Not that I've seen anything too remarkable (a couple of strange men in the woods at night etc). But we've all had that feeling that there is something watching you...
Human seagulls?
the owls are not what they seem....
A ghost, it was there 1 second and gone the next!
Or was it a tree....that looked a bit like one after getting all uncool about riding alone and getting freaked out....
A field full of penned sheep, halfway up Glen Tilt. Nobody needs hundreds of glowing eyes staring at them, especially with a bladder full of coffee and energy drink!
A load of French men buring vines in England at night as some kind of ritual.
Was quite odd.
Turned out they owned the vineyard that's near the Sustainability centre on the SDW. Every year they come over and have a fire in Feb time to mark the start of the new season or something.
Couldn't really undersatnd a word they were saying as my french is rubbish.
Anyway was odd.
I was riding across the moor on my commute home last winter, pitch black all around me apart from in front obvioulsy, and felt something brush against my right shoulder. More than likely a bat or owl but I got a major shiver down my spine.
On a fast descent through the woods, the side of a very large, very black cow.
Just [i]barely[/i] in time to stop before colliding with it... 😯
I know of another rider who riding on his own could smell cigarette smoke. Stopped his bike but could not locate the the smoker.. Someone was there watching him..
I almost got pushed off my bike one night by someone or something on a quiet country lane - it freaked me out when it happened as I thought I was being attacked, it freaked me out even more when I realised nobody was there.
not so much spooky or strange as OMG! WTF! Aaaarrrgggghhh!! would probably be the badger that stepped out infront of me while descending rather quickly on a night road ride! most sideways I've ever got a roadbike! They're ****ing big aren't they?
spookiest night ride was actually a road ride too, the night after I went to see 28days later I was out riding country roads after midnight alone and ended up daydreaming (always do on roadrides) about the film, each remote house, hamlet, farm etc. I passed seemed more and more quiet, just the odd one having an upstairs light on but no sign of life, after about an hour I still hadn't seen another living soul. Ok, not that spooky or weird just made me think "what if?"
I nearly always nightride on my own so if I found nightriding spooky I don't think I'd do it.
I was having an already freaky ride late one evening earlier this summer.. (riding through some unknown sections way deeper in the woods than usual with marines on manouveures all around..)
At a very spooky bit of ancient woodland.. I sat down for a rest and to soak up some atmosphere... next to a small pile of large old bones.. some with very neat breaks.. a hacked up body perhaps..?
Feeling spooked and a bit jumpy I was heading home trying to get back before lighting up time and failing fast... with the sound of an injured animal echoing around the trees.. when I spotted a very large man in a very clean tux stomping cheerfully through the woods towards the desolate and barren center of the gorse common.. this was during the week that the hunt for Raoul Moat was underway..
I didn't like it
Rode into the middle of a full on deer rut. Totally Sh1t myself.
Seen many many 'beast with 2 backs'.
on a fast descent 5 of us just about stopped in time as some scouts had decided it was a good spot for a night camp! They had their stoves set up right across the path, gave us some very nice hot chocolate though!
Some hairy and horned highland cow appear out of the darkness one night when riding back home. It was just stood there on the trail and it did not move a muscle. It scared the living daylights out of me. It was docile enough fortunately. They had introduced them to help manage the heath land.
A few years ago was riding alone through woods in winter on a misty night, soiled myself when a barn owl silently flew over me and my lights just illuminated its creamy white underside, still haven't cleared the climb through those woods as quick 😯
Riding round Sherwood Pines at night I've had a few moments (especially in the blair witch like bit on the return leg). But the weirdest was coming along the trail, my lights picked up three bikers riding across the trail ahead of me. Well, the reflection indicated three bikers. When i got to where they'd crossed I realised there was no path at all that they could have taken. I was spooked good and proper until i heard a noise to my left and looked over to see four sets of deer eyes peering back at me!
I've also been riding a fire road in Pines and heard thunder getting louder and louder - suddenly about 5 yards ahead the entire herd ran across in front of us. That made us jump.
Last night saw a strange glow coming through the trees... rode past... then my curiosity got the better of me, turned and rode back to where it was coming from. "Is it a UFO?".. "Someone has dropped dead and their torch fallen to the ground?".
Nope. It was one of those solar garden lights a chav had probably nicked from someone's garden and chucked there.
It's in my garden now 🙂
A couple years back whilst riding on Woodbury Common a load of local marines had set up for the night right next to the start of the trail I was planning on riding, like literally on the entrance so was forced to go right past one of their tents front wheel hit what I thought was a stick (had a very week 100 head light on at the time) looked down to find the stick was in fact a miss laid SA80 rifle complete with one of those very expensive scopes, and not a marine in sight!
I've both spooked & been spooked by the marines on Woodbury - just glad the grenade range is shut now!
Husky sled teams practicing at night in Ramscombe on the quantocks. Very loud and very fast....
The Tunnel Hill Trolls. I was approaching a crossroads in the woods on my own but a good 50 yards away. Through the pine trees on my left I saw all these coloured (bright white, red, blue and yello) lights weaving like fairies through the trees, bobbing up and down here and there, but silently. I knew what it was within a second or two but it looked flippin amazing. Like watching some CGI alien special effect, only real.
went for a bivvy on one of the wettest nights of the year, we heard and then saw a tree (massive thing) fall down, the ground was obviously so wet the roots just pulled out of the ground.
upon hearing i thought the world might be ending, only for a second, then seeing made us realise the 'power of nature' if we had been 50m down the trail we would have been gonnas!!
count yourself lucky you weren't there when they had one of their cross nights, where you either have to cross dress or ride a cross bike. Or buy beer. I've seen photos.......
Close encounters with bats and owls aside, last year on a long, long descent spotted a guy with an mtb hiding in the ferns, rolled in a tight ball trying to pull the bike further in with him...
...called the police as very odd behaviour imo (and there had been a couple of expensive bikes nicked in the weeks before)...they rang me back about 30mins later "can you tell us again where he was hiding please" - like he was really still gonna be tucked in the bushes!
I was once riding across the local moor to a friends house for dinner having just been sitting in the pub talking about the witches that "live" in this moor. I was already a bit freaked out (dark, no streetlights) when I felt something scrape over my helmet - a second later I saw the owl. But it scared me enough to go full pelt to my friends where I turned up dripping with sweat much to everyone's amusement.
Riding through the woods which were pitch black other than my light, I suddenly heard a bloke say 'Alright' right near me. Didn't stop for a few seconds then turned my light off and looked back and there was no sign of him so he was clearly in the woods, in the pitch black doing who knows what. Admittedly it wasn't the most threatening of comments but...
Horses scare me in the daylight, so I wouldn't want to come across them in the dark.
There's one over my local field that chases me. He does, he bloody chases me! Luckily he's on a chain. But I don't know how long the chain is!
are you sure he wasn't just taking a dump?
One of my colleagues was hit by a deer on his way home from work.
Wrecked his bike too. Oh dear 🙂
Maybe. Still an odd thing to be doing in the middle of the woods on your own (or not, I suppose...)
Riding through the woods which were pitch black other than my light, I suddenly heard a bloke say 'Alright' right near me. Didn't stop for a few seconds then turned my light off and looked back and there was no sign of him so he was clearly in the woods, in the pitch black doing who knows what. Admittedly it wasn't the most threatening of comments but...
are you sure he wasn't just taking a dump?
Might have been telling somebody ' I need to wipe'
Chased by a pack of pigs in the NF one night - don't know who was more scared - them or me, either way I pedalled for England that night.
Was riding along the cycle path under Clifton Suspension one night in pitch darkness. My light picked out somebody running away from me down the path as fast as he could. He then suddenly jumped right into the undergrowth............absolutely sh@t myself when I rode past where he had jumped in thinking to myself "any minute now he's going to jump me"......fastest peddling I have ever done to this day.
Last year I was down at Glentress night riding on my own (no one turned up), I had just decended Spooky Wood and I could see bright lights and machinery through the trees really close to me, I was totally spooked even though I realised they were cutting the trees in that part of the forest, was also a bit weird as it was at 9.00pm.
But imagine what we must look like ? I try to shield my lights when coming in to the view of a car but it must look pretty odd to see us lot tearing thru the woods with our big lights bouncing around.
Coming home the other night we rode thru the park and these two blokes dived off the path as we rounded the bend at speed... They must have thought we were a car or a motorbike or a swarm of ufos. Very funny.
I was doing a climb at 9PM one November night when I heard a quiet but definite "woop" kind of noise to my right. Before I could turn a branch about 2ft long and maybe 6" round came flying past the front of my bar lights. I looked to see who my prankster assailant was with my helmet light. There was no one there. I cleaned that hill in nano seconds before having a word with myself and going back to look. There was still no one there and I can't explain it at all. Another night at about 5pm but still pitch black I was doing the same hill but on another path and something breathed a rather large "huh" in my left ear. This time I threw the bike down and tried to confront whatever had done it. There was nothing and I daresay I looked stupid. I've never had any more bother from the denizens of the night in those woods though. There's plenty of other weird sh!t goes on there but if it's just down to weird people it doesn't bother me. Stuff I can't explain concerns me but not to the point where I'll stop doing what I want to do.
First night ride I did from where we live now was a misty night, but quite mooonlit, giving an eery glow to everything. Halfway up the long climb, through thick forest, I came around a corner to find a white peacock* stood in the middle of the track. It looked straight at me, squawked and flew off into the dark.
It felt like I'd stumbled into a cheap 70s horror film. Certainly made me pick the pace up!
* I've never seen it again
[i]But imagine what we must look like ? I try to shield my lights when coming in to the view of a car but it must look pretty odd to see us lot tearing thru the woods with our big lights bouncing around.[/i]
Years ago the FC Ranger stopped me and my mate on a QE Park night jaunt as he'd had reports of people "lighting fires" in the woods! Night riding was pretty rare in them ol' days.
Riding in leigh woods a few years ago, almost hit a bloke sat in middle of the trail- he was dressed in white robes and reading a big book by torchlight! I said "evening" and carried on riding..somebody I know found a guy who had hung himself. Police asked them to wait by the body till they arrived..
A bat flew along a few feet in front of my helmet light for several yards one morning last week, not really scary or anything, but the first time I'd seen it.
Maybe it was catching the insects attracted by the light.
[i].somebody I know found a guy who had hung himself. [/i]
Do we have a winner? 😯
somebody I know found a guy who had hung himself.Do we have a winner?
If the rider who saw the body writes in this thread then they win.
Leigh Woods is a weirdo nexus. We rode through the set of Skins one evening, another night I rode through the set of Casualty. Last Haloween we had an old giffer pitch up and try to tell us the woods where 'closed' at night, and if we didn't go away he'd get the Police to come along and break up our 'rave party'. Bless.
[url= http://dairyofanineptmountainbiker.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-eyes-my-eyes-rinse-them-in-bleach.html ]Click for the full horror.[/url]
not cycling but i was hitching, at about 2am and and having a kip in a bus shelter when about 8 people walked past singing "roll out the barrel" they past me by and disappeared singing all the time
Exploring a national park just outside Helsinki, minus 10, large, soft snow flakes falling, absolute silence everywhere. The contrast between the dark night and the light of the snow reflecting off my lights. Following a singletrack path stamped from walkers and XC skiers around the margin of a frozen lake. Shadows of trees slowly sliding by. Thinking about the conversation with my girlfriend, who'd only let me nightride and bivvy after I found there were 'only' 800 bears in Finland, most in the North East near the Russian border, and even less wolves, none near Helsinki for years (though she was still concerned I'd get stood on by an elk/moose!). I turn a corner to get a little closer to the lake, and it's there to my side, running towards me in the edge of the light beam, its shadow cast towards the lake showing the sharp ears, long muzzle, gliding stride of a wolf in the snow...
Ahem. It was the shadow from a branch that somehow seemed to move totally differently to the countless hundreds of other branches, trees, bushes I must have ridden past. Nearly ended up in (on) the lake I pedaled so hard away from it though!
Oh and then a pack of real coyotes in the middle of the desert in Arizona, and a ridiculous amount of bear scat on a trail also in Arizona when I hadn't realised there were even bears anywhere near where I was going to be... Made fixing a cactus spike multi-puncture at 3am in the middle of a gale at 9000 feet on the top of a ridge with bear poo all around a somewhat scary experience...
pigs in the NF
Don't they call themselves the BNP now? 😛
Nothing that I have found really, however i'll often get something into my head and then get scared 😆
Apparently there is a big tree with knickers/pants and a blow up doll all over it, around Blidworth... never seen it though...
For those Mendip locals that know, I found a severed fore leg of a border collie on the postal path about 6, 7 years ago.
The logic went
Some bugger has left rubbish on the trail.
Oh. Its...a dogs leg.
What would kill a dog and leave random bits in the hills?
The Mendip Beast!
Quick! Scarper!
😳
One night, a few years back I was in Robins Wood (local cheeky spot near Derby) and spotted something white about a mile away around head hight. Presumed it was a sign or somethign reflecting my lights.
Dissapeared into the darkenss as I went allong the singletrack. Only to re-appear inches from my face a few corners later.
It was a lifesized 'scarecrow' madeup of a zombies head/haloween mask and a black robe suspended by a few lines to make it roughly hunman in proportion strung up next to/accross the trail, the ramblers were clearly getting a bit more creative than the usual logs accross the trails!
Doesn't help that there must be hundreds of deer in those woods meaning wherever you look there are crowds of eyes looking back at you!
I remember on my first ride out with some cateye triple shot lights getting harrangued by some motorist, whilst i was trying to deal with freshly run over cat. He was complaining that the lights were too bright and i'd dazzled him. He just wouldnt shut up whilst this poor cat's nearly twitching its last.
Told him to **** off before i did something i'd regret, tosser!
(The cat died BTW)
will - MemberNothing that I have found really, however i'll often get something into my head and then get scared
Apparently there is a big tree with knickers/pants and a blow up doll all over it, around Blidworth... never seen it though...
ah, lovely Blidworth....not seen this amazing tree myself either...
Not really spooky but on warm nights, when it's just gone properly dark, the bats on Cannock Chase all go home after the insects have stopped flying.
A couple of times i have been riding down Sherbrook Valley and come up behind a large block of flats, sorry, I mean flock of bats, on their way home. Thy're not jinking about quite as much as when they're hunting but being blind, can't see your head torch behind so you can end up head-butting one or two up their bums.
Last October myself and a collegue were checking up on a D of E group in the Cairngorms near the Lecht. We rode in from Corgarff and we could here the rutt going on all around us. I looked off to one size with the Hope HID on my lid and was meet by at least 100 sets of eyes looking at us. We quickly decided not to look to the side again and got on with the ride. It was a clear frosty night with a full moon. Very primal. We enjoyed a few nips of Royal Lochnagar at the pub up the road later on.
Out with my regular night riding mate last winter, Just stopped at a gate to close it when we heard the heavy drumming beat of a herd of horses getter closer - quickly.
Spun our bars around to shine our L&M Arc lights all around us - nothing.
Hooves still pounding yet we couldn't see anything...
Got louder & louder til we jumped on the bikes & pedalled like two demented cowards!
(Mr MC posting)
Always been a minimalist when it comes to lights as I prefer the feeling of being out there alone in the darkness rather than searing the surroundings with 1000watts (the difference between "night riding" as a concept vs JUST riding at night).
I used to do a lot of solo nite riding in the appalachians (Pa, NJ) which is essentially the same terrain as the setting for The Blair Witch Project. Might be one of the reasons I was about the only person I knew who found it disturbing. Never saw anything too amazing, but any wildlife youve never seen before is memorable when first encountered at night (skunks, wild turkeys etc).
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Came over a hill early sunday morning and was faced with 40 eyes peering back from the dark.
Once when climbing up onto the downs near goring I was going through a wood when a heard an almighty blood curdling roar. I absolutely shat my pants, until I realised it was a pig from the pig farm on the other side of the trees.
About ten minutes later a mahoosive badger ran in front of me and then ran by me for about 20m. Big fella he was.
Tonight I saw a man and a woman in a mondeo parked at the end of a little lane. 😯
I'd not lived here long when I was exploring the woods up behind my house on my bike. It was getting dark and I was trying to find my way home, not really sure if I was going the right way kind of lost. I noticed some kind of shelter built between 2 trees and went over to look at it. There was a Ram's skull there and a star of David sprayed onto a tree along with the word 'Gay'.
This freaked me out a bit and luckily I managed to find my way out of the woods before it got totally dark. I still wonder if my neighbors might be devil worshipping, homophobic sheep murderers.
Hopefully it's just local kids messing about. Not been back to those woods at night. There's burial mounds too and it's way too atmospheric.
Had some blokes jump out of the trees waving Samuri swords about, turned out to be a local martial arts clubs playing at being Ninjas.
Don't want to say to much about where and how but my nephew literally banged into some guy who had recently hanged himself over cycle track not too long ago.
Not good for anyone.
Probably my top realistic fear now!
The trail was that bad he killed himself? Was it the NF trail?
On top of a local hill, I could hear rustling and the occasional hushed voice. Pointed the light around, couldn't see anyone - eventually picked out some blokes in full combat gear (guns / face paint etc) - turns out it was the local army cadets on night patrol
another night I rode through the set of Casualty
Chuckle... I did just that one night in Leigh Woods. Arc lights, [and what [i]appeared[/i] to be] paramedics & police everywhere, lots of ambulances in attendance, people with urgent looking expressions waving me through.
"Has there been a plane crash or something?" 😳
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🙂
Saw the local big cat. Heading over the local stuff called 'The Wedge' by me, I turned to see the biggest pair of green eyes reflecting back about 50ft from me.
It then bound off and whatever it was it was 'kin big. Plus all the cows in the next field went apeshit.
I'm not the first to see it either.
Was out walking my brothers dog the other year, and this was after more big cat sightings in the area. The dog went mad, I crapped it and a roe deer pegged it up the trail.
Plus bats in the helmet always give you a fright.
[url= http://dairyofanineptmountainbiker.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-eyes-my-eyes-rinse-them-in-bleach.html ]Click for the full horror.[/url]
HAHAHA! Funniest damn thing I've read in ages!
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/121/289840534_a93f44b570.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/84788821@N00/289840534/ ]SCARY![/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/84788821@N00/ ]analogueandy[/url], on Flickr
Got swooped at by a pissed-off barn owl. Bloody 'ell, they're big!
That's the beauty of night riding - most 'normal' people will never see stuff like that - I love it.
A hand reaching out from the bushes by the side of the trail lit up in my lights. Sh@t myself, until I got close enough to see it was someones dropped glove that had been hung there so they could find it if they went past again!
Didn't actually see or hear anything but was bivvying with some mates once on a wild night miles from anywhere up on the moors. It got pretty windy in the night so we were well tucked up. The next morning there was a still glowing glow stick placed on top of a rock about 6 foot from us. Still wierds me out, who was the stealthy bugger? How long were they there and what were they up too? :0/