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Narrowly missed by a squirrel - dropped by a buzzard in Huntington, Herefordshire. Glad there are no wild tortoises here (I am however not bald).
Not objects as such... but just weird stuff.
I've stumbled across a few things. A Rave on Devils Dyke - right across the South Downs Way. Cycled through the middle of people off their rockers, enjoying themselves one lunchtime.
in roughly the same spot a year or two later, a guy in full chainmail armour kissing a lady dressed as a princess.
and just getting to the end of Telegraph Row on the Surrey Hills - there was a full medieval battle going on. Must've been 50 people - Swords, Shields, Friar Tuck lookalikes - and me on my then Lapierre Zesty in the middle.
Hit in the head by buzzard flying left to right at the exact moment I reached down to extract my waterbottle from its cage.
Not sure who was more shocked, me or the bird.
I've had birds of prey swoop down out of trees at me a couple of times. In tracks that were well overhang by the trees, I wondered if they mistook my helmet for some kind of dinner.
Funniest thread of the year so far. I'm still keeping an eye out for my first dildo in the woods 😂😂😂
About 20 odd years ago a mate and I were riding near commondale in N York moors, following day on evening news a report of a body of a murdered woman had been found, we must’ve passed within a few feet of her. We didn’t find her, which I suspect was a good thing! Lorry driver from Hartlepool was found guilty of her murder some months later!
So far the list of strangest thing I have seen whilst out on the bike are at least two lots of couples getting down to business in the middle of a field overlooking a deep valley (it was a nice view), they must have worked up a sweat because they were completely naked.
Then there was the topless photo shoot.
The strangest though was descending a track down to a bridge across the river I thought I could hear bagpipes. As I swung round the corner to cross the bridge there was a bloke in full kilt etc on the bridge giving it full welly on his pipes. It was at least 100miles from the Scottish border.
A few weeks later the same place was a different chap playing a violin!!!
The strangest though was descending a track down to a bridge across the river I thought I could hear bagpipes. As I swung round the corner to cross the bridge there was a bloke in full kilt etc on the bridge giving it full welly on his pipes. It was at least 100miles from the Scottish border.
I used to see a piper regularly playingon his lonesome in the general Mytchett/TunnelHill area.... a long, long way from the Scottish border 🙂
Also I once saw one at Porridgepot accompanying the nco's who were politely swearing at their squaddies.
My local track is on MOD land. Every month, the army authorities post a notice on the Facebook page og the local cycling club, telling us when it will be okay to use the area. Most days it will be open from 4 in the afternoon until sundown. The area is full of military debris, lots of spent shell cases, smoke grenades, cheveaux-de-frise, and so on.
Sometimes, they forget to tell us if there is something going on. more than once, I have had to bunnyhop over someone in full camouflage in the middle of the trail, and it really is quite startling when the forest suddenly comes alive, and starts firing blanks at you. Or practice grenades.
Also, I almost ran over a couple playing "hide the sausage" on a very busy trail. And an old VW Beetle in a dense forest about 2 kilometers away from anything resembling a road.
Naked rambler on the Chilterns. We got quite close before it became clear that I had been mistaken about his unflattering choice of flesh tone walking trousers. Fortunately he kept it eyes front as we bid him a cheery hello and s****ed off down the track like a pair of 6 year olds
Druid ritual in the Chilterns
Coming down Poets Glen years ago a more senior lady looked like she had beige leggings on with black socks. Turns out they were black leggings and she was half squatting with them round her ankles in the middle of the path. For a wee. Her daughter just in sight was having a good laugh at her. When you gotta go...
I did get to watch an owl hunting 2/3 of the way through the Maxx Exposure a few years back.
It wasn't bothered by my light at all and just carried on - I didn't mind adding 15 mins to my finishing time as it was already reaaaaaaly long to start with !
I just seem to find people shagging or similar! Many years ago saw a couple down a lane up against the side of a car obviously on the job. Saw a couple out in a field one summer, a good fifty odd yards away from the trail but they saw me and wrapped themselves up in their blanket until I had gone past! Another time I found a couple in the middle of a photo shoot, as I turned round the corner she was facing me wearing one of those dresses with a full length zip up the front and had obviously just zipped up in time, must have heard the bike, he was still stood there holding the camera clicking away. I said that looks like fun as I rode past!
Two blokes dressed as fairies literally gambolling through some bluebells in the Chilterns (the big patch in between nettle bed and Huntercombe golf course for locals) they seemed to be having a great time.
2nd was a house...sounds dull but it was a film set and it was amazingly realistic and completely in an unexpected place, for a moment, stumbling across it (there was no one around) I was really confused about what I was looking at...I knew the area quite well and the idea that a house had suddenly appeared was just so weird....
then there’s all the nekkid folk and the doggers and wot not that anyone who’s ever been night riding has stumbled across
Heading out along a fireroad above Dunoon one Sunday morning to my marshal spot just ahead of an under 8 & 10 year old XC race starting - walking the opposite way were a dozen or so members of a naturist group wearing only their backpacks and walking boots.
I'm missing all this action!
Not really strange but loads of forestry equipment with keys in the ignition. Big excavators, forwwarders etc. Tempted to go for a rag around in them but it would probably end in tears!
Scuba diving was always good - dived a recently wrecked fishing trawler with a roast chicken in the wheelhouse!
Up on kingly vale I rode up one of the buriel mounds .in the hollow up top was a young couple laying down.She must have lost somthing as he was rummaging around up her skirt trying to find it for her.
Typical shagging story here.....
Delamere Forest (my local trails) - one afternoon, riding with one of my lads (teenager at the time) - we come round a corner and there's a couple going at it doggy style right in the middle of the (normally pretty busy) trail, absolutely no attempt to hide....we both looked at each other and said in unison "did we really just see that??" 😂
I found a bagpiper on my way home from work once.
This was in Perth Australia!
On our evening 10 TT a car parked up on a quiet lane. Chap in the front seat with his lady friend bouncing up and down on this lap. 20 sweaty blokes in Lycra huffing up hill at 1 minute intervals must have put her off her rhythm.
Another time at the same place, there was a car properly on fire with a man stood near it. He flagged down my mate and asked if he had a fire extinguisher on him - said mate was in a skin suit on a TT bike.
I suppose the best answer would have been "no mate, I'm just pleased to see you". but you never think of these things at the time.
Battle re-enactment / cosplay gathering. It wasn't so strange once I'd twigged what was going on but catching the odd glimpse of armour out of the corner of my eye was distractingly cognatively dissonant. Loads of them hidden throughout the woods. Might've been filming something, I didn't stop and ask because most of them were armed.
I also remember, in around early December the year before last, I was doing a Night ride along the same trails I rode through the middle of the live gay Show (I only Ride here in winter these days to avoid all the cottaging men)and came across a guy only wearing a pink g-string and cowboy boots waiting next to a tree. I happened to mention it on my Strava post and apparently he’s quite famous.
I suppose the best answer would have been “no mate, I’m just pleased to see you”. but you never think of these things at the time.
Haha, that's a whole other thread.
"The jerk store called..."
On a night ride a while ago, my mate and I saw a kangaroo on a golf course. It just stared at us for a while before we rode off.
Before anyone asks, no, I don't know what its handicap was.
On a night ride a while ago, my mate and I saw a kangaroo on a golf course.
If that's in the UK I'd be willing to bet it was a wallaby not a kangaroo.
Yup. Near the Ashdown Forest or Surrey, by any chance?
Riding through the woods by Ashridge a few years ago a mate and I came round a corner to find a white stag in the middle of the trail - real Narnia moment. Big bugger too - we left well alone until it wondered off.
Not come across much whilst riding, though why the harvester in the woods above Nevis bottom station should be more interesting than the, apparently, two kilometers of forestry machinery I subjected my partner to at the APF show a few years ago. I was involved in the enabling works for the trail built near Swan Pool in the Sandwell Valley. This wasn't installed just for our convenience but also to help reduce antisocial behaviour, the number of inappropriately shod men who felt the need to get closer to nature was astounding. They were remarkably persistent too, our work just drove them up the hillside and you quickly learnt to be careful where you put your saw, some of the detritus was educational. At another site we found that lacy underwear make excellent chain blocking material, takes some picking out of the drive sprocket.
@timmys You may well be right. We couldn't decide, but it was a big bugger, far bigger than any wallaby we'd ever seen, so we plumped for 'roo. It was the kind of size you wouldn't want to get kicked by.
Heading out late on a winters night with fresh snow falling came across a car on fire at the roadside. Another car had already stopped; weird thing was there was no one else around, the other car hadn’t seen anyone, it certainly hadn’t been burning long and there where no tracks in the snow in the direction I had come from.
At another site we found that lacy underwear make excellent chain blocking material, takes some picking out of the drive sprocket
I sometimes wonder why I need to wear hot chainsaw trousers when a hoola skirt made from bailer twine and old plastic bags would do the same job and be a lot more airy in the summer.
I managed to find my own wallet at the side of the trail after it fell out when I'd not zipped up my camelbak properly. It was most of the way round Pines' red route which I had to retrace whilst carefully looking. My Topeak alien multi-tool is presumably rusting in the undergrowth because I hadn't noticed it too had escaped such was the worry about my wallet (which now gets tucked at the bottom of the main compartment)
New meaning to getting rad, on today's ride.
I found a snowboard once. It became a bit tricky trying to ride with it, the wind catching it and making riding a bit wobbly. Got it home though.
A Morrisons home delivery van stuck in mud on an old mine road at 400m altitude, nearly a km from the nearest public road.
Well, incredibly today I stumbled across another few dumped cannabis plants. That is the third time!!!
Noticed the smell before clocking the plants.