Strangest thing you have run over.

paddy's hill

Whats the strangers thing you have run over or swerved to avoid on a bike? For me it was a Golden Eagle in Majorca, standing on the road eating a rabbit as I came round a corner on a decent at about 50kph or a bullock that jumped a fence in Sligo into the middle of the bunch in Mooney Cup about 10 years ago. Have heard of people in Florida hitting alligators.

Caroline_ie

Mmmm it was cat a couple of weeks ago, came out on to the road from the bushes, I avoided him.

I almost cycled into a half eaten kebab once ... scared the cr*ap out of me ... that's what happens when I forget my glasses while cycling at night.

DirkVoodoo

Just the remains of a tattered green umbrella between foster's ave. and belfield for me.

All the steel supports are mangled and sticking out, kinda dangerous actually.

jollylee

I hit a small rabbit once while cycling down a steep hill near home when i was much younger. Felt terrible afterwards but no idea did he survive or not as i was going at a decent speed.

Raam

An emu. OK, I didn't have to swerve, I stopped a good 10 feet back and waited till he got out of the way

niceonetom

i ran over a squirrel in the phoenix park once. very traumatising. probably even worse for him.

danburke

A calf and its mother on a descent in Galway...

The calf thought it was a game and proceeded to chase my uphill for 2miles lol

Lumen

A snake, in rural France. Missed it by a couple of inches.

I chased it into the bushes, but it was too fast.

It was THIS big (arms wide).

kenmc

Hundreds if not thousands of little tiny froglings (froglets? froggies? whatever - teeny frogs) hopping across the road from the fields to a river in Lijiang, China. They were EVERYWHERE. Some of them got popped by the tyres as we rode over them. Yeuch. Poor things. Must have a picture somewhere if I can find it.

edit: good thread by the way!

Caroline_ie

danburke wrote: »

A calf and its mother on a descent in Galway...

The calf thought it was a game and proceeded to chase my uphill for 2miles lol

I chased a cow once ... I thought it was funny ... the poor cow was the one tromatised .. I have a photo ... must post it ...

ROK ON

About 5 week ago a herd of goat jumped out from a ditch and nearly ran into me on the road between Scalp and Enniskerry.

Alanstrainor

For me it was another cyclist, and yes i was cycling a bicycle. I kid you not! this idiot decided to take a central postion on the road with me behind him following the road ahead. He hadn't indicated at all, but given his road position i assumed he was turning right, next thing i know he swerves left, straight across my path. And having 0 time to react, i tboned him ran over the top of his bike/himself, and remained up right and came to a stop leaving carnage, and a lot of confused looking pedestrians.
the cyclist in question was fine after sitting down and taking a few deep breaths.

Gavin

Lots of deer in balinastoe & 3rock. One chap bounded out of the brush right in front of me, scared the lard outa me. Probably bump into them in the park as well.

Oh and I cycled into a roadworks sign once when I wasn't paying attention, but managed to stay on the bike. quite embarrassing.

cmcsoft

A stag about a mile from my house. I didn't actually hit him but it was fair close, frightened the life out of me

DirkVoodoo

Great, I put an umbrella and everyone else has got a whole load of animals to run over.

Maybe I will run over my dog later, he does get freaked out when I start wheeling bikes around.

paddy's hill

Best answer so far is caroline_ie who is afraid of kebabs.

Needabike

Bloody Fans during my 2004 time trial up alpe d'heuz

blorg

Similar to Dirk's experience, a stake did fall off the back of a truck once but unfortunately for me bounced into my front spokes. Sudden stop, over the bars, bike wrecked.

I have come pretty close with little yappy dogs on occasion. There was one in particular up in Glencullen that would come bounding out of a drive any time I went past. So one day, when it did this on cue, I screeched the bike to a halt, turned around, and started chasing the dog back in the direction it had come from. There was quite an expanse of solid wall and no-where for it to really go although it did try to squeeze into a couple of gaps unsuccessfully. Finally made it through a gate. I never had a problem with that dog again

Raam

oh oh, a pallet truck!
It fell off the back of a lorry out near Lusk.

TinyExplosions

Nearly hit a badger on the way back from my aborted Dub-Gal-Dub...

blorg

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Nearly hit a badger on the way back from my aborted Dub-Gal-Dub...

Was that the same badger that ran across the road on the WAY or were you just hallucinating at that point

TinyExplosions

blorg wrote: »

Was that the same badger that ran across the road on the WAY or were you just hallucinating at that point

Hehe, no, this was a second one that was a lot closer!

oobydooby

paddy's hill wrote: »

Best answer so far is caroline_ie who is afraid of kebabs.

Are you Conor Lenihan in disguise:p

I was drafting a tuktuk thing in southern China with about 6 workmen on it who were engaging me in some sort of random banter. The tuktuk went over a snake and so did I. Huge, bigger than Lumen's. It was about a metre long and pudding thick. I'm squeamish even now when I remember its flailing tail brushing my ankles. The tuktuk stopped and the lads ran over and grabbed the stunned snake and killed it and took it away with them. By sign language they were planning to eat it. I was too rattled to keep up with them then and never found out if they'd have offered me any.

CianRyan

Had to bail off my bike to avoid a pidgeon going straight for my face.
I think the bruises and grases were not nearly as bad as potentially having my eye poked out by a psyco bird.:rolleyes:

Thomas_S_Hunterson

A dog once basically ran under my wheel, luckily it was ok.


...oh the dog was fine too.

Victor

I've hit a car (noob cyclist), ran over the family dog (don't "walk" a dog on a short leash while on a bike) and a little old dear who just turned 90 degree and stepped of the footpath.

Other times I have been hit by cars or they just stopped in front of me leaving me with nowhere to go, I can't quite consider those situation where I have run over things. Flown over, maybe ...

Like a few others: almost hit some deer, sheep, dogs (one who just stopped and looked curiousity at me when I was going towards him). Brakes are a wonderful thing.

Raam

Caroline_ie wrote: »

I chased a cow once ... I thought it was funny ... the poor cow was the one tromatised .. I have a photo ... must post it ...

Here's LDB chasing a cow in Leitrim...



The chap on left had been following us down and was desperate to join his friends who were ahead of us, but he was afraid to pass us.

Chips Lovell

Like Ken it was frogs. One weekend in Wicklow last spring there was loads of small ones all over the road. I was wondering what all the pink stuff was until I realised it was loads of dead frongs.

Myself and niceonetom had a close shave with a deer this summer too. Came running across the road when we were in a group coming down the side of Djouce. Half a second later and it would have been one scary pileup.

Funkyzeit

Nearly ran over a few of the locals down here in Cork several times....Just not quick enough...;)

john77

Victor wrote: »

(don't "walk" a dog on a short leash while on a bike) ...

Ran over my kid brother once. (i was time-trialling round the farm on my BMX & he got in the way...)