Oddest thing happening to you while JRA

[FetchPro]

I was a messenger in Boston for many years, and we used to run a small skeleton crew on Columbus Day every year since there were very few packages going out and the city was mostly empty.

I was delivering a law firm's bulk mail, bins stacked high on the bars, and as I rolled through a section of traffic I noticed cars stopped in traffic, and an officer posted on the side. I didn't see any reason for the stoppage, but in Boston its often construction.

Suddenly all the cars began reversing in unison at the same speed, the same distance apart. I thought I was hallucinating for a moment, but was immediately distracted by a tall woman in a bridesmaids dress and combat boots, chasing a bus, and banging on the side of it for the driver to stop. I kept riding to the next block, feeling super weird about what I'd just seen until I got in full view of the next corner where a movie camera with hundreds of people fanned out behind it was aimed directly at the bus. As soon as I looked into the camera, I heard "Cut!". It was Cameron Diaz filming a movie called Knight and Day. I didn't make the final cut sadly.

[bironi]

Perhaps not the oddest thang, but the most surprising and fun.
Our group ride of 10ish were riding on a nice swooping low traffic country road,
when a momma cat and her kittens came charging onto the grass shoulder on our right. There was no interference with our herd and theirs, but it provided a good chuckle and memory.

[kiwisimon]

as a kid i had a secondhand mixte dutch style bike. I got it for my 9th birthday.
Living on a rural highway where cars were going 60 mph on a single undivided carriageway my parents also got a flag on a finreglass rod that attached to the rear axle and was about 2 meters high in the air. It let drivers know that a kid was on a bike.
One day I set off to the local shops 10kms away to buy something and drop in on a mate. It was a moderately hilly road. My single speed bike made going up hill a bit tough so the steepest but short hill I was pushing my bike with the bike between me and the road.
A truck was approaching so I pulled closer to the grass verge as there was a curve at the top of the hill. The truck was empty and the Kenworth was roaring along at a good speed not slowing down for the hill. Suddenly the fibreglass rod disintegrated just above where the saddle was. It had been hit by a large piece of lumber that had slipped and was sticking out and down from the deck.
Who knows what would have happened if I had been riding?

The trucking company did buy me a new flag and apologise. My folks were not so impressed by the gesture.
And I still suck at riding uphills.

[jcsilver]

2007-ish, I was on a night ride with my wife and another couple through an older neighborhood with a lot of mature trees along the roadway. I was cruising along at a pretty good pace at the back of the pack when a broken guide wire from a telephone pole got kicked up by one of the other bikes into my front wheel and began to wrap quickly around my front hub. I hit the brakes hard and managed to BARELY come to a complete stop as the wire tightened, still connected to the top of the pole. When I did stop the wire was taut from the hub and was beginning to pull my shoulders, arms. and fingers off the hoods/brakes, while starting to lift the front wheel off the ground. Another two feet and it would have flipped me over backwards.

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by jcsilver

2007-ish, I was on a night ride with my wife and another couple through an older neighborhood with a lot of mature trees along the roadway. I was cruising along at a pretty good pace at the back of the pack when a broken guide wire from a telephone pole got kicked up by one of the other bikes into my front wheel and began to wrap quickly around my front hub. I hit the brakes hard and managed to BARELY come to a complete stop as the wire tightened stil connected to the top of the pole. When I did stop the wire was taught from the hub and was beginning to pull my shoulders, arms. and fingers off the hoods/brakes, while starting to lift the front wheel off the ground. Another two feet and it would have flipped me over backwards.

Not bad for a first post after 4 years; welcome to the forum.

[dana_e]

and sex toys

[YesNdeed]

On a baron stretch of Tramway Blvd in Albuquerque in 2014 or 2015, where there is a multi use path running parallel to the road, there was a guy in plain clothes that would ride on a stationary trainer. From what I recall, it was a very decent road bike. It wasn't exactly the middle of nowhere, but not far from it. I saw him a few separate times in the exact same place. Never got the story on that.

[B4_Ford]

Out for an evening ride when I lived in AZ. Not paying as much attention as I should and I ran over a rattlesnake crossing the road. Swerved at the last second but I still got its tail. I didn’t stick around to apologize.

[BryanE]

I lived in Anchorage for two years. 2016 and 17.
The second time riding the trails at Kincaid I was charged by a moose.
My local guide and I were on top of a hill. When I started downhill I heard him say something. It was, “there’s a moose over there”. I didn’t hear him.
I heard the thundering noise first and then it went inches behind me. I didn’t go back that year. I rode the single track once more in 2017 and it was time to go home to Michigan. There are 1300 moose inside the Anchorage city limits. The most I saw on one ride on The Coastal Trail was eight in a thirty mile ride. I don’t care for them. The pictured moose is not the one that changed me.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by BryanE

I lived in Anchorage for two years. 2016 and 17.
The second time riding the trails at Kincaid I was charged by a moose.
My local guide and I were on top of a hill. When I started downhill I heard him say something. It was, “there’s a moose over there”. I didn’t hear him.
I heard the thundering noise first and then it went inches behind me. I didn’t go back that year. I rode the single track once more in 2017 and it was time to go home to Michigan. There are 1300 moose inside the Anchorage city limits. The most I saw on one ride on The Coastal Trail was eight in a thirty mile ride. I don’t care for them. The pictured moose is not the one that changed me.

I have always been very careful around moose!

My near brush with nature was a couple of years ago, grinding my way up one of the hills in Harriman State Park--a large red tail hawk was siting on some scrub at the side of the road. I think he decided I was passing too close--so he took flight, heading straight towards me, then did a manoeuvre worthy of a fighter pilot, and veered left and up, just clearing my head. He was close enough that I felt the full draft from his wings--boy those are powerful birds...

Another Harriman story--I was up by the Lake Welch turn off, going slow-ish at the top of the climb and some woman in a car coming the opposite direction, stopped and started berating me for riding my bike on the road "like all the other idiots" and making it hard for drivers. It was midday, but she was already drunk (and driving)--and she yelled at me to "tell all my friends to get off the park roads".

So consider yourself warned.

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by B4_Ford

Out for an evening ride when I lived in AZ. Not paying as much attention as I should and I ran over a rattlesnake crossing the road. Swerved at the last second but I still got its tail. I didn’t stick around to apologize.

We used to ride mountain bikes in what was Camp Claiborne near Alexandria, Louisiana during the winter. One of the guys with us was deathly afraid of snakes. You often would hit a broken branch, and the stick would fly up behind and hit you on the leg or back. He was in the line of bikes and a huge rattlesnake was flipped up and hit him on his back. We didn't tell him until we got back to the trucks, and he still nearly needed a hospital stay.

[Spinner]

Originally Posted by madsciencenow

Having grown up in rural IN, riding there for years, and still riding there when I visit friends and my in-laws this does not surprise me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm a native Hoosier as well.

A decade ago I was attending a family reunion held at a cousin's northern Indiana farm near Churubusco. As we were chatting, some fully-kitted bicyclists rode by. I then confessed to being a bicyclist too. After a brief conversation about biking, one cousin said that he didn't think that bicyclists "were very friendly." I asked why the comment and he replied, "they don't wave when going by."

I now wave more frequently when riding; most people wave back.

[downtube42]

I was riding in rural Tom Green County, Texas, which is about as much the middle of nowhere as there is. Nothing and nobody for miles. Out the corner of my eye something catches my eye ahead. It's a dude in full desert camo, sitting amongst the cactus ten feet off the road, with a rifle trained on me. Nowhere to go, nothing I can do, so I just kept on rolling without acknowledging I'd seen anything. He tracks me as I ride on by.

There was no ranch, drive, or parked vehicle on that road for many desolate miles.

No bullet came my way. I have no explanation other than, that's west Texas.

Edit: Looking at the map, it could have been Concho or Coleman County, further out from San Angelo. Truly desolate. The memory gives me the creeps.

[Louis]

That would be quite disconcerting. I'm not sure how I would have reacted - what could you possibly do?