[Closed] Night Riding - strange encounters?

Pottering around Leigh Woods in Bristol on 'me tod- more fool me and always more likely to spook you out.
Suddenly, from behind me and completely silently a fair size whiteish dog burst past me, sprinting at full pelt, and was momentarily illuminated in my lights, before disappearing into the gloom.
It may not sound scary, but I absolutetly sh*t one!
Henceforth, the encounter is known as "ghost dog"......... 🙂

sorry to burst your bubble Faaz but some of us do chose to ride in the dark without lights (I do more than once most weeks), if you know where you are going on familiar trails it is perfecty practical.

But how when you can't see your hand in front of your face?

if you'd just switch your lights off for long enough you'd be able to see it clearly even if you had stretch armstrong arms.

Where do I start - Albino badger hit my rear wheel (Farleigh); Man with beard in a dress walking through woods alone (weird - near Croydon); Old couple startled in back of car parked in country lane (I know we will all get there one day.....); Plenty of young couples in back of cars startled by bikes with lights; Owl attack - nearly taking my head torch off on third attempt; Moth Collector with bigger light than bikers - and similar to zippykona, lady at dusk squatting on the bridleway - thought `i was seeing things - big white round shape near the ground which turned out to be her as*. Next to a golf course and her friends couldn't stop laughing. Poor woman must have been desperate and didn't hear me.

A bloke just stood there, doing nothing but standing there.

Suspected murder scene last Tuesday.

We all had to brake sharply on a descent when we saw tape across the trail and a copper standing there in a hi-vis jacket.

He was really pleased to get some company I think.

I regularly wind up having close encounters with deer and badgers. There is a large herd of deer who live in a local wood and several times I've found myself in amongst them when approaching from downwind. It's quite magical when they all take flight at once in the same direction as you. And then they're gone, as if in a puff of smoke.

I've stopped to let badgers cross the trail. The last thing I want to do is ride into them and p*ss them off. I try and make polite conversation with them "Evening Mr Badger, nice night for it?". Once or twice they've turned to me as if to say "b*gger off" before they continue on their grumpy way.

Seeing a chap with his strides around his ankles punching one out by the side of a trail was a low point though.

One guy i know was on a cycle track cutting through Glasgow. Came upon a guy squatting in the middle of the track doing a no.2. Guy squatting looks up and cheerily says "Allright mate?" Cyclist replies "Yeah, lovely night for it...." rounds him and carries on....

As Doubledunter mentioned, cloaked figure in Mugdock with Weedgie board.

I wonder if people on "Goth Ouija board" forums, dogging forums, watersports forum, drunk trombone players forums, and tramps on 'rooms forums have a thread going about sights at night and talk about strange people on bikes with bright lights?

A Barn Owl suddenly appeared 2ft from my right temple an d flew alongside for about 100m......... Initially I thought it was Casper the ghost!
I may have sharted 😳

if you'd just switch your lights off for long enough you'd be able to see it clearly even if you had stretch armstrong arms

Tried that (had no choice due to a u/s light) Where the hell are you riding? I could just see enough to pick my way through the woods at about 2mph.

We get Larpers out in the local woods, though I've not seen them at night. I've never seen any doggers in the reputed local dogging spots either, though I'm not complaining on that score.

Me and some chums did ride into the middle of the Skins set one night. I was starting to seriously consider if the lights we could see up ahead was a UFO landing, but it was just the lights they'd set up. We clocked what was going on when we saw various meeja types wandering about in puffa jackets and square specs clutching mochafrappadappachinos.

Had to google larpers, thankyou! "Lightening Bolt!!!!!!!!!11!"

'squeaking-like-a-frightened-rabbit' noise on the back of my hand

How do you do this and what does it sound like?

Lol @ zippykona.

Returning from the hills one night across a bridge over the motorway I illuminated an old boy knocking one out presumably over the traffic.

What's the best tyres for semen?

Ran into the legnedary Patna Panther 😯 whilst heading over toward Straiton one night,bloody big cat. The truth is out there 8)

Larpers?

edit: oh, I see ! 😐

Aye right, If there was a panther in Patna, somebody would have either stolen it or fought it by now 🙂

A cub ran into my bike in Stanmer Park at 8:30pm last night.

I'd stopped at the side of the trail and turned my lights down to give him room to pass, as well.

Akela shouted at him and all his mates laughed.

Not seen kids doing a night hike there before.

A mono-sexual dressed like freddie murcury Inc bikers hat and tash whacking some love his own way.

I saw a rabbit run out and get squished by the guy infront of me on Tuesdays night ride. Sad.

I've watched marines and boats being lobbed out the back of a hercules over studland bay at night.

A boat being unloaded in a remote cove. No lights, didn't hang around. Turned my lights off and stayed out of sight.

maxray - Member
'squeaking-like-a-frightened-rabbit' noise on the back of my hand
How do you do this and what does it sound like?

Ran over a badger once, that nearly ended in tears.

Rescued a ferret in the middle of nowhere, picked her up and she spent the rest of the ride asleep in my camelbak. Empress Hera as she is now known, owns the house and has a harem of 5 hobbs to fuss over, clean and organise!

Did 'Empress Hera' need rescuing then?

I've seen a few owls, awesome to see them flying around. Seen deer and badgers too. Not seen anything funny though, will keep an eye on this thread though, some of this shit makes me laugh!

Saw hora and binners once!!!

Rode past a couple of guys coming out of an enclosure on the New Forest, each leading a goat in no hand and a bag of beers in the other.

I quite often get an owl fly alongside but slightly ahead, swooping from branch to branch, post to post. I think he is using my lights and their ability to flush out rodents, to hunt. It's well cool. I've told my flying branch and hot breath on the ear stories on here before. Shat mesen like. Not been bothered by anything for a very long time now. I think the demons got fed up with my persistence.

Lets hear yer scary story Devs.

Plenty of doggers, even on my commute.

I've said it before though. Up on the moors, at night, in the fog. Nearest collection of houses is 5 miles away. Can't see five yards. Pass through a big steel gate, ride for about 30-40 metres.......hear the gate go again as someone else goes through it.......

Eyes water? I ride like the devil!!!

I'd shit myself bigtime.

Ok, 5W 10W Smart light halogens, equivalent of a Tesco light on the lid. Going up a run we ride as a descent called suicide. It's got various trails branching off and crossing it. As I approached one of the junctions I heard a whoop kind of noise and a branch about 1-2" thick came flying past the bars, lit up beautifully by the vast amounts of candle power I had on the bars. I swore loudly and looked where it came from. Nothing and nobody there. At this point my heart rate is already at about 150% so I high tailed it as fast as I could up the rest of the hill before deciding that I didn't really need to complete a huge ride and leaving the woods even quicker. 2 weeks later or so and I'm going up the same hill but another trail and at roughly the same height up the trail there's this hot breath "haaah" kind of sound in my left ear. Again I pin it but then decide after 10 yards that I have to know what it was. I chucked the bike down and confronted the area where it was with some pretty strong language telling it that whatever it wanted then it had better tell me or leave me alone cos ear breaths are a bit pathetic really. I must have looked and sounded pretty funny but nothing showed and I don't suppose there was anyone within a mile or so anyways. I'm not easily scared but the first incident in particular really put the wind up me. I've been back loads of times to analyse what happened and can't see a rational explanation for either. I've done hundreds of night rides up there since and had not a peep. There are other weird happenings but they're just done by weird people. I got a good eyeful of some flabby chebs at the far end of the forest on Tues night. Now that was scary!

Maybe I should mention that this all happened about 100m from a henge at the top of the hill. I don't know what the henges were used for but it's deffo a spooky place.

Again I reckon I'd have shat it. I've got a waaaaay active imagination.

i once saw a right freak.... turned out it was me reflected in a lake though, so turns out the only thing scary in the dark is ME

but then growing up riding around the earthworks of southwales, at night, on mushrooms, there is not much that scares me but my own imagination.... but ill always wonder what happened to jono

Never seen anything strange at night that I remember. is that strange?

Anymore funny night time stories? Keeps me entertained on nightshift!

once had to save a drunk woman from the canal, she had managed to fall in and then got a fish hook stuck in her hand. the type with a fake fish on the end. her confusion at the fish "biting my hand" was absolutely hilarious. however getting her out of the canal was not.

also once saw a man in black trench coat and balclava in cannock on night ride, he wasnt happy to see me. so i put it in the big ring and did one.

Strangest encounter when out Night Riding?

I saw Ming The Merciless a few years back...
[img] [/img]
Yes, that is him, those are fireworks and he is dressed as a nurse... 😯

3am riding solo at Mountain Mayhem some years ago, in the mist I saw what I thought was an undertaker wearing a stove pipe hat walking towards me, I stopped and walked back to the marshall point I'd just passed quite shaken, turned out to be a fence post and I was hallucinating through tiredness :-0

And then there was the guy singing Elvis songs in the woods at Mountain Mayhem a good few years ago, I thought it was a supporter, turned out to be a local nutter who was carrying a knife !

No mention of glue sniffers yet. Early one morning, just getting light, two glue sniffers stumbling along the path behind Lumley castle. Both out of it clutching thier glue bags.

There was an old bloke shuffling along the path through Bramcote Hills park tonight - but shuffling backwards, for reasons that were not at all obvious.....

five armed bushes stood up in front of me whilst on a night ride last year turned out to be members of the paras on exercise(ride in a miltary training ground) had a very surell conversation about mountain bikes with them for about 15mins turned out they were all well into there bikes very weird.