Among the challenges you don’t want on a downhill mountain bike run is a brown bear charging at you – but that’s what happened to this rider.
We’ve seen similar videos before, with the bear’s charge typically triggered by a sow looking to protect its young, and previous films always from the US or Canada.
This footage, however, was shot in Slovakia, so even if you’re in Europe, as the man in Hill Street Blues said, “Be careful out there.”
Yeah, showing our age.
What?
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The defence may well have argued that, and the magistrate may have accepted it, but that's not what the law says. It says that you have only driven without reasonable consideration for others if someone is inconvenienced. But the offence is committed if you drive without due care and attention, OR without reasonable consideration for other person. You have done the first if the driving falls below what would be expected of a careful and competent driver, regardless of whether anyone was inconvenienced. And CPS guidance specifically cites driving too close to another vehicle as an example.
Some years ago (before there was a cycle lane) I used to commute on Sidmouth St. But only because I worked on the London Road campus, from anywhere else there are better alternatives. As a cycle route it runs from between two busy roads, neither of which are exactly cycle friendly. So it's hardly surprising that no cyclists use it.
The officer's comments unfortunately reflect the reality of UK law. While the Highway Code guidance indeed refers to 1.5m, that is not anywhere in the law. And the criteria in law for proving a charge of careless driving does in fact rest on whether the rider is being "inconvenienced", as the discovered several years ago when the Met prosecuted a taxi driver who nearly hit me when cutting into my lane from the left near Marylebone. The prosecution lawyer was a barely competent newbie who fumbled over his words. The court computer was barely capable of playing the video footage, which kept freezing and crashing. The cabbie had an highly assertive defence lawyer who immediately seized on this point, and argued to the magistraite that I clearly hadn't been "inconvenienced" because I had not stopped or swerved, and had carried on my journey. Never mind that didn't have time to do either of those things, or that I was centimetres from being hit - the magistraite acquitted him on those grounds. That is unfortunately the outrageous reality of actually prosecuting a close pass incident. I know it's popular to blame the police and the CPS for not prosecuting enough close passes ... but the fact is the law is inadequate, and if the driver has a good lawyer then they can likely get off most close pass prosecutions.
Let's not forget the protruding "side" mirror...
HTML rules are clearly only partially implemented
please can we have the ability to use bold and italics for emphasis back as well?
As a Reading resident and cyclist, I can say I cannot think of a single occasion when I have seen a cyclist using the Sidmouth St cycle lane, nor can I think of any reason I'd use it myself. It doesn't connect to any other useful cycle routes. I don't rejoice that some of it is going back to motor traffic but I can see why the council is proposing to do that. Reading could really do with a cycleway to cross the town centre west to east and east to west but I'm not holding my breath on that.
Giant are one of the most trustworthy brands out there when it comes to manufacturing components given that they actually own their own production facilities. None of that matters though when it comes to road hookless, I and most other people won't touch it with a barge pole. We're surely at a stage now where it's toxic amongst consumers and it's only a matter of time before the UCI ban it for racing.
Filling the road with one person per car is using the road space more efficiently, amazing, I never realised that.
I bought a Giant Defy recently and immediately sold off the hookless wheels at a pretty big loss and won't ever do that again. I'm not buying hookless for road ever. Giant in particular has very short list of what tires they test with their rims so it's way too restrictive even if I was going to ride hookless wheels. Which I won't. Very short sighted by Giant.
21 thoughts on “Video: Bear charges at mountain biker”
Sh*t myself have you!
Sh*t myself have you!
Why did they stop near it!
Why did they stop near it!
Butty wrote:
Wait mate, stop. There’s a bear here, was chasing you a moment ago. Hang here for a sec!
Maybe where it headed to was
Maybe where it headed to was where the trail goes next?
One of those may-come-in
One of those may-come-in-handy bits of advice I learned was that if you’re being chased by a bear, try and run downhill: Their short front legs means that they’re slower when running down a slope.
If I were to test this theory though, I think I’d want ~200mm of travel front and rear too.
ped wrote:
I think that I would want to be faster than my mate and he can be carrying the bacon sandwiches.
Butty wrote:
Marmalade sandwiches, surely ? 🙂
ped wrote:
When I was in Spitsbergen some years back I received a safety briefing before heading out of the main town of Longyearben. A lot of this focussed on what to do if chased by a polar bear. Basically, a bear can outprint a horse over a 400m distance. And a fully grown male polar bear, the world’s largest on land predator, can weigh close to 1 tonne. If you’re unlucky enough to be chased by one, you can’t outrun it. You can either play dead or hope that the old rifle you have with you (leaving the town without a rifle is not advisable) actually works.
OldRidgeback]
Inkjet or laser… or are we talking offset litho?
ped wrote:
it’s because they evolved from cows. Cows can’t walk downstairs.
ConcordeCX wrote:
Conversely, if chased by wolves, climb a tree. Dogs can’t look up, as Big Al tells us.
rjfrussell wrote:
ever since I read that Dervla Murphy had been attacked by wolves while cycling (she was the one cycling, not the wolves), and had shot them, I have always carried a small puncture repair kit, a pump and a pair of loaded [1] “Cyclist’s Friends”.
They’re also handy in case of attack by tramps, although the advertisement doesn’t make clear whether they mean itinerants, or loose women, so I just shoot them all if they get too close.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/11328882013/
[1] I believe this is why it’s called “fully-loaded touring”.
You don’t get that around
You don’t get that around here, makes the suicidal rabbits and pheasants seem almost welcome.
I bet these guys could bear
I bet these guys could bear-ly believe what happened and, if this was me, there would definitely be evidence of Pooh. Agree with the other posters though and I have no idea why they paws-ed to see where the bear was off to.
A great video, and a nice
A great video, and a nice change from the usual cycle path stuff! Slovakia is breathtaking, and not far from where I live. Thousands more wolves and bears are living here in the Carpathian mountains and forests too. Give it a try; I am sure you will love it.
Recently I was in a similar situation when a bear jumped out of the forest and started to chase me. Urgently, I was desperately forced to escape, but not to worry I had the situation under control riding a Kinesis CX Race in pale blue, and descending flat out on 32mm Continental Race X King Kevlar folding tyres at the recommended tyre pressures. However, at the bottom of the mountain, the path was completely blocked by Bruno, King of the Bears, his brutal pack, and forced to stop. Surrounded and fearing for my life I asked: ” What’s all this about then?”
“Calm down,” he answered, ” we just want to have a look at your new set of Anipura Travel Pack Bags we heard you just received from the UK. Wow, cool man, I got to have some of these! The bag on the top tube is great for a pot of honey, eat it on the fly, and lots more in the seat bag. Like the colour, where can I get some? Of course, due to our weight most bears use steel frames but that’s okay, they make great adventure ‘bikes. Yes, adventure ‘bikes that’s the way to go.
Thank’s Bruno, see you sometime. Cheers mate.’
Yeah, see you.”
Not just bears sh1t in the
Not just bears sh1t in the woods.
That was Peter Sagan, not a
That was Peter Sagan, not a bear.
I was once briefly chased by
I was once briefly chased by a small-ish black bear while mountain biking in New Jersey; He scurried down a tree as I rode past, then chased me up a singletrack rise, as I slowed through a muddy section just past the bear’s tree. I pedaled for my life, and when I turned back again at the top of the hill, (s)he was gone.
Another time I nearly rode right into a huge Kodiak grizzly in Alaska. That time I stopped short. We stared at each other until my blood started running again, then I very slowly walked the bike back about five yards, turned it slowly around, and again rode for dear life. That big bear could probably have caught and eaten me if it wanted, but it may have been stuffed on trash from a nearby dump.
Road cycling is nice.
1wrangler wrote:
a squirrel nearly ran straight into my front wheel once, a farm dog once barked at me and chased me for 20 metres, and I’m sure I once swallowed a large moth – apologies for the lameness of uk wildlife
A bat flew into me a couple
A bat flew into me a couple of years ago. I probably have psychological scars but I just butch it out.
A few weeks back, on the club
A few weeks back, on the club ride, we had to slow down a bit for some sheep in the road. They sort of wandered through a hedge and into a field so we carried on. Wish I’d captured it on video.