Bike vs rabbit?

[Polar Bear]

I've bumped over a small terrier-like dog which howled but ran away.   

On my commute years ago beside the river Nene in Northampton the bunnies used to run alongside and dart beneath the pedals.   Never got one myself but did come across one with a motorbike sized tyre depression across it's back. 

[andrew_s]

I went over an indecisive rabbit with both wheels at about 25 mph one time - it kept going into the hedge and vanished.
I hit a badger (or it hit me), but was going uphill at 7 mph or so, and it just shouldered my front wheel aside an kept going, an I missed one by a foot or less going downhill at around 37 mph, which I was pretty relieved about.

[iddu]

Never (thankfully) had anything large, but was seriously incapacitated on the HG&WI

(It's a bit YUK...)

(click to show/hide)

An amphibian resident of Keoldale, that decided to headbutt the upper jockey, and promptly had it's brains etc spattered around the drivetrain - PMSL and couldn't ride for 10 mins.  Was a little gross cleaning it all out.

[Wowbagger]

There is a select bunch of YACFers who have joined the Meles Club. I am proud to call myself a member. The bike was OK, the badger ran off and I was left with grazed elbow and knee.

My brother hit a badger once whilst driving his car. The badger was a write-off. The car, a VW Bora or similar, required circa £1500 in body work repairs. I believe the combined velocity was about 30mph.

[T42]

Roedeer into right shin on a 400 once. It staggered off, I staggered on, chum riding behind cackled for 10 minutes.  I was quite disappointed when it healed without a scar.

Also had a rabbit through between wheels. Bit of a scuffle round right foot but no other contact.

[MartinC]

In my experience, derived initially from a very rural paper round, is that the best way to avoid livestock is to aim for it.  Most are prey animals who are conditioned to evade things chasing them.  Trying to avoid them just confuses the hell out of them.  Just aim for them - they'll make sure they aren't there when you arrive.

[Morrisette]

I ran over some part of a rabbit on a cycle path last year. There was a horrible crunching sound but I did not fall off the bike. Looked round and saw it lying motionless, has an oh-shit moment thinking I would have to kill it if it was paralysed or something (and there were loads of kids on the path, yeah, that would have looked good, me bashing a bunny's head in with a bike lock!) - but then it got up and ran away. Not sure what the crunch was......

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Following another cyclist I had the unpleasant experience of seeing him run right over a cat.  He had a worse experience because he fell off.  We would have liked to have found out how the cat fared but it ran off at speed and we could not find it anywhere. The cyclist was bruised and bloody but nothing broke and his bike was ok.

In my experience, derived initially from a very rural paper round, is that the best way to avoid livestock is to aim for it.  Most are prey animals who are conditioned to evade things chasing them.  Trying to avoid them just confuses the hell out of them.  Just aim for them - they'll make sure they aren't there when you arrive.

That is pretty good advice IMO although if they are mesmerised by your lights at night it may not apply.

[Ben T]

I once had a fox chasing a rabbit both running straight at me. On seeing me, fox turns around and buggers off, rabbit carries on straight past me. Fox obviously decided rabbit wasn't worth the threat I posed, rabbit obviously (correctly) decided I was less threat than the fox.

[Wowbagger]

Some years ago, whilst pike fishing at Ardleigh reservoir, I heard an enormous commotion behind me. I looked up and there was a stoat attacking a rabbit. As soon as the stoat saw me it buggered off but the rabbit, clearly unaware of my form when dealing with bunnies, came and sat at my feet. I was too slow to find something suitable with which to bash it and the rabbit, bleeding profusely front a wound in its neck, seemed to read my mind and followed the stoat's example. About half an hour later I heard a re-run of the same commotion from the hedge about 30 yards away, so just let them get on with it.

The one thing that I remember most about that day's fishing was the vast number of rabbit body parts that were littered about the place, including a complete head submerged in about 3' of water.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The animals I hit most of are insects, snails and slugs. I try to avoid them if I notice them on the road and there's room and time. I also try to avoid a large mass of flying insects, but that's for my sake. Solo flyers have to look out.

I think the only vertebrates I've ever collided with have been humans, and those only rarely. Birds have come close though, mostly pigeons taking off when I approach but not climbing fast enough.

[Mr Larrington]

My grate frend Mr Sheen once scored a sparrow on the back straight at Eastway, which was a popular venue for HPV versus wildlife.  One woman found out the hard way that it was not a sensible place to walk her dog during the first lap of a race, when Nigel Leaper sent her cocker spaniel into low earth orbit¹.

At the next meeting a little sticker had appeared on the side of his bike - dog with a line through it - courtesy of the late Hairy McSteve.

The course of the Colorado Speed Week of the early 1990s ran through a bison reservation.  You do not want to hit a half-ton of shaggy pot roast at 60 mph even with seat belt tensioners, crumple zones and airbags.

1: no dogs were badly damaged during the making of this incident as objects bounce off fully-faired recumbents rather than becoming tangled up in the oily bits.

[runsoncake]

Was nearly offed by a dead cat one night. I was on a motor bike just going over the brow of a humped back bridge and bashed into something that felt like a kerbstone, somehow stayed upright. I parked up and went back to clear the obstacle off the road, found it was an ex-pudditatt. Gave a hefty poke with my boot and found that the critter had rigor mortis.

Never had problems with other animals except farm dogs and insects.

[EMnut]

Luckily yet to have any bunny problems, tho there are millions of them on the cycle lane near Didcot Power station.

I did have a few close scrapes in South Africa, on one mountain pass I got to the top and there were a family/gang of baboon clustered blocking the road, had to wait for a passing truck to scare them off before riding like the clappers past them on the roadside. Descending the same road slightly later nearly ran over a Boomslang (rather nasty venomous snake) stopping inches away from it, luckily it was not too bothered and slithered off, a scary ride that one.

[Katie]

I've never hit an animal, though frequently spot rabbits and foxes on evening commutes.

Did eat a moth this evening. Unpleasant.

[Ben T]

Yeah I've eaten a moth/butterfly before, sort of assumed they were intelligent/good enough at flying enough to avoid flying directly into mouths, but obviously not.

[Clemo]

Bumped into a Badger once luckily i was doing 6mph up hill, it grunted at me and strolled away, I have had two mate who have made contact with Deer one ended up in hospital with head injuries (the mate not the deer  ) the other we all just laughed at as he bouunced off said deer.

[Oaky]

I ran over a rabbit once.  felt a crunch from the rear as I went over some part of it, so stopped and went back to see if I needed to finish it off with a 15mm spanner (not sure how effective my stubby spaner would be, mind) but could find no sign of it either on or near the road.

Can't have done it much good though (although the tyres were heeeooge balloon-ey 26" rubino pro slicks at 26x1.5 or similar so might have cushioned it a bit).

[Si_Co]

Collisions with mammals (as opposed to MAMiLs)

1 x Bat (wft?)
1 x Squirrel (only the end of its tail, it was quite surprised at it's sudden stop)
1 x Bullock
Lots x Dog (nearly all my dog, he did take a while to learn that running across the line was not a good plan)

[andrew_s]

Birds have come close though, mostly pigeons taking off when I approach but not climbing fast enough.

Birds have an unfortunate tendency to dive to gain airspeed when you frighten them out of the top of the hedge, which puts them straight in the danger zone.
On one audax, I saw an upright trike with pigeon bits all over the unoccupied luggage rack, a custom built thing, probably 15" by 12" with bars about 2" apart, so I asked, like you do. The rider had been hurtling down a hill, the startled woodpigeon dived for speed, and was promptly overtaken, getting stuffed backwards through the rack bars. There was a fair amount of blood sticking the feathers on, so it was presumably terminal for the pigeon.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Most of my pigeon near-misses have been when the bird was standing on the road or track in front of me. If they flew sideways, they'd be alright, but they seem to want to escape by flying in front of you.

[Mr Larrington]

I came very close to scoring a goose in the motor-car once.  Goosey-goosey-gander decided to ignore the Highway Code and take off from the hard shoulder of the M1 at right angles to the carriageway

[Katie]

I nearly got taken out by a low flying pheasant once, but ducked just in time.

There's probably a joke in there somewhere but I'm too tired…

[spesh]

Don't worry, there are plenty of forumites only too happy to perpetrate puns that will make people quail...

Or, more likely, grouse.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Most of us are too chicken to crack those and it's too scrambled to get a better yolk, I mean joke.









It's ok, I wasn't staying anyway.