Long Tom

I've had a couple near misses. Little rat bastids are out to get me, and the grey squirrels around here ain't so little!

Ever hit one? What happened?

3alarmer 

...Wheel locks, do not pass go, do not collect $200, fall down pretty hard. Not me, but an acquaintance.

I'm told that the lower your spoke count, the more room they have to get caught. I whistle at them to get them to run away.

gc3

Rolled right over the last one, snapped that sucker's little neck. Obviously I don't post in the "too skinny" thread....

Dave Cutter

I steer towards the squirrels head. They don't understand normal polite share the road behavior. But getting out of the way of something coming at your head.... is instinctual.

Except for horn animals. Cows, steers, deer will turn away as if to run then turn back and lower their heads (even a doe).

1nterceptor

Was riding along at a decent clip on the west side path in NYC.
Roadie ahead of me at about 10 bike lengths. Squirrel comes
running towards him from the side trying to cross. Guy yells
something like "Oh shift"! Squirrel bounces off the bike and runs
back from the direction it came from. Cyclists continue along
unharmed.

Jiggle

I hit a beagle once.

StanSeven

I hit a cat. I think I got the worse of it too.

kc0bbq

Almost took a Pileated Woodpecker to the head. More terror and surprise crammed into a single second of my life than any other I can remember. They are big and quite pointy in the front.

tom25

It was 21.7(strava) and it was a ground hog. Bent handle bars, light road rash arm, shoulder, and knees thumb cut up a bit. All in all I'm very fortunate. How I didn't break something I don't know, it would have been spectacular too see.

lgp927

I got hit by a small dog once , I was on beach trail and some lady had her little dog in one of those retractable leashes dog launched at me hitting me right on the side of bike right in to chainring , I just heard a yelp didn't stop just kept on rolling.

hueyhoolihan

i hit a turtle once. ...well twice really.

when all is said and done, avoidance really is all about expectation, plus a little trigonometry. in this case the turtle moved faster than i thought it would and i simply didn't give it enough room. second time was an act of mercy.

nevertrustafart

well i squeezed my brakes as hard as i could, still managed to snap the little buggers neck an go head first over the bars!!! sucked for all parties included!!

f4rrest

28 mph... cat... nothing happened...

(I was surprised as heck to feel thunk-thunk under both wheels, still be upright, and look back to see it scurry across the road just fine.)

Bob Dopolina 

I've hit dogs, cats, snakes, chickens and I almost hit a peacock once. Those suckers can get pretty big.

jdowdy411

Does a guy on a longboard count? I was commuting across campus at only about 15 mph and this longboarder swings around a parked truck and right into my path. Luckily no damage, only threw my fork slightly out of alignment. No fall for me, but he went down on his face and his board went flying across the street. Luckily, no parties were injured beyond some scratches and scrapes. Havent hit a squirrel yet; but it's only a matter of time. These guys are fearless here, on my campus they'll walk down the sidewalk with a crowd of people, no joke. I dodge them more than j-walking pedestrians.

Long Tom

Ooooh Bdop.... you have me tempted to do a Very Questionable Thing.

See, I've lived out in the country for 20+ years, and this whole time there's been a flock of feral peacocks and peahens around. It's ranged from under 10 to at least 40 birds. When it hit 40 was around 12, 15 years ago. They decided to move onto the nice back-to-the-earth hippie place with the mellow old dog and huge garden (us). Unfortunately for them they didn't know about my redneck side. We ate 3-4 of them- similar to pheasant in flavor, quite tough like a wild turkey.

The most recent time they got out of control was around 4 years ago, and my neighbor of these last 20+ years, a woman a little older than us who we love, who also has 16 acres and "our" creek crosses her land first, called me and asked me if I could please help her with the peacocks that had invaded her land. See, they are NOISY as hell for several months out of the year- one just called as a matter of fact, even at night!- and they roost on your roof, leaving dog-sized poops. They try to get on your car and scratch it up. They destroy any garden you were trying to grow- utterly. They are an intense and destructive presence.

So I took my Mossberg 835 3.5" 12-ga magnum turkey shotgun and went and whacked a few. 4 actually. We ate them of course. Again, quite tough (crock pot material, or sliced very thin, like Korean beef) but tasty.

The Very Questionable Thing would be to put up the photo. I better not.

I've had to dodge them a few times but nothing close yet. Karmically, they certainly owe me one. I came MUCH closer to hitting a wild turkey, and I was hauling ass too. I'd just dropped the hamer on some guy with downtubes..... joe somebody.... haha....

mLuMaN83

Funny you mentioned this. I took a ride last weekend and a squirrel ran across the road and was on the path to my front wheel. I was doing 18 mph and I jumped over it. I am used to doing this because I can often come across large sticks and limbs on the bike lane on my rides and instead of dodging them and moving into traffic, I just bunny hop over them and keep on pushing forward.

It was a close one none the less.

OldTryGuy

Thump-Thump

Oldhead

Missed a turkey buzzard by 2ft on tuesday at 25mph. Never saw it sitting on the side of the road before it flew up. On a side note the car coming the other way almost got him too

Bob Dopolina 

Yeah, after seeing them up close and personal I can say I'm not a fan.

We did a race that pased through a private school (academy) where these beast roamed free. I'm sure someone thought they were cool but after telling one of he grounds guys after the race that I almost clocked one doing 80+km on a descent he just said, "too bad". I got the feeling the bird wouldn't have been missed.

kiwimatt

On the group ride here,NE Victoria,Aus,we have had two go down due to a Wallaby and a Kangaroo.One of the local tri-athletes hit a Wombat and had major injuries,pays not to hit the wild life.

rpenmanparker 

But the topic was squrrels. And they are special, because they can't make up their itsy, bitsy minds. They dart in, then back, than feint to cross again. Often they stop in the middle of the street and wait for you, the just as likely go left or right. That is why it is so hard to avoid them. They insist on doing the stupid thing but only after testing all their options. Absolutely no sense of self-preservation. My tactic is to speed up and pray. I doubt anyone has a more successful approach.

hokie cycler

One ran out and stopped short of my wheel turned back and ran into the group a second time and bam! By the way, the location of this is on the team time trial course for the 2015 world championships.

pdedes

In some off season cx, a squirrel got into my teammate's front wheel, went around twice and escaped out the other side.

clausen

Ran over one with my front wheel while doing a sprint intervals, closer to 50 km/h at the time of squish. I went down and slid across the pavement. No damage to bike other than a scuffed pedal and light road rash to me.