calgary_jim

Came across a cattle drive this morning. A couple hundred cows and calves, 3 bulls, lots of horses and us on road bikes. Worked our way through the herd till we spotted the bulls and then pulled over so we didn't spook them. It would have been great except for the road covered in cow excrement. Everywhere!

Took me a good hour to wash the bike later and get the cow $)(;::#**{ off my bike.

What's the strangest thing you've seen on a ride?

EdIsMe

I'm not sure if this counts as the strangest "thing I've seen" while riding but...

A friend and I were riding easy on the shoulder of a popular scenic byway in the area. We were riding side-by side, but still with plenty of room for both of us on the shoulder, without entering the road at all. A car approached us going quite a bit faster than we were riding and slowed as it approached. An elderly woman, possibly in her 80's, leaned out of the passenger window and yelled with her fist raised in the air, "F*ck you, a**holes!" The car sped back up to the speed limit as soon as she withdrew from the window and we just looked at eachother with dumbfounded looks on our faces for the next few minutes before errupting in uncontrollable laughter.

I still have yet to experience anything stranger than that on the bike.

KevinF

Somewhat similar... I was riding in Wyoming one time (organized supported tour). One other guy and I are laboring up a mountain pass. We haven't seen a car, a house, another road, ANYTHING in about an hour. Anyway, somebody was driving down the pass and we got all excited at the sight of another human being ("we're not the last people left on Earth!").

So we waved and the driver stuck his hand out the window and flipped us off.

I mean really? There's probably less then a dozen human beings within a 10 mile radius of where the three of us were. The other rider and I just looked at each other, laughed, and continued on.

Shimagnolo

Today it would have been the yellow lab wearing goggles, riding in the sidecar of an antique motorcycle.

David Bierbaum

Googling "dog in motorcycle sidecar wearing goggles" shows that this isn't as uncommon as I thought it would be. THIS would be unusual...

Homebrew01

When I pass a building with mirrored windows and see myself

clausen

A couple in a corn field.

Shimagnolo

Now that is a *big* sidecar!
The dog I saw was wearing regular old goggles like WWI aviators wore, (with 2-piece glass lenses).
I was surprised they actually fit a dog's face.

StephenH

Seems pretty stupid to me to put goggles on a dog, but what do I know. Googling "dog goggles" pulls some up. "Doggles feature a interchangeable lens system (ILS) that provides your dog with 100% UV protection and protects your dog’s eyes from debris during road travel. Not to mention that they make him look absolutely adorable while protecting his peepers!"

Strangest thing I've seen? Maybe the sex toy. Or maybe it was the witch's hat.

WMBIGS

A crow attacking a squirrel. A momma Meadowlark attacking a gopher, protecting it's nest? Two Golden eagles taking off right in front of me, ten feet from touching one. Riding beside bison in Yellowstone, that was scary.

pdxtex

living in the city, i see all sorts of werid **** just riding around. sometimes it people, other times animals. i once saw a full size and huge sea lion right in the middle of the river i ride along. im 100 miles from the ocean. sea lions aren't unheard this far in but this one was as big as a sectional couch. another time i saw a very large beaver, like 4 feet long carrying a freshly chewed tree across the big path. cool. oddest thing, riding under a bridge coming back home, i surmise i saw the remnants of a drug deal gone bad. some j-crew preppy looking kid was running for his life while some gutter punk looking dengerate was chasing him with a rock, all the while shrieking, "getttt away from me mannnnnn". fffffn rock buzzed my head. ive changed my route since.

bianchi10

I was riding through downtown portland, OR one morning up into the west hills and I saw a women pooping into a paper bag. that was pretty weird.

bianchi10

Yeah, I dont know why so many people love the whole "keep portland weird" thing. I say, lets clean it up a bit. There are some WEIRD people in Portland!

raiden07

US Military uses Doggles:

alexaschwanden

Riding on a trail through a bad neighbor when i saw to dogs doing the sex on the lawn.

SolitaryRider

A truck with a horse's lead tied to it's rear bumper, leading the horse back home down the road.

rdtindsm

I've probably mispelled the name, but Al Capp used to have a character in his Pogo strip that always had a rain cloud over his head.

I was riding near Iowa City, Iowa when I got caught in a rainstorm. Not just a steady moderate rain; this was earning the moniker of "frog strangler". This went on for a few minutes as I reached the next turn . Went through a patch of road that was ABSOLUTELY dry.

Several of us were doing a century down south of Ft. Worth, TX when we went down into a filled area above a wooded creek that was maybe 20' lower. Somebody yelled up, asking if we wanted a beer. One of the guys looked, and there were a couple guys down with a pickup and a keg in the bed, but we kept going. A few minutes later, this older model pickup truck drives buy with a guy leaning out the window, a plastic cup in one hand, and the spigot from the tap in his other. What could we do but stop and get a little tipsy. Nearly ruined the ride if the ride was actually the most important goal.

redtires

So much more than six words here.....

vwchad

Wierdest/ saddest thing for me was when my ridding buddy and I came across someone who had suffered a heart attack while riding. Sadly, he did not make it. He was under a white sheet on the grass, behind a police car, with his bike laying next to him. Totally ruined the ride for us. We cut it way short that day and went home early.

SpookyReverb

Off of the top of my head: a homeless man angerly hacking an empty paint can to bits with a hatchet on the MUP.
Also, guys smoking crack (?) on the MUP. Smelled kind of like marshmallows, definitely wasn't pot.

Bob Dopolina 

Jesus.

Machka 

Same thing but with sheep ... on a Randonnee in Nov 2011 ...

deepakvrao

Had an elephant blocking the road. Would have taken a pic for this thread, if I had known about the thread, but it's not at all that strange in India.

TheZip

An exploding house. And thank god we were far enough away from it when it happened as it was along the route we were taking. We heard and felt the loud explosion and after going down the road four more blocks we discovered all the debris, blown out windows, and a chimney and foundation where a house used to be. The news that evening stated that there had been a gas leak and nobody was home. There was minor injuries to one of the neighbors who had been watching tv at the time.

Shimagnolo

When I lived in a burb of South Denver, a house exploded in a nearby burb from a gas leak. I was watching the local news on TV interviewing a neighbor who was outdoors when it happened. The interview went something like this:

"So I was in my yard with my back turned when I heard the explosion. I spun around to look and saw the roof coming down out of the sky. Didn't see it going up, but I saw it coming back down!"