I was riding near the National Guard Bombing range near Necedah WI when a B52 went over my head so low, that I swear I could have hit it with a rock if I was in the mood to throw one. My bike start to shake and I about fell off the bike. I kept going and then it was a A10 shooting its 20mm Gatling gun, sounded like a chain saw in short bursts.

Yeah, those A10s are awesome. We were drilling with a squadron of them one time. We were set on top of hill and they would come flying over us, firing their guns.

The more I think about this more I realize it was done by someone who was doing it for the food and the pelt, and I still wondering if calling the forest preserve police was the right thing to do or not.

A "floater" in the Mississippi River eddying out under the pier on my way to work in the French Quarter. His hands appeared to be tied. I took a picture, fetched a cop, and continued on to work. Never heard any details.

(Floater is a corpse that has finally filled up with gas enough to float.)

This is my third one. I am up early and have a tendency to notice things.

Hey.....you asked.

I dont know what it is about cyclists in the Atlanta 'burbs, but it seems all the housewives/ 20 somethings have the hots for us. I have gotten more unsolicited looks, waves, cheers, and numbers on a bike then anywhere else... maybe its the lycra. However in terms of strageness, I see a lot of wildlife, one time riding at night with my uncle in the mountains, he ran into a black bear. It scared the **** out of him and the bear equally fortunately and he got up and the bear fled.

Not really strange, but there is a bridge I cross on my way to work...yesterday I noticed the guardrail is in a different place. A little scary since the impact that it took to move it must have been pretty huge. Maybe a truck hit it or something. I'm just glad I wasn't riding my bike in that spot as the truck/whatever hit. I now have to hop off the bike and walk over this area since there is plenty of glass and metal.

Hey, why isn't this thread stickied? Every time I see something bizarre on my commute, I have to go searching again....

Anyway, for your consideration: I think this was last Thursday, riding though Central Park on my way down to Penn Station. Near Columbus Circle, I see a man standing in the road doing something strange: it looked like he was painting a dark line across the bike lane / jogging lane / parkway. As I got closer it proved he was holding a plastic grocery bag in one hand, and reaching into it with the other and throwing handfulls of some mushy brown stuff on the pavement, making a kind of speed bump. Lucky for me, he had not finished yet, and there were still gaps in the line, so I went through one of those. I was running a little late (as usual) and didn't want to miss my train, so I didn't stop to take his picture or investigate the nature of the brown stuff, but I think it was a natural product of some sort, perhaps made by dogs.

On a local mup. A guy crawling out of the bushes all scratched up. I stopped to see if he needed help. He then goes on a rant about how people are misleading on this trail and only interested good looks, which then goes into him asking me if he looks fat (which being a happly married quy is the kind of question you run from). then he rants about craigslist and misrepresentation.

What I deduced, the guy was high, the mup is a place where guys meet for assignations organized via craigslist, and he was not happy

very surreal

For several months, off and on, there's been a bald dude with a beer belly riding a bike downtown just as people start leaving work and heading home.

He's wearing nothing but a Speedo. At least he has a decent tan.

He's riding a bike equipped with the biggest pair of ape-hanger handlebars I've ever seen.

A few folks have written letters to the editor asking, "WTF?"

Riding on my way from work to the grocery, some kid who couldn't have been more than 15 or so, hung half his body out the driver's side back seat window of a small old beige Civic or Sentra-like import sedan and shouted at me, as loud as he could: "GO BACK TO MEXICO!"

Until then, I was wholly unaware there was a significant Irish community anywhere in Mexico.

Hahaha oh man that's awesome.

One evening last week, I was doing a training ride around 9:30 pm. My night-time setup as of late is a full-sleeved ANSI Level III vest, Bell Citi helmet (safety yellow) w/reflective band, flashing PB LED bands around both ankles, Glo Gloves, 3 PB 1-watt Blazes on the front, a PB Beamer 5 on the front, and 2 PB SuperFlashes on my rear rack.

I was at the intersection of Washington and Heights Blvd. in central Houston, stopped at the light. There is a full bike-lane on Heights, so I was all the way to the right instead of taking the lane as I normally do at intersections. Soon after I stopped at the light a convertible with the top down pulled up beside me. It was blaring super loud gangster rap music (loud enough that the bass would make other cars shake). My first thought was that it was a bunch of teenage kids and I just kept looking straight ahead, expecting them to make some wisecrack about my bike or outfit.

To not make it so obvious that I was avoiding their gaze, I turned my head in their general direction. I was pretty surprised by what I saw. The passengers were a man and a lady, about mid-40's, dressed to the nines (elegant gown for the lady, tux-and-suit for the man). The man was sitting shotgun and was puffing on a big cigar. He leaned over to me and greeted me in a really slow slurred manner, "Yeeeaaaahhh." Both of them were clearly inebriated.

I was trying my hardest not to burst out laughing, and then the lady said out loud, "That be tha pooooo-leeeece." Then the man replied, "Yeaaaahhhhh - I liiiiike the police!" Then the light turned green and they drove off.

I had always suspected people think I'm a cop or a city worker when I wear my safety gear around town; I guess this confirms it.

Riding down the lake front path in chicago on a nice summer day.
The cyclist in front of me encounters a whole bunch of geese in the path. I slow. He doesn't.
I have no idea what he was thinking.
He had some of kind of super fancy road bike and was all decked out in your standard 'I spent as much money as I possibly could on this **&$ equipment' type of cyclist gear. (Which I am not against in any way.......unless you are a complete cycling idiot.)

So, a whole lot of geese. A cyclist.
What do you do?
This guy guns it.
Stands up and CRANKS.
Straight into a whole pile of geese....
The funny part, and I swear this is all true,.....

He manages to have one of them, as they quack, flee, and chaoticly run in every direction, thrust its head into his spokes. He goes as$ over elbows in a flailing, screaming goose explosion. He is hurt. Bad. He doesn't get up immediately.

I have stopped at this point, and I will never forget what happens next.
Roughly 30 geese brutally and viciously attack this moron. He is laying there in a heap of still clipped in bicycle/goose butchery. He is yelling and flailing his arms around. They are flying into the melee just to get a crack at this guy. Honking, quacking, wings flapping and the pecking........my god the pecking.

I had no idea of the amount of carnage that a few geese are able to unleash upon something.
A couple seconds later, I am ringing my bell and yelling while slowly riding up into this.
They all scatter, but as they do, a couple of them take a few final sucker punches at his face.

"Are you alright man?!"
"Yeah, leave me the *&%$ alone"
His face was covered with tiny gashes, bleeding pretty good. I think the ensuing onslought did quite a bit more damage than the endo.
He scrambled up onto his bike and rode off, trying to straighten his seat by punching it as he rode.

DON'T f&%# with geese.
The one that he hit was nearly decapitated.
And the rest of them were REALLY, really angry about it

Recently on a bike ride I saw a person riding what looked a recumbent zipped up inside a trapezoidal, magenta colored tent with only the bottoms of the wheels and the rider's head showing. Never seen anything like it before. Maybe it was a prototype. He was going really fast, so the headwind didn't seem to affect him him very much.

Crawdaddio, you are a great writer. That is hilarious.

Aaronechang, +1 on that. A recent exchange I had while waiting to board a Metro elevator:

woman to me: Excuse me officer!
Me: um
Woman: last Tuesday....
Me: I'm not and officer
Woman: Oh, I saw the vest....

I can't think of the strangest thing but I have seen a woman jogging, by herself, in the dark.

To me that's a bit strange. Not very smart.

Saw what looked like two skunks humping each other (or I should say, one humping the other) while scurrying across my local MUP, one night at dusk. Turned out it was mommy skunk and a trail of baby skunks. I definitely braked for that.

"....my god the pecking."

Oh hell yeah! I really needed that. Thx.

+1, although I doubt the geese thought it was that funny...

AHh you heard what is known as the sounds of freedom

Good story, Crawdaddio!

+1!!!!! Crawdaddio, I damn near lost my morning coffee here, and would have had to clean it off my computer screen. That story is pure gold!

These stories are awesome!!!!!!!! Makes me think I need to carry a camera all the time.

Can't wait to start commuting again this summer and gather some for myself. Call me a pansy, but Buffalo NY roads in the winter scare me on a bike.

I haven't had anything crazy happen yet, but I've only commuted a total of 500 miles so far.

You know those giant side-by-side double jogging strollers? I saw a nanny pushing one of those, but instead of containing children, it held two tiny little dogs, each dressed up in a hat and a scarf. I hope she was getting paid a lot of money for that.

Noted.