Saw a bear today.
 

I was coming back west, on route 50, right where the road forks off, to Boone. There's an old gas station there, and I was just fixing to sit down, leaning against the wall. I didn't see anything at first, just noticed the sound of a car slowing way down. I turned to look, and a very young bear was crossing the road, coming straight towards me. I think he smelled my pizza. 😁
Somehow, in the confusion, the bear decided he didn't want anything to do with me, and turned up that other road, towards Boone. The older couple who startled him, just looked at me, like "did you see that?".
I was mostly concerned with his mother and/or father, but saw neither.
By looking on the web, he was probably a young black bear, even though his hair looked blonde. He wasn't very big, but still counts as running into a bear, in the wild. 😎

No pictures. It did not happen. ;)

Kidding very cool. I am envious.

I have been biking and hiking all over the Rockies this past week in hopes of seeing wildlife and haven't seen much more than mule deer. A few years ago I did encounter a bear while I was riding one morning in Redstone. It was eating some kind of foliage off of fence in between two houses.

https://scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net...df&oe=5BC92E01

Cool. I love seeing bears. Just not too close.

Come and ride the country roads in British Columbia and you'll commonly see all kinds of wildlife, including black bears.
There's a great many roads of all kinds and for all types for touring cyclists. You do have to be "bear aware" with your camps,
especially in the northern regions where it's common to see grizzlies.

This was from my Icefield Parkway tour last year. Two black bears in total

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/813/4...1527c2df_z.jpg


This year on my Jasper - Vancouver tour I saw three black bears. They often are just off the shoulder feeding on young vegetation. I also got chased for a bit by this young elk. I tried to snap his pic as I rode by and I think he thought I was another elk to challenge or something. I got some cardio for a few hundred yards!

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1782/...a8acdfa4_z.jpg

I have seen three during my last two tours. One was staring at me from 20' away after raiding the dumpsters at a private campground on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest. I think he was at last 500 lbs. There was a pile of scat about 50' from my tent. The following day I saw one swim across Pine Creek while riding the Pine Creek Trail. Last month, in New Jersey, a very young cub walked across a campground road in front of me as I was riding back from the shower room. I didn't see mom, which made me nervous.

All in all, I have seen 6 bears during bike tours ad one during a day ride.

Ravaged dumpster shortly after the bear walked off into the woods. Notice the mural on the left dumpster. Owners don't give a rat's ass about the animals.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d991712dad.jpg

After swimming across Pine Creek:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...eabbcd9829.jpg

Day ride in New Jersey. He was along side the road when we first came upon him.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1ffd4946a9.jpg

I have driven through BC twice. The amount of wildlife was incredible. I'd love to do it on a bike. Leaving Liard Hot Springs early in the morning I saw the biggest black bear I have ever seen in my life. Your post made me think of this.

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natur...ighway-photos/

I remember seeing that. That would have been a REAL bear encounter, lol. 😁
My guy was about half that size, and still skinny, in comparison. Which is just fine with me, I don't care about looking brave. 😋

As Mountain Mitch says, out in BC most sows won't immediately attack a human unless their cubs are in direct danger.
Most of my recreational activities are in the back-country of BC and I've encountered 100's of black bears during over 60 years,
many with cubs. Having a dog with you is bad! Racing either on foot or bicycle down bushy sided trails is also not a good idea
as you can surprise a sow with cubs at close range. As for the Laird Park area, bears killed people for food right in the park years
ago. I rode through there a couple of years later, planning on tenting, but the Rangers strongly advised me not to as they still had
black bear problems there. Same with the area north of Fort Nelson. There were signs posted not to camp because of problem bears.
I have normally rode the north country during the latter weeks of May and early weeks of June which is when the bears leave their dens
and are hungry. Touring through there later is likely a lot less worrisome, but then again there are the bugs!

Great pictures!

Alberta banned grizzly hunting in 2006 and it seems like there are more of them around, they have been seen in recent years on the outskirts of Calgary, which I can't ever remember before. However, the number of grizzly bears has not been increasing, but it appears to be stable, according to wildlife surveys. The biggest problems for bears is habit destruction and conflict with people, bears are killed on the highway and railroad tracks. Problem bears are re-located which usually leads to their demise.

I've ridden past them on the road, they have either ignored me or gone off into the woods.

Totally agree with these thoughts. Mountain biking is probably the activity where you are most likely to encounter a bear, surprising the animal is never a good strategy whether they have cubs or not. Make lots of noise, be aware of your surrounding and carry bear spray.

Here is a link to a video of a family of grizzlies chasing a black bear away on the roadsie.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.4015009

You can say that again:

https://www.greatfallstribune.com/st...nter/98818710/

See the link is my post directly above.

I once observed a distant grizzly sow and two cubs from the Many Glacier, MT parking lot, viewed by binocular for 20". This occurred on a beautiful fall afternoon, two days after I had read Jack Olsen's "The Night of the Grizzlies", and one day after I made record time solo-hiking the 13-mile Piegan Pass trail from Siyeh Bend on the GttS road back to Many Glacier, passing two locations with bear scat along the forest trail.

I have come across several black bears suddenly while mountain biking in the Rockies. Fortunately the bears ran.

Every Tuesday without fail, black bears tip over up my neighbours garbage bin and drag the contents around the 'hood, requiring me to make (yet another) angry visit, after they sheepishly clean it all up. Sometimes I have to 'motivate' bears to move out of my back yard, with spray from a garden hose or a hockey stick. Once, the neighbours garbage included a container of hot chocolate powder. The bear dragged this onto my from porch, and then leisurely consumed the whole thing with obvious delight. No amount of my coaxing would get this bear to move...

My closest grizzly bear encounter was 30 feet away from a Momma and two cubs. Scary scary stuff.

A couple weeks ago I was riding home on my daily commute, and a family of grizzly bears was perched on a rock outcropping at the side of the road at the top of my climb. Probably waiting for a cyclist dinner.... Faced with a tedious 45-minute detour, I decided to make a run for it and sprint past the bears. I'm still here....

Do you mean there are different flavors? 😁 Don't worry about threadjacking, some of us clearly need a better education, on the matter. 🙂

I should have added that mb cycling along trails in cougar country is a risky business as well.
There have been people attacked In BC while doing that. Running by or away from a predator
will trigger their 'chase' instincts. Even fairly seasoned people like me can let their guard down
at times though. When I was long distance running, I returned off a high mountain in the Monashees,
which has a high population of grizzles, by running flat out with a young friend along the park trails.
We were having so much fun jumping low logs and rocks as we sped along...until I jumped over a big
bear scat and realized just how foolish we were being. Luck was with us though and we didn't surprise
any bears.

That one is particularly memorable, when they found him both of his wrists were broken from the impact. They were moving fast.

In Jasper, a few years ago, a mountain biker surprised a bear and it bit his pack, puncturing the bear spray that he had on it.https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...tack-1.2654545

Most bear attacks result from surprising a bear, getting close to a mother with cubs, or a bear guarding a kill, or a bear that is habituated to people. You are unlikely to have a problem with a bear feeding at the side of the road. But I wouldnt stop and take pics.

" You are unlikely to have a problem with a bear feeding at the side of the road. But I wouldnt stop and take pics."

True, but as in most situations, there are exceptions.
In my 62 years prowling about in the back country, mostly in BC Canada where there are healthy populations of
both black bears and grizzlies, I've seen approx 200-250. I've only been really concerned for my safety a couple
of times...one when I was cycling uphill to Summit Lake on the Alaskan Hwy. As I made my way slowly up the
long grade I noticed a scruffy black bear on a avalanche scar a little ahead of and across the road from me. It wasn't
really close to the road so I wasn't worried and kept going. As soon as it saw me it came toward me at a fast walk,
and as it got closer, into a trot. As I got off my bike to quickly turn it around I was fortunate that a fellow came onto
the scene driving a truck which he used to cut the bear off long enough for me to escape. That driver then accompanied
me past the spot to make sure the bear didn't try again. That bear was acting in predatory fashion, and I don't know
if I would have been able to hit a high enough speed to get away from him before he reached me had it not been for that
fellow with the truck. When I reached the village at Summit lake I learned that the Game Warden was already on his way
to dispose of that bear as my incident wasn't the first reported to him within 24 hours.

In my case, I was descending hard with someone ahead of the rest of a group. Thought the thing was a dog at first. We finally realized it was a bear and stopped so we didn't hit it. (Had no idea whether it would run into the woods or our in front of us.) The rest of the group came down the hill and stopped. By that time, the thing had retreated into the woods and was moving laterally, trying to avoid someone working on their house. My ex was supposed to take a photo but hit the vide button instead. The photo is a still from the maybe 2 seconds of video she shot. Had the thing been off the road more I don't think I would have stopped.

I heard a large animal taking off in the woods this week while on a hike. It was just 30 feet from me. I thought it was a moose at first but the panting sounded more like a bear. Then I saw a tiny cub climbing up a tree right next to the trail. I couldn't circle around so I waited until the cub came down and disappeared in the forest. I never actually saw the mother.

I've had many bear encounters. My favourite was about 40km from the west coast of Vancouver Island. I had stopped at a short hiking trail to get away from the highway noise. I walked the trail to some giant trees, then heard a bald eagle and went back to my bike to get a longer lens. The river had salmon and while I was waiting under a tree for the rain to pass, a bear came out to fish. It was pretty cool but short. the bear was coming my way and I came out from under the tree, hoping the bear would see me from a distance and stay around... but It ran away.

Cool! The very first live wild black bear I saw was in similar circumstances.
It was in 1956, I was 10 years old, and quietly making my way along a path beside Whonnock Creek in the Fraser Valley of BC
which my grandparents had property along. In those days that creek was a major salmon spawning area which attracted many
bears. I was there to do some trout fishing, I stopped to watch the hordes of spawning salmon when out of the bush on the other
side of the creek came a black bear. He didn't know I was there so I remained very still trying to look like a post as he walked out
into the stream, plunged his head into the water, and then backed out the way he had come with a salmon in his mouth. He
was only about 10 feet from me when he grabbed that fish. That's when I began a habit of whistling as I traveled around fish
spawning streams.

Good story. There have been a few incidents of predatory black bears and bicycles and it definitely makes you stop and think. I don't generally carry bear spray on road rides in the mountains but I probably should.

Yes, I should have had a big can of bear spray at the ready on my bike when touring up north. Carrying a gun was not an option as I was
riding both in Alaska and Canada as well as parks etc.