A new fear has just been unlocked in me. No, I've gotten over spiders and heights and all manner of talking in front of a crowd. Those aren't it. Rather, I now have the distinct fear of riding some of the backcountry trails I love to blaze and hit a bear square on.
Deer? Sure, I've thought about it. Moose, hell yeah, they're around and known as murder stilts. But hitting a bear, even the more docile of the bear family, i.e. a black bear, has to be one of the scariest moments of a rider's life. You're not just going down onto the ground hard, but you're hitting the rocks and dirt and then contending with doing your best not to get eaten alive or mauled by a pissed off, likely hurt, teddy bear with big-ass claws and teeth.
And that's exactly what happened to one rider as they were off-roading one of the forest service roads near the Magruder Road Corridor in Central Idaho. You gotta watch the video below.
My buddy hit a bear Saturday
byu/CoffeeChessGolf inDirtbikes
According to the OP, the rider was cruising along a forest road in Idaho on their CFMoto off-roader—an Ibex 450—when a young black bear darted across the road. The rider didn't have any chance to swerve or take evasive action and hit the bear dead on. The two obviously went tumbling, though the rider popped up real damn quick and hurriedly shut off the still-running motorcycle.
Expletives followed, and he likely needed a change of shorts after this, too. I know I would, and I purposely going into the bear woods a lot.
The rider then runs away from the bike, likely thinking that the bear was still either underneath the motorcycle or still very close by. It was fast thinking, as he'd likely be right. However, if you look at the footage and run it back slowly, you can see that the impact of the bike and the bear sends the black bear flying over the ridge alongside the road. Luckily, the bear wasn't likely hurt as it looks like that area would've been a soft landing. At least, it likely wouldn't have been injured from the fall. It getting hit by the bike, well, that's another story.
Here's some behind the scenes from the rider, himself.
The OP stated later in the thread, "This is my buddy. We were like 20-30 seconds behind him. 100% didn’t believe him when he said he hit a bear til we saw the GoPro. Just thought maybe he saw one and got spooked and over exaggerated. Nope. Dude hit a f*cking bear haha."
And on that day, we likely learned that not only do bears poop in the woods, but likely so do motorcyclists... Stay safe out there and eyes up.
