just come back from what i thought would be a hard ride up dundry across the fields and a coast back down again around 1hr tops
so bag and lights sorted and off i set about halfway up the dingy dark lane with lights on full blow i started talking to myself for a breif moment about how long the blody hill was
me- how long is theis f*c*ing hill…
somthing in the bush…..F*C*ING MASIVE

that was it royaly shit myself and caned it back down the hill and did some road work to calm down
im asuming it was in my head as it sounded very gremlin ish but still need to change my shorts when i got home.

anyone had things like this happen?

yes. eyes on the track. keep riding. dont look into the trees

Had it during the day, riding up a long climb and could hear rustling in the trees to my right. I kept on climbing and a couple of minutes later i could still hear it to my right, thoughts of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre flying round my head. I got near the top of the climb and a wild boar came charging out of the trees, across the trail and up the hill the other side. They’re quite quick.

Yeah, even jumped off the bike and spun it 180 degrees to shine the lights in the trees – it was an owl.

I find a helmet mounted light works wonders for solo night rides.

freaked myself a few times, sometimes with reason and sometimes mind games.

they say a mind is a wonderfull thing i think it can be the best and the worst place ever.

Was once doing the coast to coast with my mate when I was 16, we had just walked to Ingleby Cross and was making our way to Osmotherley YH at 10:00pm (33 mile section!!!!) via a path through some woods when We came accross an elderley bloke walking towards us with a blanket over his head but face showing (nativity styleeee!)…..carrying a huge **** off axe!.

He said “areet lads” as we tentetively past him keeping all eyes on the axe which I was adamant would soon be ploughed into my skull !

mrmo – Member

freaked myself a few times, sometimes with reason

I want to hear about the reason….

When we lived in South Africa, dad used to rake us out into the bush at night, to go for a wander..

He used to just say:

“don’t worry son, there’s nothing out there at night, that isn’t there during the day….

Only now it’s awake. And Hungry.”

😐

This is always going through my mind when doing solo night rides around Delamere…

the sound of shotguns when riding through woodland and followed by the sound and touch of falling shot.

I suspect deer poaching but not sure, i wasn’t going to hang around to find out.

Rainy, misty night rides in the forest – coming across about 10 sets of reflective eyes (deer) when you suddenly round a corner of the trail. Always a few seconds of WTF!

They keep goats where I ride. They have horns and everything. Used to them know. I’ve seen eye’s staring at me before but they did not really worry me. The only time I got spooked was with a mate and something large started moving towards us through the woods. We did not wait around to say hello.

I’ve been riding up on the tops in heavy fog, visibility about 2 metres. I bump into a guy walking his dog, as scared as I was. We both shreek like girls.

Scariest though, again, in heavy fog at night. I pass through a gate on the tops, I’m like 5 miles from any sort of civilization. The gate clangs shut behind me and I ride up the path a little, then the gate clangs shut as someone else passes through it……

I rode so fast that night I’d have been crowned the world champion for ever.

grufallo chases me on solo night spins usually on one of two bits of riverside singletrack, can feel the breathing on my neck so I know he’s there and need to pedal harder.

seems to follow me more if its dry, snowy or in autumn

Scariest though, again, in heavy fog at night. I pass through a gate on the tops, I’m like 5 miles from any sort of civilization. The gate clangs shut behind me and I ride up the path a little, then the gate clangs shut as someone else passes through it……

Now that is f’ing scary…

Watch ‘Dog Soldiers’, get bike, ride, set new record time for regular loop 🙂

I stumbled upon what I thought was a body in the woods on a night ride (shortcut home from work at a local bar). Freaked me right out.
It turned out to be an amourous couple, making out.
Avert gaze to trail, and carry on. Couldn’t resist shouting “nice tits love” as I rode off laughing to myself though.

come across this a few times day and night in leighwoods and 50 acre its entertaining when u get about 20+ riders cathing a couple at it with a camera on tripod 😆

It was probably just a big cat watching it’s dinner pass by!!

There was a reported panther sighting on one of the xc routes I take at night last year. I tend to ride that section fairly swiftly at night now.

on woodbury common the rustling in the bushes is usually marines with guns

sometimes they have helicopters with searchlights, and follow you a bit.

It can feel a bit like the 1st scene in ET

Ermmmm! No.

You big Jessies.

the sound and touch of falling shot.

I suspect deer poaching but not sure, i wasn’t going to hang around to find out.

Yes the rare flying dear are popular with poachers.

Samuri – I’ve had the fog thing up in the peaks – never ridden so fast; terrifying isn’t it?

Also in Sherwood Pines I was riding along when three bikers went across the path ahead of me. When I got to where they’d crossed I realised there was no path crossing the track I was on. Freaked me out good and proper.

I looked around and it turned out to be the deer! I’d mistaken their eyes reflecting my light as little bits of bike.

its even there during the day….

http://www.zapiks.com/chain-vs-chain.html

The one in the mist up there…^

I was out walking in the hills a couple of years ago in foul weather; stair rods, high wind and very poor viz. I came accross a couple checking their nav and got right up behind them before the customary ‘turned out nice’. Dint know people could jump so high 🙂

on woodbury common the rustling in the bushes is usually marines with guns

sometimes they have helicopters with searchlights, and follow you a bit.

Yeah.. usually..
apart from one night when Raoul Moat was on the loose and I encountered a large and purposeful looking fella dressed in an immaculate bouncers tux striding determinedly towards the centre of the common with a furious look on his face..

That proper gave me the creeps.. I rode another mile jumping at shadows and hearing every mouse fart before I packed it in and headed for home..

Years ago me and a mate were riding in Wharncliffe at night and were looking for new tracks ( long before there were any established routes). We rode up a small path for about 300 yards which was getting narrower and more overgrown when low down and to our left we heard a deep growling. Never spun a bike round 180 and ridden so fast in my life but what an effing adrenaline rush….reckon it was the black panther that used to stalk round there!!!!

Scariest though, again, in heavy fog at night. I pass through a gate on the tops, I’m like 5 miles from any sort of civilization. The gate clangs shut behind me and I ride up the path a little, then the gate clangs shut as someone else passes through it……

Yep.. that would do it for me…

I once just got it into my head that there were voices spilling over the moor one misty night on Winter Hill… got myself into a proper state. I didnt even look at Scotsmans Stump when I went past it 🙁

Yeah, by the Dirt Jumper covered in blood with a spliff and a spade at 1am.

Boo.

Night ride mantra: “Don’t think about the Blair Witch, don’t think about the Blair Witch, don’t think about the Blair Witch”. Repeat ’till you get home

APF

funnily enough, riding up Dundry on my cx, I heard a loud crash. still no idea what it was as I legged it.

odd one in Leigh Woods too. 10pm or so, pitch black no other lights visible and I suddenly hear someone say “alright”. Admittedly its not “squeal piggy” but it was pretty freaky.

clubber what side of dudry do u go up? i went up from east dundry rd(whitchurch side)

Riding with a group at night you don’t fear anything … However, get ahead & out of earshot on a climb out in the Peaks and, all of a sudden, you feel the need for familiar company 😯

up Littleton lane which starts at the winford side opposite watery lane and then down elwell lane which drops to barrow lane near the a38. fantastic on a cx 🙂

Last summer I was on a none so special track, the sort with a large dry stone wall to one side and heavy bracken to the another. I heard some rustling to the side but thought it was a rabbit or something and carried on. The rustling got louder, seemed to be following me and I could now see the bracken swaying side to side.

I wasn’t sure whether to leg it (surely a monster would be quicker than me anyway?!) or brave it out. Remembering Jurassic Park I kept still and the noise was heading straight for me but now noticed a strange sniffling / snarling too. TBH at this point I was properly bricking it when the cutest looking badger EVAR popped out, stopped mid-stride, looked me straight in the eye for half a second and legged it back into the undergrowth 😀 took me about half an hour to stop shaking though!

I hate it when sheep cough too, they always seem to do it just as I’m passing them 😐 it’s funny what the mind imagines in the milliseconds after you hear something, and the type of rusty-knife-wielding-nutter it sounds like

Theres another path not far from me that when its misty or foggy, it really gives me the bloody creeps, I have a feeling that someones stood about 6 inches to the back and right of me the whole way 🙁

ah yes i see(google maps :lol:) total other end to me then is it much steeper to get up over there? is there enough riding up there to fill a few hours…. in daylight this time lol

Had the gate thing happen to me on the South Downs a few years back except i turned round to see what/who it was…. nothing there. The route then took me through THIS area 😯 😯 😯

I’ve had the ‘gate’ thing too.

Commute takes me home over some hills .. 5 miles of bridleway and farm track. Suffice to say I don’t do it so much during GMT (when it starts too dark to see after 6pm)

I’ve let the gate slam on me, then another 30 seconds later hear it again. Look over my shoulder. Nothing.
Pedal like hell till the next gate and I have to get off, still nothing. Turn my light off, turn it back on, turn it off, turn it back on and wave it around sit and wait for 20 seconds. Shadow coming down the hill behind me.

I pap my pants, then a light comes on. Another cyclist. Claimed he enjoyed riding with lights out and feeling his way. He’d been trying to keep his distance from my lights so as not to ruin his night vision, but of course I kind of forced the catchup by stopping, and he’d figured he’d spooked me by the way I’d taken my light off and was shining it all over the place.

I’d tried riding with ipod on in the dark once so I couldn’t hear noises, but that didn’t work. Just meant I was wanting to look over my shoulder even more. Decided that if I was ever going to be mauled by axe-murdering-were-pheasants I’d like to hear them coming and psychologically prepare myself first!

Opposite the main entrance to Thorndon in Brentwood where I trail ride there are some other woods. To me they are ‘Spooky Woods’ I’ll ride them with others but never on my own. They’re very quiet, even during the day. The last time I rode them on my own was during the day but I remember having an overwhelming sense of being followed. It was horrible. I got of there ASAP. Makes me shiver thinking about it now.

Not riding but was at a wedding near Banbury last weekend. A taxi cost £12 to travel a mile as we were 10miles from the nearest town so having had to take the mrs back to the hotel as she was ill I decided to walk back to the venue which for the majority had a pacemtb running alongside a wood. Had a bot of a creepy moment when I hear noises in the hedgerow and my torch started flickering, came back on and flashed it in the hedge to see a massive head. Think it was a fox but think the sound of my heart beating in my mouth scared it away… definitely wasn’t my girly scream anyway

Not riding, but some solo night nav on Dartmoor a few years ago. Glowing eyes staring at you, and I swear I heard some growling. Glad when I got in to camp!