It's amazing how oblivious people can be. He rode ride at it.
I guess too many years sitting in front of a computer away from animals (or too many cartoons) makes one forget they can kill you. Stay away from farm animals! Cows too! And Elk!
I've come across bears on rides, twice now. First was a grizzly and luckily it was far away and going down a valley away from the road but I still turned around and rode away as fast as I could. The second time was in the spring and a sleepy black bear ambled onto the road... it was smaller than the Great Pyrenees I'd run into on the same road a week before. I always try and stay far away from animals... I've even been chased by a golden retriever.
I'm a little bit torn on this one. The article made it sound like they were on public land, but I just watched the Gravel Cyclist's video of the event where he stated most of the off road sections went through private land that they had permission for the race day. The race organizer made it sound like no big deal??!!. If I was a landowner grazer I would think they'd have the sense to not let a whole pack of people come through a pasture with bulls in it. Cows maybe, but not bulls. If it was on federal or state land I would think they would need to get some sort of event permit where the grazing issue would have been addressed? You don't have to be "riding right at it" like people keep saying for a bull to charge. This could have been a bad deal. Things need to be handled at this event better from now on.
This is all on the rider---showing lack of understanding animals, or an arrogance of being a "cyclist" in a race. He might just go slowly around the animal with a wide distance or just wait-- because it didn't appear that he was in the lead pack. I bet he learned something and won't do it in the future.
