Forget dogs: who's been attacked by a cat while commuting on a bike?
 

we have fairly large cats around here, I've seen one walking down PA bike route G. I was driving my car, not sure what I would have done if I had been riding. I thought it was a dog at first until I got closer. Someone told me it probably wasn't a mountain lion, but I forget what they said it was.

Savannah Cat?

Bobcat?

Leopard. In South Africa. The guy was probably on his way to work, since he called his boss for help, and not someone else.

Miss Parsley doesn't seem very interested in attacking cyclists, fortunately. But she spends a lot of time discharging static electricity with my bike. Maybe I should be worried.

Yow! I once was stung by a bee, right in the center of my chest while commuting...

Note to self: Need to work on sprinting.

From your location, it wasn't a Nittany Lion?

They're showing this image in other news stories about this incident:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...k_1823267c.jpg

And this as well:

http://www.whatsonningbo.com/news_im...14bd361_d2.jpg

that was my first thought, but I think they are all gone. Probably a bobcat.

I've seen a bobcat on my commute, and there are certainly mountain lions around. But they don't seem to have any urge to chase and attack me, unlike the stupid dogs.

Wild things
 

Got attacked by a desert tortoise once on a mountain bike trail, big fellow almost two feet long. Snapped at my tire when I surprised him on a blind corner, he put a slice in one of the knobbies. Glad I didn't hit him, I would have bounced off and tipping him over could kill him.

I should have quoted.....I was asking unterhausen. I know the cat in your post was a Leopard.

Oh. I was wondering why you'd be asking something so obvious... :D

I had a domestic cat run full speed into my front wheel as I was moving. The cat bounced off and kept going. No marks on the bike

"Mr Ncube eventually managed to pull a loose steel bar from his bicycle, smashing the leopard on the head as it clawed at his face and head."

Good argument for making sure always to have a loose steel bar on your bike.

He must have thought he was a squirrel.

In 1995 and in 2004; a few instances of mountain bikers attacked by cougars...

http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks_ca.html

We have a mama and baby mountain lion in our neighborhood right now. I've seen the mama before but not with the baby yet. We occasionally smell them...the urine that is. The dogs definitely do.

btw, I'm hoping not to be attacked.

I had a Maine Coon kitty come out to greet me one day on the local bike path. Kinda cool. I stopped and petted him, he was HUGE. He sat a foot and a half tall.

:lol:

SIT

Squirrel in Training.

I forgot to say he was being chased by another cat that almost did the same thing.

If i lived in big cat country i might wear a halloween mask on the back of my helmet. They been doing just this in india for years.
Here's a quote from:
www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/maneating11.html

"The Indian government issued groups of workers with masks, and surprisingly, the idea worked. After a year no attacks had been reported upon those with masks, whilst thirty people not using the new system had been attacked and killed. It was noted that tigers followed some mask wearers for many hours, but without attack. In one later fatal attack on a mask wearer the tiger attacked from the side rather than the rear."

Had to look this up, remembered it from 1996 when I lived in Washington state. A mt biker in Olympic Nat'l Park, possibly world's luckiest human that day.

When the cat came at him, he started running backwards, he said. He figured the cougar weighed about 80 pounds. The cougar kept coming, then leapt at Anderson's chest. Anderson fell to his back, locked his legs around the cougar, flipped over and buried his thumbs in the animal's throat. He kept the front paws pinned back with his forearms, he said. He had the cat pretty much subdued, but it wouldn't die. "I was watching him go in and out," Anderson said. "We were at a stalemate." To his surprise, the cat made no noise while it struggled, Anderson said. He, however, was shouting for help.After about two and a half or three minutes, the cat still wriggling, Anderson got his thumb in the cougar's mouth. He just smashed it," Anderson said. That gave the cat the edge. As Anderson lost his grip, that cat's claws went into a whirl, ripping at the thick, baggy sweatshirt. Some of the claws caught Anderson's chest. "He put a lot more holes in my sweatshirt than he did in me," Anderson said. Not wanting any more, the combatants exploded away from each other and ran. Anderson ran down the trail, grabbed a baseball bat in his van and returned for his bike. The cat had stuck around, still looking for food. "He carried off my bag with four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in it," Anderson said.

The full story here: http://cycling.ahands.org/bikecougar.html

I might have to remember that trick. We're soon to live very close to prime mountain lion territory. When we visit our land we frequently see kills tucked nice an neat below the junipers.

Crap, now I'm not gonna wanna take the dog running tomorrow!