Dirt Farmer

I lived in Bend for many years. When I'd drive to the mountain bike trails, I'd always hit a few with my car, as they'd dart right out in front. The poor things made a loud pop like a balloon being popped.

jefnvk

Yikes!* Prolly would have moved a couple more miles down the road that nite!

I've come within slapping distance of two whitetails and bounced off the aforementioned groundhog (it seemed fine)!* Bike trails with their limited width and brushy sides can be hairy!

Oso Polar

It appears to me that chipmunks and, to a lesser extent, squirrels as soon as they detect something dangerous from their point of view, they immediately start running in the same direction they were facing at the moment of detection. And because they detected the bicycle "threat", it means that bicycle was somewhere in their field of view, so they'll usually run straight to the bike or in front of it. One can pass a couple of inches behind a back of chipmunk and it'll not even twitch - if its back was facing a bike. Looks like that many of them don't perceive a sound of a bicycle as a threat. But if chipmunk was 10 feet away, on the other side of the road, somewhere in the grass, way out of harm's way but saw a bike approaching - you bet it'll start running right across the road to the bike. At least squirrels are often able to adjust their trajectory "mid flight" to avoid collision. Not chipmunks. These guys are always running straight.

Today was a crazy day. First, a squirrel decided to commit suicide in my front wheel. It was an unsuccessful attempt - it ran right to the middle of the front wheel but hit the rim with its nose and jumped away. Good, avoided "squirrel-in-the-spokes" thing. A couple of hours later a chipmunk crossed all the trail and got right in front of the wheel. Pop! Chipmunk blood spatter on my legs...

ironwood

Chipmunks also carry black leged deer ticks that are often infected with Lyme disease.

Brocephus

LOL !!!



I agree, they seem very resilient. Several years ago, a girlfreind and I were riding the bike paths through Callaway Gardens and a squirrel ran under her bike and her rear wheel and her full weight thumped right over it, hard. I thought the thing was going to be a tiny bag of splintered bones, but it took off running and up a tree, looking perfectly normal.



Yes, definitely joking, I've never run into or over any Komodo dragons, and I'm sure they'd do considerably more damage than tweaking a rim, LOL!
But, years ago, in another life, me and a couple racing buds were riding through the jungle to the far side of Cozumel, and we spotted some critters crossing the road. When we realized it was a wild boar and her piglets, we came to a screeching halt, and got ready to beat feet the other way !!! A charging momma boar defending her piglets would do a serious number on some gomers clipped into road bikes !!

indyfabz

Nowhere to move except to undeveloped forest where I would have been more at risk. At least the campground had bear lockers. There are a lot of them in that part of NJ.

FlMTNdude

wphamilton

If I aim at squirrels I'll hit squirrels. I think it's a horrible idea.

Trakhak

If you slow down a bit and ride straight toward a squirrel, you'll never hit one.

thumpism 

Javelina, or javelin? I'd be okay with missing either one when riding.

FlMTNdude

ksryder

I once saw an elephant on my bike. How he got on my bike I'll never know.

livedarklions

That's not my experience, what chipmunks do is run to a point directly in front of my front wheel, do a complete 180 directly in front of it and run the other direction to where they came from. The 180 is too fast for me to see so I have no idea how they do it.

livedarklions

And what's with their name? Were they named for a monk named Chip?

locolobo13 

Years ago driving a route thru eastern Arizona in the predawn morning I ran over a lot of rabbits. They would sit by the side of the road until the last second and jump in a random direction. So half the time they were moving towards you half away from you. Then I started honking my horn when I approached. Hearing the horn most jumped away from the road.

The point is since then I've taken to making noise when approaching too close to small animals on my bicycle. Yelling, clicking whatever. Haven't ran over an animal with my bike in years.

livedarklions

My experience is that won't work with chipmunks because you don't know they're there until it's too late. They also seem more triggered by motion than noise.

My favorite bike path encounter was with a porcupine. He was quite content to let me stand near him and watch for a while, very interesting critter, and not afraid of people for rather obvious reasons.

Litespud

Squirrels are wiry little bastards - if one gets stuck in your front wheel, it's likely that the wheel or fork will give way, not the squirrel - oh, he'll be dead, but you'll be on the ground

Wileyrat

I had a javalina encounter last month. I came around a bend on a mup, and it was rooting around along a chain link fence. It saw me and ran down the fence line, trying to push through it a few times before it ran across the path into large wash.

Javalinas make me very nervous.

Dave Cutter

Many animals have the same reaction.... even deer and cows. The bad thing about deer is when they stop and give an automobile the "deer in the headlights" look... drivers will most often swerve.... and the process repeats. Whereas hard braking and steering head-on toward the animal will give the animals instincts a fighting chance. The animals just aren't prepared for a predator (or pack or predators) that is trying to let them get away. They will try to outrun the attacker (while maybe looking for cover) and when they feel they can't get away... will turn to confront their attacker.

Jock Crayaan

Are they using chipmunks in airline food now? Damn, I always wondered what the hell that was...

scott967

We have mongoose here, but they tend to run straight across paths at high speed so I have never come close to hitting one. I think I've only seen one make a u-turn, but that was as it was just starting to cross. I've seen a couple of wild pigs (Pua'a) but they haven't tried to cross the road. These pigs are along roads I ride through the Army's training ranges; I guess gun/artillery fire don't bother them too much.

scott s.
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Hokiedad4

If you kill a chipmunk, they'll make more.

wphamilton

Drivers most often just keep driving the way they were, and then sometimes hit the deer. Driving straight at them to scare them away is a bad idea, even worse than deliberately aiming at squirrels and chipmonks.

I hit two squirrels last fall within the span of a couple of weeks, the only squirrels I've run over in almost a decade over the same route. I didn't see either one of them. Of all of the squirrels I DID see first, I've never hit one.

Dave Cutter

Yeah... that's why I suggested: hard braking and steering head-on toward the animal will give the animals instincts a fighting chance.They need that chance to out-run you.

Wileyrat

We occasionally get suicidal ground squirrels here, but the critters you really need to watch out for are the lizards, particularly in the morning.

The rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the mups can be an issue too.