Vancouver cyclist was riding the Seymour Demonstration Forest trail in North Vancouver when he hit a surprise obstacle on Tuesday. There are a lot of deer in there, and I thought maybe one day I will hit a deer, right? But never thought it would be a bear,” Milner said to CTV News. “I just smacked right into him. And I went flying over top of him.”
He had just come around a bend when he saw the mammal and hit the deck. He lay on the trail in pain for several minutes. Finally, another cyclist, Sam, who was on an e-bike, came up and asked him if he was OK.
“He asked me what happened. I was obviously in a lot of pain, and I told him, ‘I just hit a bear.’ And he was like, ‘Where’s the bear? Where’s the bear?’ He was concerned about the bear. I said, ‘I don’t know, he ran off, but you have to call 911, I need an ambulance,’” Milner, 30, said.
As the other cyclist waited with Milner, two other women who had passed by went to try and find a cell signal to call 911. Then, however, the plot thickened. The bear came back, the very next minute.
“He’s kind of looking over at us and sniffing the air, kind of curious and pacing around, he’s not really sure if he’s going to come forward or come back, he just seemed really curious. And started yelling at the bear to scare him off. And after that, I got a huge kick of adrenaline,” Milner said.
It was at this point Milner thought he should probably hightail it. The two cyclists swapped rides so the injured gravel rider could have an easier bike back to the parking lot. When he finally got to Lions Gate Hospital, he quickly became the talk of the joint. In the end, he had a broken shoulder blade, bruises, and road rash.
And everyone at the hospital kept coming up to him asking if he was the bear encounter.
“They were asking me, ‘Were you the guy? Were you the guy that hit the bear?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that was me,’” he said.
As far as the bear, it seems like Ursus americanus was just fine. It’s possible he may have muttered something about “goddamn cyclists,” but that’s unconfirmed.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…