WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Recently, on The Five, a question was posed on Fan Mail Friday asking, “What was the scariest animal encounter you have ever had?” The hosts had some interesting stories, and at least one involved a lion. Cool. But, other than the big cat, they seemed rather tame.

Later that evening, MonsterQuest had its season premiere – this show featured all law enforcement cryptid sightings, and were stories told by men that were hard to question when it came to reliability.

The next morning, over coffee, we started talking about scary animal encounters, and which ones stood out after decades of riding. We reached out to names familiar to Backroads readers to get their take on Scary Monsters.

Tony Lisanti:

In 2007, riding a rented Harley Ultra back from Sturgis, passing through Wind Cave National Park late in the evening, the yellow line in the road started to disappear. What we discovered (Gena was in the passenger position), was a herd of bison from the plains just above the road settled onto the warm pavement. We had nowhere to go until a truck came and nudged a path between them. We carefully zigged & zagged through a dozen or more. All I could say was “Tatonka”. Nothing can prepare you for this other than to expect the unexpected.

Dan Bisbee:

Route 232 through Groton State Forest has no shoulder. The woods and brush come right up to the road. All I saw was the first 2 feet of the moose’s head, and hit the brakes as hard as I could. The moose never even looked my way, just ambled into the bushes on the other side about 20 feet in front of me. Those suckers are huge! I had one of those wooden beaded seat-covers and had to pluck a couple of the beads out of my butt.

But not all monsters are big ones, Dan continued…

Once I was motoring down Route 9 in Windsor, Mass. Enjoying the day when …BAM! A swallowtail butterfly smeared itself all over my visor at 60 mph. Visibility instantly went to Zero, and my first instinct was to wipe it off. Okay, not the best idea. This made it worse. I was able to open my visor, pull over and then clean it off. I was amazed at how much goo goes into a butterfly.

But the little beasties continued, with the dreaded bee strike.

Along Route 3A, near Newfound Lake, it was a really hot summer’s day, and the cool New Hampshire riders were wearing shorts, tank tops, sunglasses and a ballcap on backwards while I, being a thinking man’s rider, was wearing an Aerostich, full face helmet and gloves. I was completely covered except for my neck. 

Yes. My neck. That little bastard. No real harm or foul – but damn that hurt.

Mark Byers:

I was just a mile from my house, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye: a doe was going to cross the road from my left.  I quickly realized that her speed and angle were going to place her right in front of me at impact, so I moved from the left side of my lane to the white line to increase the distance.  I knew my braking would place her in front of me, so I accelerated, hoping to use the distance and speed I created to put her behind me.

It worked, at least partially.  She did not get her body in front of me, but we sideswiped.  I hit her head with the left fork tube, which spun her to the left.  The left hard saddlebag hit her squarely in the backside, spinning her around even more so that she was facing the opposite direction I'd been going.  It shook the roadster, but didn't alter my path appreciably and I coasted to a stop after another 50 yards.  A quick damage assessment revealed a broken left turn signal lens, a bent oil cooler bracket, and a left saddlebag that had come unshipped from the mount.  In addition, the entire aft part of the bike was covered in deer feces. The deer did not fair so well.

Shira Kamil:

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Well, I guess we can certainly add where the deer and the antelope play. My experience was ‘treading the needle’ throw a small rangale of deer running across my path while riding through Walpack Valley. I’m not sure what I was seeing, all I know is that I somehow cut between them and ended up on the other side still upright. Brian was amazed, and I guess it took me a minute or two for the adrenaline to kick in and realize what I had just done. The monster wasn’t scary, the moment was.

As for the real scary monsters, I would have to say, while probably not threatening in any way unless you are a shiny object, my encounters with ostriches have had me in a tizzy. One was in Australia, many many moons ago, while I was foolish enough to try and feed it. It went for my necklace, I let out a scream, we both jumped in the air. Since then, I have never really liked the bird.

Second encounter was South Africa where, trying to overcome my hatred and fear, I was convinced to ride one of these maniacal birds. I wouldn’t say I got a full legal bull ride, but I did walk away triumphant (sort of).