Bear-ly made it

I couldn’t agree more with James “Cranky” Ramsay, who wrote that the greatest danger to cyclists is the animals that cross our cycling paths (‘The Real Hazards of the Road,’ April/may 2017). I would like to relate my own near-death experience with an animal crossing my cycling path. I live in the National Capital Region, with access to more than 600 km of biking paths. Gatineau Park is my playground for mountain biking. In the summer of 2015, I was descending my favourite bike path at a very fast clip. It was the last part of the trail that takes you to the parking lot. The trail is in a heavily wooded area and windy. When one chooses to avoid the brakes, as I did that day, the thrill is spectacular. As I was just ending the descent and coming to a flat stretch, I looked ahead and spotted, less than 50 feet away, a full-size black bear sitting right in the middle of the bike trail. It was happily munching on some berries found at the side of the trail. There was the shock of seeing the bear. I had to decide if I could stop safely. If I did stop, what would I say or do to the big black bear in front of me? With all that running through my head, I went with another viable option: scream like a banshee and hope for the best. The bear looked up and saw me coming at full clip. With the grace, ease and speed I did not know a fullgrown black bear had, it departed in a sprint leaving me to speed by without ever having to use my brakes. Sylvie Courtemanche, Ottawa