Bikers narrowly escape charging brown bear
Two mountain bikers had a close call with nature when a huge bear emerged from the woods and charged them at full speed.
Malinô Brdo is a ski and bike park in Ružomberok, Slovakia, and has the odd bear wandering about thanks to the country’s conservation laws. In a GoPro video posted to YouTube by site user Dušan Vinžík, two cyclists can be seen ripping down the park’s gnarly trails at high speed.
About eight seconds into the video, the image switches to slow motion as a large, light brown shape can be seen ploughing into the frame at full sprint. The helmet cam of the cyclist in the rear captures a shot of what is now clearly an adult European brown bear tearing down the path in pursuit of his friend.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the bear veers to the right and darts off camera. Within seconds, the two cyclists pull to a stop and begin frantically yelling in Slovakian. The cyclist wearing the camera is audibly hyperventilating, and you can’t really blame him: males of the species can reach upwards of 1000 pounds.
Whether the pursuit was playful, protective or something else entirely is impossible to say. What we can assume is that two cyclists were mighty relieved when their newfound friend turned and ran in the other direction.
Another video of a bear chasing a cyclist down a mountain bike trail made the rounds back on 2014 but is presumed to be a fake. This one is uncomfortably real.
