Curious Bear:

My ride today took me up relatively gentle grades away from the ocean and through farming country. Eventually I reached a village of about one hundred people on a large lake. For the next few hours, I rode on mainly gentle grades (with a couple of very steep ones, but short) to the end of the lake. A few fancy homes and boats but progressively more and more deserted as I rode along. Hardly any cars on the road. Tall spuce and cedar trees. Lots of birds. Even saw two bald eagles sitting high in the trees looking out at the lake.

Then the real climb began - the narrow road weaved and meandered through a long steep mountain pass. The road was chip seal, and quite bumpy. Lots of potholes and some steep dropoffs. Did I say steep? What I mean is several thousands of feet drop with no shoulder on the road. As I climbed the views were lovely. It was 6:00 am so the line of the sun just coming over the mountains bathed the tops of the trees in brilliance.  No houses now. Very few cars.

After a while I had climbed another couple of thousand feet. The area was completely deserted. Then I heard something. Sort of a shuffling sound. And there right beside me, towering a few feet higher than my head, was a large bear.  He was taller than me, as I sat on the trike and looked at him.

He did not know what to make of me so he went to the side of the road and I puffed by a few feet from him while he watched. Still wondering what I was, and whether it would be entertaining see if I could bleed, he paced me for a while. He was maybe three feet away. Since I can bearly speak (aphasia and other health issues) talking to him was not an option. So I slowly climbed and he paced me, snuffling a little. This went one for about ten minutes. Then sometimes he would disappear into the bush, only to reappear a little later. 

At one point he got a little too close so I grabbed my ultrasonic dog dazer (to scare dogs off) and pointed it in his direction.  He must have heard the ultrasonic flash because he looked back and forth trying to locate the source of the sound. A little later he gave up and I heard him crashing off through the bush away from me. So I just continued my slow ascent. But I kept and eye out for any of his friends that might be in the area. A few people around there have been mauled by bears, several had been killed.

Eventually I reached summit. Really spectacular views. Hardly any trees that high, so I had a clear view to the ocean far in the distance. On the other side, a ring of snow capped peaks stretching as far as the eye could see.  Behind me far below I could see the lake I had cycled beside earlier in the day. It was completely deserted up there, and no shade so it was pretty hot.  But in compensation there was quite a breeze without trees to block the wind, so that helped cool things a little. Not a sound up there. This was cougar country though, so I kept an eye out in case one decided that the bear had made a mistake in letting me go.

Stopped to have breakfast of a couple of oat cookies and some tomato juice I kept in my water bottle, and a bit of a rest after the climb. What views! Then it was time to descend. This was a bit tense - did I mention the grades? Going up was one thing, but going down through the twists and turns of a narrow road with straight drop offs on either side was… interesting. Going 80+ I was very glad to have a quality trike!

All in all a wonderful ride. The engine was as always somewhat wobbly, but the trike performed flawlessly.

 A Charging Bear:

Left around 5am today for a ride into the back mountains. After about three hours of hard pedalling up steep grades, I spotted a new road winding up through the trees. It was paved - something very unusual in that area,  where most of the roads are converted former logging roads. So I took it. It got very steep very quickly. Fortunately my new low gears kicked in and I just kept going - up and up and up. Way up past the tree line. This must have been a road leading to some rich person's mansion in the mountains - it was waaaay too steep to have passed the legal constraints on the design of public roads. Sure enough, as I climbed I saw the "private road" sign which I suppose I had missed seeing earlier. But there was no one around - I had not seen any cars or houses for at least a couple of hours... so I just continued to climb.

After a while the road leveled out and I could see far in the distance a ring of snow capped mountains. A couple of bald eagles circled overhead. I stopped for a snack - oat cookies, V8 juice, and protein powder. Then climbed some more. It was much cooler this high in the mountains, and quite windy. Almost no trees this high. Far below I could see the valley I had come from. Very beautful. Dream-like really... just the hush of the chain as I pedalled, regular deep aerobic breathing, no one around for many miles, the sound of the wind - all very meditative.

Then as I rounded a curve, right there in the middle of the road, was the very fresh carcass of a deer. With deep claw marks. Uh oh - around here that means mountain lions. I snapped out of the meditative state that triking can bring on in the high mountains, and started to scan the brush at the side of the road as I pedaled along.

Suddenly I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Moving fast was a huge (and I mean HUGE) bear running at full tilt towards me. Something they never do unless they mean to fight or kill. No one else around for miles - just he and I, both moving on very rapidly intersecting trajectories.

Without thinking I spun the trike around in the fastest U-turn I have ever done in my life. And aided by a surge of fear, took off like a shot on the now downward slope of the mountain. But as I watched in the mirror as I sped away, the charging bear also did a U-turn, and took off at high speed in the opposite direction.  I realized that I was going to live after all. 

What must have happened was that he had probably been so intent on the deer carcass that he had not seen me come round the corner until the last moment, just as I had not seen him. And not knowing what I was, like me he had decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Both of us charged away from each other as fast as we could.

Wow. This was the largest bear I had ever seen.  I assume he was a fully mature male. He was about the size of a grizzly rather than the black bear I spoke of above. Maybe it was a brown bear (ursus arctos) or maybe just an giant black bear?  Hard to tell during panic maneuvers. He was certainly huge though. Bears almost never eat large mammals, so it must have been the scent of the deer's blood that brought him, or maybe there was a mountain lion infringing on his territory, or maybe he was just out for a morning jog? At any rate, he was longer than the trike by several feet. And wider. And taller. And considerably more muscular than me. If he had wanted to ruin my day, he could have with one swipe of a massive paw. As I said above, people around here have been killed by bears.

After that, the ride home - even down the steep slopes, was rather uneventful

Never a dull moment when riding a trike!
 

What to do when encountering a bear while riding your trike:

Bears are highly intelligent - more so than many higher apes, far more so than dogs, and certainly more than most politicians .
Bears kill people when people startle them of if you get between them and their cubs. Otherwise, if they hear you coming, they will keep well out of your way.
If you are interested, here's what to do if you encounter or are attacked by a bear whilst riding your trike:

• If the bear is close - within 50 feet or so do not try to outrun it. Unless you are going downhill and already moving fast, there is a very good chance the bear will catch you. A black bear can run over 30mph from a standing start.
• Do not make direct eye contact. Eye contact is an aggressive move between almost all mammals. Male mammals in particular prefer not to look each other in the eye, since it is a considered aggressive.
• If you see bear cubs, move slowly away. All female bears with cubs will attack to kill if they feel the cubs are threatened.
• Remove your sunglasses. To a predator, sunglasses make your eyes look like those of a deer. Deer are valued by most as a very good source of food.
• Get off the trike very slowly. No sudden moves. Raise your arms. Speak quietly. Do not scream or yell. Bears consider this a dinner bell. Instead wave your arms. Let the bear know you are human, and not dinner.
  If like me health issues make it difficult to get up and down, use your horn, wave your arms, yell.
• If the bear moves purposefully toward you and you have pepper spray for bears, use it.  If you have pepper spray for dogs, do not use it - it will not carry far enough or be strong enough to bother the bear, who will just consider the dog pepper spray a condiment.
• If the bear attacks, curl up into a ball on your side or lie flat on your stomach. Lie as quietly as possible. Play dead. Lie still, wait for it to loose interest. You are not stronger than a bear, despite all the silly movies showing people fighting them off. That is Hollywood. If you try to fight a bear, you will not only not win, you will agrivate it further. It can tear you apart with one blow. If you are about to die though, try to place your entire arm down the bear's throat. You will lose the arm when the bear bites through it, but it will probably stop attacking and there is a chance you may live.
• Do not try to keep the trike between you and the bear, as you would with an attacking dog. A bear is not a dog. It will swat the trike out of the way without a second thought, then lunge at you.

Bottom line: While alone in bear country on a trike in deep woods or high mountains, keep a sharp lookout. See it before it sees you, and move away before it gets interested. If you cannot move away - make sure it knows you are human and not some food animal running low to the ground. Understand that it is an intelligent, curious being. You are in its territory, not yours. It will probably leave you in peace if you leave it in peace.