Greyryder

A guy in my town got knocked down by a deer, a few years back. It ran along side of him for a while, then darted across in front of him, causing him to wreck. Ohio deer, as bad as Ohio drivers....

I see them from time to time on the MTB trails in Yellow Springs. Once or twice I've had to stop because one was standing on the trail. Of course, they never want to yield the trail!

CCrew

It works well.
And to those that say that "oh, you can see them and avoid them" I call BS. It's really dependent on time of day and where you are. I have hit them on the W&OD not just once, but twice. It's 10-12 foot wide trail, I'm on it just before sunrise, and the sides of the trail are tightly wooded. On both occasions my presence has spooked them - both times they bolted directly in front of me. Last time resulted in the surgery I just went through.
But we're talking about a trail with a problematically high deer population. Case in point - i did see and avoid two on the ride in yesterday alone.

In the case of the W&OD though it's the suburban sprawl that's pushed the deer into smaller areas and god forbid someone hunts them, so their only population pressure is vehicles (and the poor cyclists since the MUP is a 100' wide park for bambi to cavort in)

cskofteland

I ride the W&OD on my commute too. My experience, especially in the fall and winter, is that the deer (and there are hundreds of them in my 25 mile ride) stand in the middle of the trail, look at you funny, then fake left and jump right (or fake right then jump left). Neddless to say, I generally slow down when I approach them...

yuyax

I also slow down quite a bit as I never know what they are going to do, if I see them. Echoing what CCrew said, our trail is tightly wooded on both sides and sometimes they just jump out at the last second. I posted in another thread long time ago that I thought the deers were either in the Evo or DC Velo teams because some of them just cut right in front of me without any warning... Ha... ha... ha..