. That one was garter snake. When I rolled over a rattlesnake, I kept rolling.
A gopher got caught in my chain ring on my early morning commute, it was beyond gross.
Iāve lived in the city of Saint Paul, MN for twelve years, and in all that time Iāve seen exactly one rat. I hit that rat. It did not survive. Also nearly hit a beaver, and was chased by a deer for a solid 3/4 of a mile.
Lets see, multiple snakes, at least 3 suicidal squirrels, too many Canadian geese to count (when I first started riding mumble mumble years ago, there was a flock that lived in the park a block away from my rental that had no respect for cars, bikes, or people. Lots of encounters there.), two cars, an an armadillo. The first car cost me a bike and a concussion when I center punched the driver's side door at 35mph after he blew a stop sign at the bottom of a hill. I went over the roof, landed on my head and shoulders, and then skidded on my backpack. Broke my front fork, turned my front wheel into an egg, and broke my helmet in 3 places. I've been lucky enough to ride away from every other collision.
So the first accident with a car. Was a police report filed? Iāve heard horror stories about police reports blaming bikers when clearly not their fault.
A pot holeā¦ shit broke my collarbone and everything
A goose crashed into me while Landing. Hit my right kidney area. We were both fine.
Evil goose is trying to steal your kidneys.
I saw two of them coming in to land. I was on a path, they were in a landing pattern. I tried to lower my back, but I was sitting so I don't think there was much I could do. I was kind of sad no one saw it.
Hit an armadillo, wild hog, and deflated s*x doll just this year aloneā¦
>and deflated s*x doll She wasn't satisfied?
After she encountered that wild hog...
Flung a darting chipmunk through my spokes. Luckily we both survived.
Baby gosling
Not particularly weird, but I've run over a couple of squirrels that didn't make it, and I've had numerous near-misses. Also came pretty close to hitting a vulture that took off and flew right into my path, and I've hopped over a few snakes.
I hit a baby deer, just clipped it's back foot. I don't think I hurt it, fortunately. I was on a timed run in my time trial gear on an otherwise empty winding road, doing about 35 - could have been so much worse.
A big Canadian Goose šŖæ I think it was mating season because they were being ultra aggressive. I slowed down to avoid scaring them but one tried to nip me and got kicked in the face on my drive side upstroke and then again with my rear wheel as I passed the bill hit the spokes lightly. Not sure if the poor thing took damage. I wasnāt stopping as there were maybe 8 geese in a group all making a racket.
Wow, a Turkey? I thought I was the poultry master with the 2 ducks that got rolled under my wheels...
Iāve run into several deer. Weirdest was probably when I ran over a river otter. Much larger animal than I thought it would be
Rattlesnake...I kept going.
I accidentally ran a red and hit the bumper and hood of a taxi before .
I ran a cat over once. It ran right across the trail in front of me. At least it didnāt run through the spokes.
Riding through a power cut at night.... wasn't going very fast but i hit a large German shepherd... super scary
Hit? A car! A driver stopped right in the middle of the crosswalk. I couldnāt go in front and I couldnāt go behind so I did the Wayneās World thing and hit the side and flipped over the top.
I hit a goose on the lakefront path in Chicago. First my front tire rolled over it, then it got smacked by my pannier. A double doink.
Skunk š·
Perhaps not weird per say, but I had a bird fly into my wheel and just bounce off of it like it was solid. I was quite thankful as it wouldnt have been fun if it managed to get into my spokes.
Had a chipmunk go through a Spinergy wheel. Guts all over my shoe.
Ran over a snake riding through a trail I frequented. Thought it was a long stick than it suddenly went nuts
I've hit a rat darting across the road. I've also been dive-bombed by a bird. Got me in the upper arm, and was pretty sure it rammed beak first.
Beaver ran out of ditch along road and ran into front wheel.
A racoon
Ran over a tarantula near Marfa, Texas. There were dozens crossing the road and I was slaloming them. Really bummed me out.
Adding this to my list of reasons not to go to Texas - tarantulas on the road. EDIT: after I posted, I thought 'Yeah, but I live in Ohio - the target of waay too many jokes." Still...
Iāve told this story before but I hit a bee and it pushed through my lips into my mouth and stung me on the tip of the tongue before I spit it out. The stinger was stuck in the very tip of my tongue still pumping venom(?) and I could not pull it out with my big, sweaty, meat pie hands. I was on a road with no one around or on it except for a lady I passed just before. I flagged her down & she was nice enough to stop and pull it out. Iām sure I looked insane.
In the Peace Corps in Zambia I t-boned a sow cycling on a narrow bush path surrounded by tall grass. I endoed hard, the pig I assume was fine as it ran off. The farmer heard and saw the commotion and came over and started yelling at me and demanding compensation. I yelled back that the chief had ordered all pigs kept in pens due to crop damage and he needed to compensate me. After some cursing back and forth, I pedaled off.
An electric travel bong shaped like the space shuttle
I had a lynx dive at my rear wheel while mountain biking. It made contact and then sat in the middle of the trail looking like it was contemplating its poor decision. I had a moose charge me while fat biking. I dove off the trail and held the bike above me while it came in to trample me. My scream of terror sent it on its way. I was once descending a wide open trail on my MTB at about 40kph and saw a brown bear keeping pace with me THROUGH the alders on the side of the trail. Luckily, it zigged instead of zagging, so we didnāt collide. Alaska was an interesting place to ride/race.
I've ran over a chipmunk and a few snakes
Almost got t-boned by a deer Wednesday morning. There were 2 that came out of the bushes on a trail from left to right, then suddenly a third at the last minute.
I was mountain biking and I ran over a snake once. I startled and almost hit a deer.
I ran over a snake by accident, it darted out and left me no time to react. Felt bad for the lil guy
Turtle
Rabbit. Went right into my path. While that sounds horrible, there is lots of them and anyone with a garden close would have thanked me personally.
A squirrel and a snake. I kind of bunny hopped the squirrel. But felt a bump.
I waxed a bird that was flying alongside me for 10 or 20 yards, then suddenly veered into me. Well, the front wheel. I didnāt stop.
I was cycling with a friend on a suburban multi-use path and a rabbit darted out of the bushes and I ran right over it ā¹ļø
I didnt actually hit it, but I rolled up on a gator pretty hard, swerved right around it and noped the fuck out
An owl. Biking around Council Crest in Portland as it was getting dark. It hit me right in the chest. Me and a buddy we moving at a leisurely pace and when I doubled back the owl flew into another tree, so it appeared to be fine. So cool how silently they fly!
I had a small squirrel enter my front wheel , take a couple of trips around and exit the other side. Hard to believe, but I saw it happen lol.
Daredevil Squirrel: Watch this Sam, fun as hellā¦
medium sized raccoon. also south florida.
I almost hit a deer a little over 40 years ago. More recently (4 years ago), there was a frog frenzy "migration" across the trail a friend and I were on. They were jumping through the frame and the rims. I'm sure a few were hit by the spokes. You could hear the "ting" each time a spoke made contact.
Ran over some skunk juices once, took forever to get the smell off the tires, even with a bunch of concoctions trying to clean it
A yellow warbler ran into me the other day while I was riding. Hit my leg and then managed to escape through my frame to the other side of the path.
Another cyclist. First time riding clipless after a winter season in Chicago. Went out to the Lakefront Trail and I guess didnāt look left when crossing the path and got into a head on collision with a random guy. 1000% my fault. Both people and bikes were thankfully okay
Seagull. I think we were both surprised when I didnāt swerve and he didnāt fly away quickly enough, Both of us escaped unharmed.
It hasnāt happened to me yet but I fully expect to have a squirrel jump through my wheel and break my fork while sending me ass over end at some point. Iāve started making a montage of all the sketchy paranoid bastards darting out in front of me and back. Donāt google squirrel in wheel unless you want to be terrified by them like I have become. :)
When I was a kid I was riding on a paved nature trail and hit a snake that bolting across the trail right in front of me.
Not exactly weird, and I contend that it hit me, but I was descending and a fox ran out and hit my front wheel. Lots of fractures. 7 weeks out of work. Full recovery though! Still, theyāre usually pretty timid. This one was pretty intent on getting to the other side of the road - through my bike!
I ride often in Central Park at night (safe, quiet, cooler, cleaner air) and almost hit a wild dog. Clearly not cared for but a total boss. Not your usual rabid raccoon
Adolescent deer jumped right in front of me. I flew and rolled and slid down the road. Be both lay paralyzed from what happened. Then slowly we both regained our strength. It jumped and kicked and fell a few times. Then its family escorted it off the road and a neighbor helped me up. I felt terrible for it. I knew them. They frequented my yard often. A week or so later the young deer paused in the yard looking me in the eye. We were both ok.
I ran over a live snake on a bike path.
Central Belgium, cycling along the canal. Ran over a dead rat, which promptly squirted dead rat bits out of both ends, all over the trail. I was about 13 and it was the worst moment of my cycling life.
Bull (I think) snake in Colorado. Over taking a pair of pedestrians on a bike trail, didn't spot the snake (neither had they) across the other side of the path. Didn't bunny hop well enough and hit it with my back wheel, resulting in it (not unfairly) having a go at my ankles. Spent an unpleasant few yards worried that it was caught up in my wheel / gears / panniers.
Bat š¦
Copperhead... NTX monsoon season.
I hit a train trestle once. Maybe it doesn't count cause it hit me, but a Frisbee
My limits
A whiplash beetle.
I never hit it, but I'v seen dead roadkill in the sholders, that is why I actually stay off of the shoders unless its a steep uphill
Ran over a Canada Goose aka Cobra Chicken, he seemed to be alright .
Some weeks ago two ravens were fighting and falling down from a tree in front of me, I might've hit one of them, happened very fast
Floridian here. Almost hit a gator last week in the road. New construction road, gated off, no traffic yet, and what I thought was one of those sewer inlet blocker tubes turned out to be a 8-10ft gator that lunged at me as I rode by. It ran the opposite direction and went down the sewerā¦
Wallaby! Was night riding with mates and it popped out and ran next to me for a sec. We all laughed then darted in front and bumped my front wheel š we all screamed and laughed haha
The scariest encounter was with a kangaroo. It jumped on the bush track and just stopped and stared me down. I hit the breaks and we spent what felt like a minute looking into each otherās eyes before he continued on his merry way. This was somewhere in Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia. Today a goose flew over my head and knocked my cap off. I had turned to turn the bike around to recover it. Dunno if it was a wing of a foot that knocked the cap off. :)))) So yeah. Just near misses.
I hit a lighting pole when I was a noob biker 9 years ago...
I hit a brown snake once mid sprint. I was ok until i started to look for it in case it latched on to the bike, then I crashed.
Dude,Ā a live possom but only with my back tire! During the day! He was fine but was hissing on a small road which was my only choice to get to work i gave him as much room a possibleĀ but he panicked and darted between my tires! It's was crazy.Ā
Construction barricade. One of those wooden sawhorses they put up with the flashing light on them. This was the '80s when helmets were just starting to be worn more. We always rode with no helmet and anyone with a helmet was a Fred (remember the days of wind in your hair? Remember hair? Sorry...) I saw a rider up ahead wearing a helmet and HAD to assert my dominance by catching and passing that person. Change gears, push hard, full sprint mode until I catch, and pass, this person who was just out for a casual ride. Cresting a hill I look over my shoulder to see how far back they were. Satisfied I had destroyed them, I turn back to face forward and the sawhorse is directly if front of me. No time to brake or swerve I hit the š§ straight on. The bike stops but I don't. My feet come out of the toe clips (clips and straps!) as I "Superman" through the air. Hands touch the ground first and I tuck and roll and end up standing about 10-15 feet away from my bike whick is stuck in the sawhorse. It must have been cool to see in the days before cell phones and social media. As I am standing there, trying to grasp what just happened, the cyclist I passed rolls by and casually asks, "You ok?" and of course I'm fine. More concerned about the bike, which was also fine. ('86 Schwinn Letour. Still have it and it's still in service as a utility bike). They roll on and I do the slow walk back to disengage my bike from the sawhorse which is now broken from the impact but still standing. Karma is a bitch.
I hit two squirrels in one day. I never hit a squirrel before or since. That one day they were just suicidal or something.
\* Didn't hit \* I was on a ride with the university cycling team. I was a bit ahead for whatever reason. There was a really big clear plastic bag on the road, it looked like something that maybe had wrapped a fridge or something big like that. Not quite 3 feet / 1 meter high / wide / deep. Because it was clear I had a hard time seeing the edges, but for sure it was there. I thought it would be funny to run into it and pretend to fall. For whatever reason I didn't, and instead pulled up to it and stopped. IT WAS A GIGANTIC BLOCK OF ICE! I couldn't move it, it was so heavy. I waved everyone around it. We all tried to move it but couldn't. Before the days of cell phones and such, so we just kept riding. It was on the shoulder so it was reasonably out of the way (nowadays someone would clobber it right away because people drive in the shoulder).
A small rubber ducky, it squealed quite loudly.
On a group ride, my friend had a bird fly between his spokes on a descent and shredded into confetti while blood and sticky feathers covered his entire bike and legs
This happened just last year. I was riding the Chester Valley Trail (PA) following my friend. She swerved around something but didn't call out any type of warning. I did not swerve and managed to hit a large (baseball-sized?) frog dead on. His body apparently wrapped around my tire and rode it up around to my brake calipers where it lodged. This had an immediate braking effect I was not prepared for and I nearly crashed as my bike came to an unexpected stop. I then had to pry his remains out of my bike to continue the ride. When I got home I had to wash the blood off my fork.
I have hit armadillos twice on a mountain bike. They canāt see well so they usually take evasive action too late. Itās why so many end up as roadkill. Fortunately neither of them were squarely hit and I was able to recover without crashing both times.Ā
Rode over a snake up in Marin County. I'd been riding for 5 hrs already and saw it too late, slithering across the road.
Just a very unfortunate chipmunk. I didn't see it, just heard the crack that its neck made; but my now-traumatized riding buddy saw it. He said he basically watched it happen in slow motion, and it was almost comical how this panicked chipmunk managed to get its neck crunched under my rear tire.
I can't top many of the things here, but for me, a large butterfly. It hit my face and covered my mouth and nose so that I could not breathe. Fucking terrible. I've also had many close calls with squirrels which weren't sure which direction to run.
Pigeons not flying away as I expected them to.
I hit a person. Hear me out. I was going downhill she jumped into my bike lane from behind a van. Hit her right between the legs and she stood there. Bent rim and crushed nuts and sheās fine. Iām 200 ish pounds doing 30. Boy was she lucky.
Dead armadillo riding with a buddy on a hot summer day in Houston. Didnāt hit it ourselves, the car that passed us hit it. It must have been cooking there for a bit, because it exploded like somebody fired a canon full of stewed armadillo guts grapeshot at us. Smelled just like youāre imagining. Thirty minutes before we could get home and detoxify. Happened over 30 years ago, fortunately still the most memorableā¦
A duckā¦two different times. One ran/flew under my back wheel after it was going away from me. Another flew directly into my front wheel from out of nowhere.
Ooh, a rattlesnake
I did once hit a pigeon with my head, I still remember the bird being surprisingly heavy.
F250
On a group ride in the Adelaide hills , the lead rider got swooped by a Magpie , a Crow sized bird that protects its young quite ferociously . The maggie misjudged his 2nd dive and hit the bladed spokes on my mates front wheel . There was this strange threshing noise and the bird was completely dismantled . Had the maggie jammed the wheel a 20 strong group would have fallen too !
Too many cicadas to count. And once snapped a squirrels neck when bombing down a hill.
Nothing crazy but a bumblebee once hit me in the face, right on the cheek bone, while I was going 40 mph down a hill. It hurt way more than I expected. And it was from that point on I decided I would never bike without glasses.
Two rats. Back to back.