rhm

^Yeah, well. I was walking across the golf course behind my house last fall, or the fall before, when I heard this commotion in the rough. I looked, and I saw this big buck come bounding out of there and dang if he didn't run straight at me. He passed within 20 feet of me, and as I watched him run away I saw he had only one antler (on the left). As I continued walking, I heard this commotion in the rough. I looked, and I saw this big buck come bounding out of there and dang if he didn't run straight at me. He passed within 15 feet of me, and as I watched him run away I saw he too had only one antler (on the left). For a while there, I could see both bucks running away across the golf course. It was a rather bizarre moment.

sailorbenjamin

I was half way expecting a punch line at the end of that story.

I sorta like Jersey. Except for the potholes. The folks are ok.

Aemmer

My friend had a deer jump out of the bushes right into the middle of his groups paceline. My buddy was one bike back and the deer took out the rider in front of him. My friend then ran into the rider and deer and had the rider behind him ride up his back. Broken seat stay (my buddies CF Giant) and one ambulance ride (Rider 1). Nobody knew the deer was there until it bolted.

I bet a classic steel bike would have taken the hit better.

scozim 

Maybe where you live - they flippin' freak out at cyclists around here. I seem to run across one or two out on the road each week. The worst was coming around a 90 degree corner, upshifting and standing up to accelerate and then looking up to see a 1500 - 2000 lb bull standing in the middle of the road. He went right and I went left as far from him as I could and we both watched each other as I rolled past. Also been caught on the road during a couple of cattle drives. Had to get off the bike on the side of the road while the cows started crashing into each other as they came by me.

bobbycorno

Boy, they sure aren't around here! Still as clueless as ever when it comes to roads and traffic. Case in point: last winter I was on my way to work (on my bike), the roads were a bit frosty-slick, and I came upon a doe standing in the middle of the street, totally oblivious to my approach. I rang my bell to warn her, all four hooves went in different directions and she went down in a heap, leapt up and trotted off, no harm done. If I'd had a video camera running I could be $10k richer.

SP
Bend, OR

David Newton

Wow, 2 pages on a near-deer! Glad you are OK.

I was driving at midnight in rural Vermont, oxymoron I know.
My older son, as co-pilot, yells "moose!"
That'll put the fear in ya. It was probably twice the weight of my car.

BentLink

Glad the critter didn't take more of a toll! I've had a few close calls, but never any contact with them while riding...they do however seem attracted to my cars. Note my location...

YoKev

I've had a couple of really close calls. Next time, I'm slapping that deer on the ass just to prove a point.

marley mission

thanks guys - glad i'm ok too

truth is - i love the deer - athletic marvels they are

was back out this AM and saw a few deer of course

a different respect though - i mean - i am always a vigilant rider and i dont think there was anything i did wrong - i mean - i couldnt "recreate" a sequence like that if i tried

but i have to admit - and it sounds silly to say i know - but the whole experience was kinda exhilirating - not everyday you get clipped by a deer right

heres to the return of warm(er) weather

degan

There are a bunch of city deer that live in the various parks and fields in town. From time to time, usually at night, they'll be out and about. A few times I've been able to ride right up to them, within a yard or so. At the time I think its cool, but I don't think deer really should be that okay with people. Neat though.

Wogster

Probably should have put a Profanity - warning on this....

Wogster

Moose are big, heavy and pretty darn good eating, you just wanna make sure if you hit one, your driving an Abrams M1 tank On a bicycle, avoidance might be the best idea.

electrik

Just tuck down and aim for the gap between the legs! Hahaha.

I've also come veeery close to hitting deer on the bicycle, so yes... and i'll always warn everybody else when i spot them because they'll bolt and the last doe without a clue is the one you'll hit!

khatfull

I lived in West Milford for 4.5 years in my youth. Without question the best place I've lived. Probably different now but back then it was like Heaven and Nirvana had a child.

JunkYardBike

New Jersey? West Milford is actually one of the few places that actively resisted the development boom, with strict residential and commercial zoning laws. There are some developments, but it is still heavily wooded, and there is very little commercial and industrial real estate.

Oh, and Jungle Habitat is now a mountain biking paradise.

-holiday76

Is Milford near Port Jervis? I've cycles up that way a few times coming back form New York. Pretty.

snarkypup

Just read this in an article from Esquire magazine. Liam Neeson (I think he's talking about a motorcycle, but anyway):

"You have to know, one wet leaf can ruin you.

Th' deer come out of nowhere. Front paws straight up the handlebars.

Look at me. I'm riding like this — you're the deer. We're face-to-face. And your legs are in the spokes.

My peripheral vision sees this grassy verge with trees, and I'm wanting to pull over. It was amazing. Not a car in sight. I should have just slammed on the brakes, put the thing up on its stand, and quit. For some reason I wanted to get off the road. And of course it wasn't a horizontal verge at all. It was downhill, twelve feet, and there were a couple of sapling trees. Me and the bike and the deer slid down. The bike broke in half. The deer rolled farther down into a ditch, where if I had gone, no one would have ever found me. I gradually pulled myself up and got to the side of the road. I took off my jacket, and I sat there listening to this deer making this awful sound. And I was laughing and I was crying, and I looked down at this leg, and it was getting bigger, my jeans were getting tighter, so I knew I'd done something. But I thought it might not be much. Hoped. This man on a truck, full of muck, stopped and called the authorities. They got me to a local hospital, and I got this gorgeous shot of morphine. But I'd broken my pelvis in two places. My local doctor arranged for transfer to Lenox Hill Hospital in the city, and when I got there, they had called my wife.

I found out later they'd told her I wouldn't last the night. Well, they never f*ing told me that.

She was shooting, up in Canada, and she came straightaway to the city. So eight hours later, after the bleeding's stopped, I wake up in the operating room, before they start the procedure, and it was like a TV movie: five little heads looking down at me, and among them was my wife's. And I said, What the f*k are you doing here? She said, They called me, I drove down from Canada.

Then afterwards, it's funny, because afterwards — this is weeks afterwards — Natasha and I, we'd get into an argument. I'd try and replay it back. And obviously the time is over in some way, it's behind you, but the chronology of events — but everything I remembered happening was very large. I couldn't understand something. I said, Darlin', if they told you I wasn't going to last the night, why'd you not get a priest in? I said, I know I'm a lapsed Catholic, but at least give me the last rites, you know? She said, Had I told you, then you would have known that you might be dying.

That's a fair point, I suppose. I had to get my head round that logic. At the same time, I coulda died and it woulda been nice to get a little of the old extreme unction, as it's called. All the oils."

hellojoben

put one in there for the future readers of the thread


sorry if it was offensive

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

No, that's Milford PA you're thinking of. West Milford is East of there, in NJ. Think about that for a second

Keith, I'm actually about to buy a house in West Milford. Rural is a good description. I'll be about 2-3 miles from Greenwood Lake.

Velognome 

There goes the bike fund!

RFC

I ran over a skunk once. Now I dodge javelinas.

oldlugs

For a while back in the 90's I was averaging at least two deer per season with my car, every time I got lucky and the car survived. None were direct impacts, always just glancing blows. The deer rarely survives though. Most of the time it ended up in the freezer.

About 10 years ago I got one in a truck out on 476 in PA, it was dark, I was heading down a hill heading north of Wilkes Barre and as I flipped on the high beams I see a huge buck 100' ahead staring at me in my lane. I had borrowed the truck from one of the company's other divisions to get a load of stone for the driveway at our office, I knew enough not to try to avoid him with a full load of quarry rock in a 20+ year old truck, and there was just no slowing down heading downhill with near 80,000lbs of weight. It was a now you see it, now you don't type of moment, only I couldn't see anything through the gut covered windshield. The thing popped like a water balloon covering the whole truck. The guy who washed the truck said he walked around the truck with a bucket picking off pieces twice the next day before pressure washing it. I figured I was doing near 80 when I hit it, and it hit on the forward extended bumper on the old Mack so the truck didn't feel a thing.

The highways up that way are always stained with red patches from just such hits in the fall. I'm sure I wasn't the first nor last to hit a deer like that up that way.

These days I've got a doe that hangs around the yard here and has for years, its a residential area with small yards not far off a highway, I'm not sure where she goes during the day, there's no woods nearby.

I couldn't picture hitting one on a bicycle, however a buddy hit one on an ATV down in NJ years ago, he spent time in the hospital with a neck injury from it.

bikenut2011

Sounds like the average HUMAN walking on our local BIKE trail!!

andy

Velognome