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Bears??? Oh my.

A friend at work has a camp up near the NY border, pretty close to the route I have planned to get to the NE Rally. I have asked him about the different roads and one of the things he told me was "watch out for bears".... I guess black bears are getting bold and plentiful in PA, especially in this particular area.

Now, I have had many encounters with deer, squirrels, raccoons, groundhogs, chipmunks, dogs, etc., both live and otherwise while riding, but I have never encountered a bear.

What does one do? Throw him a pic-a-nic basket???? Wear a Chicago jersey???

If you see one, turn around and ride like hell! And to think I'm concerned about suicidal white tails.

I've never thought about bear in the "might be aggressive" sense, but more in the "darn hard to see at night" sense. Around here, they are more active at night and I've had a few instances of one crossing the road. They can be hard to pick up in headlights. They seem to absorb the glare. In a few weeks, they'll probably start turning up in town preying on people's backyard apple trees. Somebody gets up in the morning and they find a bunch of limbs broken down.

People visiting the "parks" facinate me. Some poor old bear will be in the ditch eating whatever bears eat, and a "bear jam" will quickly occur. Cars, Rv's stop, people jump out and start videotaping. I'm thinking, there's a recipe for potential disaster.

Came upon a black bear sitting in the middle of the road (Skyline Drive in VA). I stopped 50 yards away amazed at seeing a bear, then the bear got up and wandered off into the woods.
If the distance gives you the chance to stop, do. If you run up on one too fast, man, good luck!

Just dont get an idea to try and be friendly with em like Timothy Treadwell. Unless you want to be "lunch".

A head on collision with a mature black bear would be an "eye opener" would'nt it? If you dont kill em on impact he will be so angry he will tear up your keister afterwards. It'd be a no win situation.

My sister his a small one last year. It rolled up on the windshield, looker her in the eye, gave her the finger, and rolled off when she stopped. It walked away. She saw it enough ahead of time to hit the brakes so she was only going maybe 20 when she hit it.

Two things I have remembered about bears. If you stop, be careful because if you are between momma and cubby, you're toast. And I also heard somewhere bears have a hard time running downhill because their "arms" are short. So if you have a choice, ride downhill fast

A few years ago I drove over to Camas Prairie for an evening meeting with some ranchers. There's an old ranch house on the plains with a dead cottonwood tree in the front yard. Three-four little kids were playing in the yard and the family dog was running about. Sound asleep or appearing as such was a black bear stretched out on a cottonwood limb about 20' above the kids and dog's heads. They were obviously oblivious to his presence, or didn't care. Probably the former. If I'd had a camera I would have taken a photo, but then why disturb such a pastoral summer evening. I figured when the yard chaos subsided after sunset the bear slipped quietly away.

JH

I have an idea.... I'll let Snert and pipedr lead the way..

According to the park rangers at Sequoia, as far as bears are concerned, people stink. They don't want to eat you or even be near you unless they are really hungry.
If they think they are under attack, cornered, or that you might be after the wee bears, they will "take care" of the situation.
Another thing to consider is that, to a predatory critter, anything that runs away must consider itself to be food.
Bears can run some 40 MPH, so they can catch you easily enough if you are on foot.
If you make enough noise that they know you are around before you get near, most bears will leave.
Bears are like homeless people. If you give them stuff to eat, they get used to it and start expecting it. When you run out of stuff to give them, they get really angry. So, don't ever feed them.

Ah but you know the one in the back is the one the bear eats.

I wasn't planning on feeding them, looking for them, petting them, etc..... I was thinking more along the lines of rounding a bend at 55 and there's Yogi and Boo-Boo in the middle of the road....... I can rev and make the pipes bark to scare away deer, and I can swerve around the little critters - or hit them if necessary, but an impact with a larger, slower beast would be, er, unbearable...

Get on the horn?

There are several black bear in my area as well. Ther was one at Jane's house all the time. The sucker would bend down the bird feeders and eat all the food. They were 1" pipe and I could not bend them back. He would bend it down like it was a pipe cleaner thingy.
He once left a "log" in the back yard - so Jane, she is pretty strange sometimes, put it into a large ziplock bag and took it to work. She then had show and tell explaining, that, "Yes, absolute proof that bears do indeed s**t in the woods" True story!

I thought it was the pope that sh@ in the woods?

Bears can run up to 40 mph, but you don't have to run that fast to get away. You only have to run faster than your friend.

I was in Yellowstone one time and a "Bear Jam" occurred. A whole crowd of people were staring across the river looking at a "bear" in the tree. I trained my binoculars on it and saw a large raven flapping his wings and creating some commotion in the tree...no bear. However, far up the hillside in back of and across the road from the "bear jam" a grizzly was calmly walking through the tall grass into the edge of the trees, and the only people watching him were my wife and I. We laugh about that trip to this day!

GO BEARS!