you take the fun out of everything
Riding and Wild Animals
- Thread starter bitingback
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They recommend that for a cougar if it stalks you and you're cornered.
The strength of any animal that attacks is going to be pretty immense. So i would speculate that by using the bike as a weapon you've just effectively lost a potential shield, and probably do little to stop the progress of a charging animal. Face it, you're going to get your ass kicked and perhaps eaten. So do whatever it takes to survive the best, stones, rocks, spears, make a better weapon than a clumsy bike.
For what it's worth i always carry a knife. Yah i know it's pretty futile in comparison to packing a gun in an attack. Hell packing a pistol can be pretty futile in dealing with some of these bigger animals. But if i can muster up a last attack i swear i'm taking the critters eye out.
But really the knife is more for a tool and i don't really anticipate ever using it as a weapon.
I've heard a story of someone fighting and killing an attacking mountain lion. Of course it all happened at a backwoods cabin and the guy had some giant kitchen knife.
Predatory animals don't attack with a life or death attitude. They typically can't risk getting injured so if you can damage them they will leave. Of course if it is a 1200lb Kodiak your chance of hurting them is slim.
I have heard that cougars, much like most cats, are pretty pee hearted and a wound will yield a retreat. They say you can just poke most of them and they go away. That's just hearsay that I have heard.
Yah that's true in most cases if we're talking about the lions. And i think bear attacks are what's on top of my mind right now since we just had that attack, and the girl's death just a few hundred miles to the NE of us in B.C..
The Californian attack comes to mind where the cougar preyed upon 2 mt. bikers, one died the other gal mauled. Both were stealth attacked, and fellow mt. bikers were there to throw rocks and ward off the cougar. But i seem to remember that it wasn't giving up that easily. It was effectively protecting it's kill but also seeming to add to it's cache.
The other mt. biker attack that i recall happened well over 10 years ago here in Olympics. There a rider was tackled by a young cougar. He was a state champion i believe in wrestling so he was able to wriggle free without getting hurt. In that case the lion gave up pretty quick.
So it all depends on the situation. i've said multilple times on here i'm absolutely certain big critters including mt. lions have seen me ride by and i've been absolutely unaware of their presence. With that i'm not as concerned as most may be giving that... But i always pique the mind of family and friend who are hunters, and one observation i've adopted is that different circumstance and different animals always break the rule of norm. You may get that one in a million black bear that instead of turning tail and running away (which is the most common encounter you'll have), it starts sizing you up as a meal.
This is a pretty serious topic, although statistically unlikely. i imagine injury, exposure to weather claim way more lives of mt. bikers. But ultimately it's part of the deal if you're riding in the backcountry, and everyone should have some sort of game plan thought out...
The Californian attack comes to mind where the cougar preyed upon 2 mt. bikers, one died the other gal mauled. Both were stealth attacked, and fellow mt. bikers were there to throw rocks and ward off the cougar. But i seem to remember that it wasn't giving up that easily. It was effectively protecting it's kill but also seeming to add to it's cache.
The other mt. biker attack that i recall happened well over 10 years ago here in Olympics. There a rider was tackled by a young cougar. He was a state champion i believe in wrestling so he was able to wriggle free without getting hurt. In that case the lion gave up pretty quick.
So it all depends on the situation. i've said multilple times on here i'm absolutely certain big critters including mt. lions have seen me ride by and i've been absolutely unaware of their presence. With that i'm not as concerned as most may be giving that... But i always pique the mind of family and friend who are hunters, and one observation i've adopted is that different circumstance and different animals always break the rule of norm. You may get that one in a million black bear that instead of turning tail and running away (which is the most common encounter you'll have), it starts sizing you up as a meal.
This is a pretty serious topic, although statistically unlikely. i imagine injury, exposure to weather claim way more lives of mt. bikers. But ultimately it's part of the deal if you're riding in the backcountry, and everyone should have some sort of game plan thought out...
Yeah i never worried much about bears while riding but when I was in BC it was definately in my mind...That attack happened while I was in vancouver so this thread was something i def wanted to post in...
Do we know of many bear attacks on riders? I dont. I have encountered black bears but never a grizzly...I was saying to a friend when we were riding the shore could you imagine if we came around one of these dark corners and one was standing right there...that is a tough situation.
It's pretty common for Grizzly to attack protecting young. Hikers getting mauled is the most common thing you hear about. Black bear from all accounts other than the 2 i've mentioned above either run away or ignore you.
There's been alot of discussion on local club forums about this, and the best idea i've heard about bear is bear bells. A very experience mudhunnie suggested this a few weeks back, especially if you're riding with doggies. Buy some bells from Cabelas and put them on you, and your doggies. This will prevent you from sneaking up on most all wildlife, and gives them enough heads up to steer clear. Which is better all in all, i've snuck up to a whole herd of elk and was lucky they decided to stampede AROUND me and not OVER me... They are huge animals, bigger than horses...
Anyways thought i'd write that down before i forgot about it...
Whoa. That would probably be one of the coolest things to experience. After you clean your shorts of course.
That's mostly true. And will probably work if you stumble upon one, and it's not looking for dinner.
Cougars usually won't attack unless they are desperate, and if they are desperate they won't usually back down. Of course 90% of the time a cougar will strike from behind and break your neck before you realize what hit you.
Bear bells, though extremely annoying (to me, anyway) are probably the most effective thing you can do. In all the book/training etc. I've had on bear stuff, making noise and letting your presence be known is the best insurance against an attack. Most animals want to avoid you, so letting it know you're coming just makes it get out of the way. It actually kind of surprises me that more mountain bikers haven't had problems with animals like bears because bikes can be fairly quiet, are pretty fast and the rider is generally not looking too far ahead or around him.
As mentioned in the above post, black bears are less likely to attack, but the conventional wisdom is that if they do, they are much more likely to try and kill you (predatory killing) and thus not be deterred by playing dead, which can work for grizzlies. That part scares me. Reading or listening to advice on bears is generally pretty dry for me until that part when they tell you to go nuts and fight for your life- poke the bear in the eyes, punch it, stab it, etc.
loco would tell you to mount anything you find in the woods with a heartbeat
Agreed 100% that you likely won't see it coming. My point is to not just be a pussy and they might actually go away. They are really our only concern here, albeit not much of one, besides venomous snakes.
I talked to a ranger when hiking through Glacier NP and he recommended not using bear bells. Bear bells are only going to help you in situations when you stumble across a bear and surprise it. This is quite rare and not the type of situation that ends up in an aggressive encounter. The bear bells can actually attract the curious adolescent male bear that is usually responsible for predatory type attacks, the frequency of the bells are similar to the calls of squirrels and other tasty creatures.
Yup imagine movie theater surround sound, and feeling their hooves beat on the ground as if it was hollow. Very surreal, i just stood there in awe really. A few minutes later, 3 pals i was riding with caught up, i asked them if they saw the herd (at least fifteen), they didn't.
That's why the woods are pretty amazing around here, if we still have mastodons it would be concievable to ride next to them without being aware of their presence...
If that's true, and he practiced what he preached, then that might explain Chupacabra...
Y'know i frikkin always wondered about that, but never had a legit source to back up my suspicions....
Just ask yourself... WWNRAD?
What you should do:
(*smashes bottle over head, tears off shirt*)
Put a bell under yo ass.
Bumping a graphics thread? 