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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/