Originally Posted by Jbarcs

Had one hell of a scary ride on Friday. On one of my usual 35 mile routes./.. gorgeous 70 degrees with mild headwind on the outbound leg I was riding well, especially so for not being in the saddle for eight days. Out in rural Yadkin County NC I pass a house on Fish Brandon Road about 200 feet set back from the road. In the dozens of times I have ridden this route I have had to dismount only twice before as the three dogs that live here can get aggressive and they have a great visual preview of a rider approaching their territory so they get a great headstart on the chase. On Friday something was different… there were way more than the usual suspects and I unclipped early and figured I would do what I have done before; just calmly walk the bike 100 to 200 yards until past the house and yard in question. I made it only about fifty feet. Nine dogs… all without collar and all of the mixed breed pit bull variety we like to call Carolina dirt dogs. Four of the pack became the advance aggressors… and two were in full attack mode. One kept at me from the side closest to the house… teeth bared and lunging every fifteen to twenty seconds while the bigger and more muscular, testicled male circled constantly counterclockwise around to get behind me… lunging only two or three times during each circle around. The most aggressive one… white and smallish head… had the appearance of being totally crazed... as in “mad dog”… so I kept the bike between him and me at all times making the larger, circling musclebound brown dirt dog even more terrifying as he seemed determined to get first blood. The “be calm” approach was not working. I grabbed the saddle in my right hand and the stem in my left hand and every time a lunge came from either direction I spun like a helicopter letting frame and wheels smack the dogs when they were too close. This of course had the adverse effect of luring the rest of the pack into the street. At one point all nine were within twenty feet of me. The standoff lasted eleven minutes. It took me just under six minutes to walk seventy-five feet backwards… some of the time in a soybean field across the road from the yard of these animals… all the way a spinning-around whirling dervish. No blood… no actual contact other than bike/wheels/tires striking aggressive dog. My heart rate data when viewed later online showed I hit 167 bpm for this episode (resting rate is 58 and average for rolling terrain at 17 mph is 143). I have not been able to sleep since. Never been so afraid in my life. Never feared for my life like this before. There is no question in my mind that if any one of the dogs had made contact and brought me to ground I would have been killed. No question whatsoever.

I have reported the incident to a less than interested sheriff's department that pretty much said "you do what you gotta do." After reading most every post on most every forum I have concluded that one must report every close encounter no matter what the outcome. It helps build a history that may someday help another cyclist. It helps leave a trail for the next complaint to follow.

Also from reading everything I can find on this topic I have concluded that anyone who rides without a pepper spray is foolish. There are many other defense options but none that provides the same level of safety as an OC spray like Fox Labs or Halt II. Yes you can carry a gun or a combat knife but these two options will probably get an owner to shoot back in the rural south. At least the pepper spray gives us a non lethal method that has the added benefit of perhaps training the animal in some way such that the next cyclist feels a little safer.