A mountain biker in California got a fright while riding on a trail in the Sierra Nevada last week when he crashed into a bear that was crossing the route.
Davis Souza posted a video to Instagram of the incident, which happened on the Mills Peak Lookout Trail northwest of Sacramento and was captured on his helmet camera.
Luckily, the animal continued on its way, leaving Souza on the ground, and he can be heard saying, “Yeah … that was a bear.”
Bear attacks on humans are very rare, with on average three deaths a year in the whole of the United States and Canada since the turn of the century attributed to brown (including grizzly) or black bears, and none of those in California.
Such attacks fall into three broad categories – the animal protecting itself and cubs or its territory, or for predatory reasons.
A cyclist in Alaska survived a bear attack in 2010 after remembering expert advice to play dead.
> Alaska cyclist survives bear attack
In 2013, Brad Paras posted footage to YouTube that showed him and his cousin being charged three times while out on their bikes in Alberta, Canada by a female grizzly bear protecting her cub, with both riders escaping unscathed.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.