So has this happened to anyone else? Your going down a nice quiet road/street, minimal traffic 15-20 mph, you make a turn, the road bends then all of a sudden BOOM!! Theres like 50-100 birds sitting on the road and they all start flying up at once to get out of your way and you ride right into them (possibly even hitting them, though ive never hit one yet). Its happend to me twice, and scared the ***** out of me both times. Today I was going down a hill (belt parkway path for all you NYC kids) at like 28 mph when I got to the bottom there were like an army of them waiting for me. I smashed on the brakes and started swerving, i didnt fall but came close to it. To tell you the truth, I was more afraid of hitting the birds then falling.

Never had a problem with birds, but I did hit a deer while riding my MTB when I was 16-17.

I've never actually hit a bird with my bike or car. A little off topic but a friend got a bird stuck in the grill of his car once. What cracks me up is when grass hoppers try and jump through my wheels while riding. I love the sound they make bouncing off my spokes.

I hit a duck once while commuting, it zigged when it should of zagged and bounced off my front wheel. Not sure what happened to it, I didn't stop to find out and there was no body on the side of the path the next day when I rode to work so I guess it survived the incident.

Wow, thats intresting, I didnt even think of the birds hitting my bike, i just dont want them to hit my face

I've never even come close to hitting a bird, but on certain roads in summer I seem to get a red-wing blackbird escort for a few miles at a time. Must be nesting grounds, I guess. As for grasshoppers, I managed to suck one into my rear cluster a couple of weeks ago. It actually stopped an annoying squeak that had developed after giving my derailleur wheels a good cleaning, so I figure that grasshopper guts make a decent lubricant.

I did have a kamikaze squirrel try to run between my wheels once - I was on my mountain bike, and it sort of got pulled up on the trailing edge of the front tire, twirled a couple of times, extricated itself, and ran up a tree. I barely had time to register what was happening before it was over.

did

Always watch for them and make noise to spook them up well in advance.

Had a buddy hit a guinea fowl on a ride. Feathers in the chainring! And the bird just rolled with it and ran off. But Pete stayed up, too.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I run out of lube.

*loool*

I had a guy in the park the other day throw out a handful of birdseed onto the path which led to a lot of pigeons descending around me. One bounced of the side of my face which sucked as I got feathers in my mouth.

I imagine hitting one would look something like this: https://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=birdball.mpg

Don't have problems running over birds, but having big problems with the bloody Magpies swooping me at the minute. The more careful ones don't bother me to much. It's the talented suckers that are good enough to get under the helmet and bite my ear. Some of the buggers draw blood to. Hurts.

The worst bird attacks ever took place up in Bodega Bay, CA, 41 years ago. The whole town was taken over by birds. One woman took shelter in a phone booth as the birds swarmed around her.

...wasn't that an Alfred Hitchcock film?......anyway, gimme your ***** seppo birds anyday rather than a couple of maggies during mating season!

cheers,

Hitchy

You censored Pussi????.....

My animal experience was a hoot, only because noone fell or got hurt. On a 1500 person group ride with a mass start (roads blocked by local police) there was a squirrel that decided to cross the street. That sucker was flung up in the air from getting caught in spokes, had his tail run over, kicked in the head by pedals and so on by about 4-5 riders. Every time he zigged to avoid one bike he got hit by another. He finally made it across without showing and ill effects.

lol. I'd be a sight bombing along, dressed up in my lycra, on my swanky carbon fibre bike, with an old Dunlop tennis racquet taped to the frame.

Almost got hit with a fish once. A nice Rockfish, or striped bass. Looked to be about a pound.

An Osprey seems to have a nest near my regular ride path. She seems to favor fish that are a struggle for her to carry, too heavy.

She likes to sit on top of the road side electric poles, and rest. A lot of times a will seagull tease her, when she is under load.

I heard something buummp, and saw the fish bounce.

Ya never know.

Whenever I ride through one of the local parks this time of year, I get to fight with both seagulls and geese. I guess they like the pavement because it's warm.. they crap all over the place, makes the path a mine field, then add lazy birds who don't see or hear me coming and it compiles into a huge pain in my a. I usually make some noises to alert them, but they are stubborn bastards and usually just start waddling out in front of me once they see/hear me coming. I always end up having to slow way down and chase them off the path.

In other news, last week on a group night ride, we nearly hit an opossum and a deer. The opossum got between the two lead riders and was directly in my path, I managed to swerve the right way and didn't screw the rider behind me. The deer crossed with enough room that we all just laughed but that opossum nearly took us out. It wasn't funny because a week prior one of the riders had been riding home after the night ride and did hit a critter of some sorts and went down hard. Knees, hands, etc. were all rashed up and his 5000 was scraped up too.

We've got magpies here, too.

I've had to push a dove away from my face at about 25mph. It was only doin' about 20 when it got up to head level. A few months before that a squirel bounced off the spokes of my front wheel. When you see something coming don't tense up and you're more likley to be rubber side down afterwards.

Am I the only one who thinks this is the funniest damn thread ever. Maybe it's my twisted imagination but I keep getting these mental pictures of bikers vs wildlife. Don't get me wrong, I don't think think it's funny, animals getting hurt. Given that it's just a bicycle and not a car, I would imagine that most of them walk away with nothing more than bruises.

But seriously, I was dying after the first reply to this thread... running into a deer, LMAO, what a scene that must have been. I have a mental image of magpies attacking and pigeons smashing into people, I'm dying here.

Animals in the wheels just strikes me as dangerous for people and wildlife, certainly not funny, but the rest of this stuff is hilarious, thanks all for the laugh.

Yes, of course, glad you got it!

This is cool, im getting a lot of responses. But it seems no one has rode into a pack of pigeons, are pigeons just a city thing?

Canadian geese are the only birds that have given me trouble. The suckers just hold their ground and hiss.

I once was able to ride alongside a flying bird for a good 10 seconds. Looking over and seeing it flapping but "stationary" in midair was like watching a clip from a nature documentary.