tom25

This evening I saw a young white tail deer(buck), a grey Fox, and hit a ground hog at 21.7mph according to strava. And a hood rat on a bmx saw a spectacular wreck!
Some road rash, and bent handle bars but great other than that.

digibud

last year my wife and I were riding on a road along a small river in Alaska. We were on road bikes. There was no other traffic, it seemed. Very nice. It was an out-and-back ride. While returning home we came upon a young male grizzly feeding beside the road on the left side. There was no room to go around in any manner. The road was narrow and there was no room to the right. We waited. And waited. After a half hour or so I decided I needed to find out of this guy even cared about us. It might be that we could walk on the far edge to the right and he would not care. I could get just few feet to the right of the road, walking my bike. I walked my bike so it was between myself and the bear. I approached cautiously, keeping an eye on him out of the side of my vision. I spoke constantly as I tried to move by on the right side of the road. He seemed to ignore me until at one point he spun around, bounced a short foot or so toward me with both feet of the ground, hitting the ground hard with a woof. I charged at him and slapped him...oh...wait....no, I guess I actually froze and began to back up, not looking at him. He went back to feeding. It was another 20min before car drove by and he ran off. During this time my wife was walking just a few feet in back of me. Gotta love her.
And before the gallery responds with commentary about that being stupid, rest assured I know full well the bear could charge me and kill me in a second. I get it. I'm not the guy that got et....I harbor no illusions. My experience may betray me someday and I may make a wrong call and get et, but a feeding bear, relaxing on grass, ignoring people so close tells me there's no reason to expect it will be highly aggressive so you act cautiously until the bear says -anything- with body language. Both ears go up...hair goes up, head turns toward you...anything, and I'm walking backwards. Sometimes a communication by the bear to back off is quite subtle so you do have to watch them very closely. Not this time .

danmc

4 pages and we haven't gotten a Bigfoot sighting yet?

Rocket-Sauce 

Rocket-Sauce 

"Dad, he looks like a walking hockey puck."

kenji666

FLvector

damn squirrels are everywhere....

danmc

That's not a squirrel, you idiot! (I'm just trying to provoke a marmot-based flame war...haven't seen one of those here yet...)

Elduderino2412

Looking at his footwear i would say this is a Mediumfoot sighting at best

danmc

Hey, I got a black bear on my ride Saturday at Allegany State Park. Dude was only about 30 yards from me (ok, I have no clue what the distance was, but he was close enough for me to get a really good look at him but not close enough to get worried.) It was only 5 miles into my first ride so I had high hopes for the rest of my ride(s) but no such luck, just a couple of deer other than him (her?).

CandSAdventures

Riding the Collin Classic last Saturday, on of the flagmen before a rest stop was pointing out a large tarantula crossing the road. My normal early routine has skunks/bobcats and some of the most aggressive bunnies you have ever seen! There is a regular duck and turtle traffic too. The unusual creatures are the people....I like 5am rides and rarely see people out.

hawiken

Feral goats- once startled a herd of nasty old billies- the kind that have beards down to the ground, and long twisty horns that you can smell from 1/4 mile away- rode by them, and then heard a loud crack behind me- 2 of them had faced off and started doing that head-banging thing that they do. Felt like I was watching a Dodge truck commercial.
Feral pigs, owls, Hawaiian hawks (I'o), spinner dolphins are pretty common, humpback whales from late December through early April, Nene geese and goslings at Volcano National Park, lots of mongooses.
Lots of Great Whites on the beaches (Hawaiian joke).

Element GT

The other day i was descending a hill around 30-35mph. It was a small country road in the hills, no shoulders and just thick trees. Well i had a deer jump out in front of me that I missed by maybe 3 feet. Didn't have any time to apply the brakes, it was just right there. Kicked up some rocks that bounced off me. The only thing i could think was that i'm about to go flying over this thing. Very happy she didn't jump out a half second later....or that I was a half second slower, hey i guess speed saved me from a crash. Lesson learned, always go fast.

jayp410

A couple of days ago I came upon what looked to be two squirrels running towards me down the road - at least it looked that way from a couple hundred feet. Neither of them were moving like squirrels however, and as I got closer I recognized the first one was a mink. It was carrying something in its mouth (which I couldn't make out) but the second animal was a rabbit and was chasing the mink, so it must have been a baby bunny.

In my 42 years of living in MD, including lots of hiking and canoeing, and hiking most of the northern half of the Appalachian Trail, I can't remember seeing but maybe one other mink.... and certainly not one being chased down the road by a rabbit!

jayp410

A member of our local club was killed a couple of years ago after a groundhog jumped out in front of him while descending a hill. Don't know how fast he was going, but I hit 43-45 mph on that hill. After hearing about that, I can't not think about it every time I descend that hill.

Squirrels always drive me nuts. They can be 1 foot from the left edge of the road, so close to safety, but do they go left? Noooo.... they have to dash back in front of me.

Machka 

They warn us about the kangaroos here ... they'll do the same thing.

The first time I came to Australia, I was warned over and over about the kangaroos and wallabies, and I did indeed have one run-in with something leaping out onto the road in front of me on a descent. But it wasn't a kangaroo or wallaby ... it was some sort of chicken-like thing. I swerved, it dashed in front of me, I swerved again, and it dashed in front of me again, back and forth across the road, wings flapping frantically. Finally I managed to stop and it dashed back into the bush on the side.

SpeshulEd 

Sorry for the graphicness of these photos...

I encountered this little guy on my ride Monday night. He was hit by a car, had a broken leg and was bleeding pretty badly. Unfortunately, I couldn't do much for the little guy but hopefully he realizes that someone cared enough to pick him up off the road and show him love for a few moments. I'm sorry I couldn't do more little guy.



I tried to call the nearby vet but they had already closed and to be honest, it's not like I could have carried him 5 miles on my bike anyway. I get it, it's the circle of life and some coyote or owl probably had a delicious meal, but it still breaks my heart I couldn't help him.

Samfujiabq

Roadrunners,rabbits,coyotes,snakes both venomous and non

rdtindsm

It's the ones you don't see. D##n redwing blackbirds defending their nests. Not going to knock you down, but significant startle factor.

They will not attack if you are looking back a them, but then you run the risk of not looking where you are going. Put some craft eyes on a barrette once. It actually seemed to work, but I felt the slipstream as he flew overhead. Or maybe I just ducked that little bit.

rdtindsm

Riding through a yak herd in Tibet in 2001.

gilaasepeda

Cat, dog and monkeys.

ussprinceton

I see a lot of dead animals on the side of the roads after being run over by vehicles (squirrels, snakes, deer, turtles, possums, etc.)

Essex

Poor little Jackrabbit. Glad you were able to get him off the road + some comfort.

I have a flock of rabbits living under my deck - and rabbits are just too cute.

Clipped_in

I saw a couple of these the other day. I guess they are kept as pets. Why, I have no idea...

Lascauxcaveman 

[strike] Pics [/strike] ... I mean, videos or it didn't happen.

Here's some footage of Our Friend the Mountain Beaver. (Aplodontia rufa) Thank you for watching Lascauxcaveman's Wild Kingdom. (BTW, that's a domesticated Schwinn Tempo lurking in the grass at the end of the shot.