I went out for a one hour ride tonight just to get out of the house. I was going up a pretty steep hill, and I see that I a shadow about five feet ahead of me. I figure it is some dead animal when all of a sudden these huge wings unfold and almost hit me in the shoulder. It was a huge freaking owl. It scared me to death. I thought owls were much more shy than this, but this one wasn't too concerned with me. Anyone else run into something like this?

rider next to me ran over a snake on accident, looked like it hurt. i felt bad.

I have had several near misses with snakes including copperheads and rattlesnakes. For some reason this freaked me out more than the snakes. I guess it being night and how close this think got to me have something to do with that.

That's awesome! I actually worked with owls this summer. The juveniles are funny because they're really curious and they start coming straight for your headlamp and realize at the last minute that you're a person and veer off.

Might be the problem.

I hit an owl once with my car, I thought somebody had thrown a rabbit at me from the woods along side the road.

It's a very interesting encounter. It was a Great Horned Owl. Wings spans can exceed 4', they're among the very largest. Not purely nocternal, presumably you saw this very early or at dusk. I've seen them up north at such times. They not night time only types like Barn Owls and others.
Plenty of them in NYS as NYS is skunk central, a primary food source of the owl . This bird is the skunk's only predator. GH Owls will eat anything small, as well as 30 lb. skunk, fox,coyote,dog, etc.
Consider yourself fortunate having witnessed that amazing creature, I'm sure that you already do.

I haven't seen an owl yet while riding but I did see this while climbing Palomar a few months ago.

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Took this a few months ago. , Sorry for the bad picture. It flew right across me and landed in the trees off the trail.

What time of day/night was that?

Cool pic!

I saw it around 9:30pm. We obviously have owls in my area, and I even have one that lives in my woods, but I have never been that close to one. I am serious when I say one of the wings came within inches of my left arm and handlebar. Oh, the adventures of night riding.

Around here it's mostly turkeys and deer. Both will jump out in front of you at the most inconvenient times.

I just know I am going to smack a deer one of these days. We have tons of deer. I rarely see turkeys while riding, but I do see them from time to time.

I see turkeys frequently, just not the type that the law is ok you shooting or eating.

On every ride this time of year, I see some type of Raptor or another. In the past 2 months, I have seen Barn and Great Horned Owls, Red Tailed Hawks, Pergrines, and another Hawk that I could not clearly identify. Saw a hawk catch a snake, and an owl go after some type of rodent in a field.

The problem is that I keep stopping my rides to watch the birds!

No owls for me, but i've had a near crash with a mother and baby dear jumping out in front of me. i also had a very large beetle (a black root borer to be exact) hit me in the chest when i was going about 20mph. i thought my buddy's bike kicked up a rock into me. i picked up the little bugger and got him to cling onto my handlebars for a while but he eventually fell off and i assume died.

tu bici esta bien chingona???? LOL! awesome signature.

On Thanksgiving day i did a 37 mile ride, it was awesome, i live in Laveen, really close to the few mountains we have in Phoenix, I had 3 coyotes stare me down and run parallel to me before they decided i was a boring person. this went on for about 25 yards, i have NEVER seen anything so close to me. I did see a cougar once, at a bar in scottsdale, then i realized i was their bait and they were on the prowl!!!! ha ha!

I had to duck to make room for an owl lifting off the road on one ride in Kansas some years back.

I could feel its wings sweep across my back.

I've had an owl divebomb me on a ride in the middle of the night.

But the encounter that made me the most nervous was the cougar.

where was this taken? it looks like a spotted owl.

I'm on an early morning ride and I see some rustling in the leaves on the side of the road ahead of me, then all of a sudden a squirrel darts out right in front of me under my front wheel. Like it was trying to commit suicide or something. It happened so fast, and he only twitched once.

That's a Barred Owl. They are probably one of the least shy owls. I stood 14 feet under one in a maple tree and snapped multiple flash photos of one without fazing it.

I have come upon owls on the ground several times, either dust-bathing themselves, eating prey, or regurgitating owl pellets.

I've seen it all. Twice.

I met a mountain lion head on once while mountain biking. He went left I went right

ever been knocked off your bike by a llama; ...

...didnt think so...