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Post by mudonthetires on Apr 13, 2011 20:41:51 GMT -5
I was able to get out to FATS late this afternoon and get in Skinny and Brown Wave. It has been a while since I have ridden anything at FATS and I really enjoyed the clean flowing trail. It really does feel like a roller coaster on your bike at times. A lot of greenery is coming in the woods are awesome this time of year. Once on Brown Wave I soon realized that I was not the only one out and enjoying the trail. I was cruising through some whoop de doos and just as I was preparing to take one of the banked turns I heard some leaves rustling. I didn't think much of it as I figured I had startled some small forrest creature and it was actively trying to get as far away from me as possible. I took the bank with some speed having the time of my life when I heard some more rustling.....this time closer. As I finished the bank and started to straighten out my front wheel, the rustling got closer and closer and in my mind I had prepared for a large jungle cat to leap from the brush and latch onto my shoulders. As I was quickly determining my plan of defense against the large beast, a squirrel ran right out in front of me. Needless to say, neither of us expected to see one another, and in a matter of seconds I had already prepared myself for near death by a ravenous feline, and he was surely just trying to gather up some grub. I am not proud to admit that I emitted a sound that undoubtedly resembled a small girl being frightened to death , and Mr. Squirrel jumped straight in the air coming up between my front and back tires (I may be crazy but I think I saw him crab onto my bottle cage for a split second) after that my attention focused on the trees that I was headed for and I was able to slam on the brakes and stop just short of sure disaster. I looked back and my furry friend had already disappeared into the wilderness. I took a moment to gather myself and continued on my way. Before I was done two more squirrels ran out in front of me and zig zagged along the path as I hit the brakes and tried not to run over them. So enjoy yourselves out there, but beware the fearless kamikazi squirrels! Here are a couple of pictures I snapped. I'm always waiting for someone to actually be sitting in this chair and scare the crap out of me!
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Post by kconner on Apr 13, 2011 21:44:36 GMT -5
Lol, the first part of your story made me think of this commercial:
Always avoid running over the little creatures, you never know what may happen ;D
As for the chair, hopefully it survives the burn....I know it takes away from the natural setting, but it cracks me up thinking that someone hauled it all the way out there....
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Post by dgaddis1 on Apr 14, 2011 6:40:31 GMT -5
I was riding at FT. Yargo once, and got caught in a sudden shower on the way back to the car, so I took off hard as I could to get out of the rain. There was another trail running parallel to mine, further up ahead they eventually merged together. On that other trail was another group also gettin' it back tot he parking lot. Suddenly I heard something BIG moving through the woods and before I had time to think or look around a big doe darted right across the trail in front of me, inches off my front wheel Apparently the other group spooked her, so she took off running away from them. I think that's the most scared I've ever been on a bike. Inches away from a 15mph collision with a deer....that would not have ended well.
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Post by mudonthetires on Apr 14, 2011 8:43:17 GMT -5
Ok so hitting a deer would have hurt a little more......but you should have seen the teeth on that squirrel!
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Post by brianW on Apr 14, 2011 8:45:37 GMT -5
saw a squirrel get hit by the rider in front of me once at FATS.
"deer inches away" I had a doe run in front of me and it was about 3-4 feet in front and I thought that was to close for comfort.
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Post by dgaddis1 on Apr 14, 2011 9:00:31 GMT -5
Ok so hitting a deer would have hurt a little more......but you should have seen the teeth on that squirrel! There's a story out on the web somewhere of a squirrel that jumped into a road riders front spokes. Broke the legs off the fork, the rider did a header into the ground HARD. I believe the rider had to life-flighted to a hospital I'd imagine hitting one in a corner would send you to the ground as well...
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Post by DK on Apr 14, 2011 10:03:37 GMT -5
I've ran over several squirrels while riding my bike, never fazed 'em one bit, they just kept on truckin'. Ran my front tire up a mama bear's a** while riding in North Georgia once. That one was a surprise. She popped out on the trail just in front of me and turned to run away. I braked hard with my front tire either just touching or just hitting her in the back side. As I stopped, her three cubs that were with her were scurrying up a tree withing 5 foot of me. Then there was the time a large turtle the size of a trashcan lid scurried across the trail under my front tire while riding the lake trail at Issaquenna. Who woulda thunk that turtles could scurry? That thing surprised me almost as much as mama bear. One of my coolest encounters was when I rode up on a turkey hen with her little ones at Parson's Mtn. The hen took flight and "escorted" me for about 100 yards down the doubletrack. She flew within arms reach on my left hand side the whole way, like a fighter plane in formation. What started out as me being startled quickly turned into sheer awe as she peeled off and circled back around to her babies. The closest call that I've had with wildlife wasn't on my MTB though, but while riding my motorcycle in the mountains of Colorado. I had a bull elk charge down the hill towards the roadway right at me. The only thing I could do was brake and hope that he didn't change course. He hit the road about 5 feet in front of me, his feet slipped out from under him and he fell and slid across both lanes and down the embankment on the other side of the road. I'm sure he had a pretty good case of road rash, there was a trail of elk hair all the way from one ditch to the other. Those suckers are way bigger than any deer around these parts. I could feel the ground shake and the breeze off of him as hit the road and slid past. Gotta love wildlife.
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Post by dgaddis1 on Apr 14, 2011 10:10:54 GMT -5
Great stories Doug!
Elk are big. Really big. They re-introduced them to the Smokey MTNs a few years ago, not sure how that's going. My friend's dad almost hit one in his 1990 Jetta. Woulda totaled the Jetta for sure.
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Post by mudonthetires on Apr 14, 2011 13:28:29 GMT -5
Great stories Doug! Elk are big. Really big. They re-introduced them to the Smokey MTNs a few years ago, not sure how that's going. My friend's dad almost hit one in his 1990 Jetta. Woulda totaled the Jetta for sure. On the way back from Pigeon Forge a few months ago my wife and I came across a herd of Elk just before you get into Cherokee. They appeared to being doing pretty well, and did not mind all of the cars pulling over to look at them.
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Post by DK on Apr 14, 2011 15:56:50 GMT -5
Great stories Doug! Elk are big. Really big. They re-introduced them to the Smokey MTNs a few years ago, not sure how that's going. My friend's dad almost hit one in his 1990 Jetta. Woulda totaled the Jetta for sure. Elk in the Smokies? I didn't know that. I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for them next trip up. It's been a while since I've had an elk encounter. I lived in Colorado back in the mid 80's. Here's a recent video showing the elk in the town I lived in out there (Estes Park). The golf course was right up the street from where I worked. I left work one night and was puzzled why the oncoming cars were stopped in the road and blinking their lights. Turned out that they weren't, it was the elk herd crossing the road. The flashing was caused by the lights shining through their legs. It was like waiting for a train at a railroad crossing. There was easily 100 or more elk in that herd.
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Post by tzeaser on Apr 14, 2011 17:38:28 GMT -5
I'm always amazed at how these threads can divert from the original subject. My wild animal experience was with nesting Canada geese at Hickory Knob. I thought I would just ride by. They came after me with wings spread and heads down. The trail turned sharply and the geese cut the corner and headed me off. They chased me for a long ways. They are faster runners than you would think.
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