I try to act as if the dog is not there, and keep doing what I am doing so they do not sense my fear.

A few weeks ago riding in the country I saw a bull-mastiff ahead of me so I decided to charge straight for it. It quickly got out of my way and then decided to run beside me.

I was doing near 40km/h. When the dog realized it could not keep up it decided to try to cut in front of me. The problem was that, he it looked to the side that he was going to cut to, and this slowed him down; just as well I anticipated his move so I tried to hammer it even more. As this happened it must have brushed it's nose ever so lightly against my spokes, for I did not feel it, but the dog let out a loud whimper, put it's tail between it's legs and ran as fast as it could away from me.