rsbob 

I have a couple.

Before the dawn of mobile phones; when riding with a couple of buddies in a very rural area away from any houses, we were strafed by a guy in an old beater Plymouth Valiant. He then turned around and made another close pass coming across the line at us. We then got off our bikes and headed into the trees as he turned around yet again and buzzed by us again and thankfully kept going. It was like a scene out of the movie Dual with that old beater truck.

Another, before mobile phones (yes I have been riding for a few years) I was riding up a hill in heavy woods 1/4 mile from any houses, when I spotted something odd out of the corner of my eye. About 25 yards up in the trees were two pickups in painted in camo, with 4 guys with rifles just hanging out. When I took a second look, something invisible whisked in front of my tire into the bushes and then I heard the rifle report. I then sprinted away, as if I could outrun a bullet, as fast as my legs could go uphill to a nearby house. Knocked on the door and asked the woman to call the sheriffs dept. It took about 10 minutes for the cop to arrive and by then the yahoos had cleared out.

I have about 20 more but not nearly as frightening. Your turn.

Litespud

man, you need to find some different routes 😀
apart from some dog chases, close car passes, and the odd jackass that tried to give me a heart attack by laying on the horn a couple of yards from my left ear. The odd crash was over before I had time to be frightened. I have nothing to compare with being shot at, so I won’t minimize your experience or the irresponsibility of the camo boys, but I think if the lads were ~25 yards away with rifles, they were just ******g with you - if they actually wanted to hit you, they would have. Doesn’t make it any less alarming.

Iride01

I don't know that I've had one. All that caused the adrenalin to flow were things that had me going like a little kid saying "do it again dad, do it again!" I didn't do them again though, but instead of scary I found them exhilarating.

Even the times I fell it was just get up, dust off, get back on a go...... eh, maybe walk with a sore hip and shoulder for a few days but not scary.

I suppose the only briefly scary things might be thinking a rattle snake was a stick and then having it strike toward me as I whizzed by.

chainwhip

...kudos to my neighbors...we have plenty of ppl who drive pick up trucks, but only two rude incidents in 10 years.

OTOH, got cut off by a semi where the shoulder narrowed abruptly. Just dumped me on some grass...no injuries...just a heart rate spike.

rsbob 

In the non-life threatening dept. (note, I always keep on the shoulder as to not impede traffic and am always respectful and never flip anyone off, no matter how desperately they deserve it)

One passenger in a PU truck blew a boat air horn in my left ear at 15 MPH and just about blew me off my bike.
Had a PU pull off on the shoulder ahead of me and wait for me to approach, then gun it spraying me with gravel
Had a passenger in another PU throw a vanilla milkshake at my wife and me on our tandem
Had cherry bombs,and cans thrown at me
Yelled at more times than I can count.

i chalk this up to living in a rural area where cyclists are seen as privileged non-blue collar wimps dressed in prissy spandex as well as doing enough miles annually to increase the chances of running into these dolts.

AlmostTrick

No driver or hunter scares for me, but there was this...

Riding through a quiet section of my commute in the dark early one October morning, I noticed another rider ahead with an unusual looking head light. So I sped up to catch him for a better look. As I got closer I could see he was an older gentleman on an English 3 speed, dressed in plaid with a smart cap and scarf around his neck trailing behind. His lights gave a nice glow all around the bike so I figured I'd ask about them.

As as pulled alongside I said "Good Morning!" There was no reply. I followed up with "I ride this route several days a week, how about you?" Still no reply, he never even looked my way! Figuring he obviously had no interest in any conversation, I thought it best to be on my way, so I sped ahead. When checking my mirror only a few seconds later, he was no longer there. Seemingly just vanished. Very odd, considering we hadn't passed any crossroads or driveways. Suddenly, the silence and eerie lights made sense. We had just passed the cemetery and it was Halloween morning!

MoAlpha

Hit and run from behind with concussion. Luxury SUV, according to witness. Big yawn from the cops. It was too sudden and there was too much anterograde amnesia to be terrifying at the time, but it sure scares me now.

Was also run off the road and beaten by a group of teens, many years ago. I wasn't badly hurt and the police talked me out of pursuing it.

chrisenter

Besides a few close calls with cars, probably the incident that got my heart rate up the most involved a person on an e-bike who thought I said something to him as we were passing each other in a parking lot. I was nearing the end of my commute from work when I passed through a transit center parking lot (the bike path was under construction, so we had to detour through this lot). The guy on the e-bike was doing what could best be described as unpredictable figure 8s in the lot and I had to kind of swerve around to avoid him. After doing so, I hooked back up with the main bike path and then saw a bright light fast approaching in my mirror. It was the e-bike. The guy buzzed me and then screeched to a halt in front of me on the path, screaming "What's your problem?" over and over. I had no idea what he was talking about, but eventually deduced that he thought I said something to him when we passed each other. No amount of discussion could change his mind. And I was pretty much trapped because I couldn't "outrun" his bike. Thankfully, he eventually got bored of arguing and went the other way.

_ForceD_

Bike speedometer hitting 60 mph on a descent.

Dan

tomato coupe

Alien abduction. It's worse than a close encounter with a passing pickup truck.

P.S. Always wear bib shorts with a good pad. Aliens can't figure them out, so you get a pass on the whole probing thing.

chainwhip

wow. Must have been the mayor's kids.

seriously disappointing.

MoAlpha

I got a make on the license plate and they were from several suburbs away. The rationale I was given for not pressing charges was that I couldn't ID them positively, it being dark, and once they found out who I was, they might vandalize my house or something. Pretty weak stuff, but I was young and busy with work and a baby and decided to forget about it. The cops said they'd have a talk with the car owner, but I doubt that happened.

chainwhip

eduskator

Freaking car driver passes me during a hill descent (I'm going 65kmh in a 60kmh zone) and then - 2 seconds later - slams his brakes while steering right (in the shoulder) because there's a TURTLE walking on the median line (the thing is not even close to his left wheel!!!)

My HR went up to 180 pretty quickly, and I almost rear-ended the vehicle. Was lucky enough to avoid it AND the turtle.

Riveting

A fast vicious 60 lb. dog nipping at my heels, and with a really steep section only 100 feet ahead. Thankfully the dog gave up just before the road turned up, but was definitely "scarier" than going over the bars into an unknown ditch full of debris on the side of the road at 23 mph (which takes a close 2nd, and included a slight fear of death). In hindsight, the chase was probably scarier because it lasted a lot longer, resulting in more adrenaline and heart flutter.

Zaskar

7 of us on a fast downhill doing 40mph or so... 1 car attempts to pass the 2 cars waiting behind us (it was a 35 zone!)... passing car loses control, spins through our line, punts the rider behind me (I was 2nd wheel) into the ditch... All I heard was a lot of tires screeching, a collision (with my buddy), more tires screeching. I had to decide: Ditch or Road... Ditch or Road.

My buddy survived with some broken bones. As everyone was screaming at him to remain calm (ironic, I know), I knelt down and calmly said "Dude, it's going to be okay - I paused your computer." He laughed.

The EMTs took pics of the group IN the ambulance before they carted him off. Oddly, the rest of ride was not a hammer fest ;-)

MoAlpha

jfc!

guachi

Scariest thing?

Seeing the cost of my wife's e-bike.

WouterO

Scariest experiences on the bike: feeling the teeth of a wild dog in Russia in my calves while backpacking to Moscow, and perhaps miraculously avoiding a 60 km/h crash into a car just 400 metres away from the finish of a 298K granfondo...

Psimet2001 

Racing. Almost winning and also the crashing.

cb400bill

Descending a hill and going into a high speed wobble at 48 MPH.

Seattle Forrest

Passed a guy with Gatorskins on a pair of Zipp 404s.

Sojodave

Getting T-boned by a 17-year-old going 40mph while he was on his phone texting. I broke my right ankle on both sides, tibia/fibula/shoulder and 14 staples in my head because my helmet somehow came off.

Besides that, I have a hill I can hit over 40 when the wind is blowing right. I was going 42mph and I saw something on the road and I couldn't figure out what it was. As I got closer, I saw it was a railroad tie that had fallen off a truck. I didn't slow down because I was just going to go around it. When I got up close to it, a truck came on my left and I couldn't swing around the railroad tie. At 42mph, I bunny hopped the railroad tie which was probably about 9 inches high. I cleared my front while and my back wheel landed on top of the railroad tie. I wobbled a bit and got my bike straightened out. My heart was beating super fast.

canklecat

Deer darting across the road at night. I ride at night a lot so my eyes are always bugged out, on stalks and my head is on a swivel.

Last night I had a close encounter with a buck with a hefty rack for a little feller. Fortunately the new NiteRider dual LED Lumina 1800 casts a wide and bright enough beam I caught his initial movement from the corner of my eye and slowed quickly. And I figured there would be others following him. Sure nuff, a couple of little ones followed dad.

I don't want to crash into or run over any critter, but bucks in rutting season worry me a bit because they can do some serious damage.

I'd like to claim being hit by cars and crashing in races was scary, but the fact is that stuff happened so quickly there was no time to feel anything.

bampilot06

Had a teenager accelerate head on, and swerve into me. I was really new at cycling and was using platforms at the time so I was able to jump off my bike into the grass. Still not sure if he would have hit me or just trying to scare me.