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Animals

Saw a couple of these on the way out to a training ride as well. Quite disturbing.

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dozen monkeys hanging in the middle of the road on descent into Okutama and then crossing the road in an organized line (looking like a cross over between the Beatles Abby Road photo and a Japanese tour group following a leader). Surreal...

Other citings (mtn bike)- black bears in Canada; raccoons, foxes and mtn lion in Socal. Scariest was what I hit a big deer who ran across a single track while screaming downhil in So Cal..those things are SOLID and HEAVY...
 
Try hitting a Holstein side on :D The bloody thing didn't even realised I'd ridden in to it. Neither did I till it happened..... guess you take you life in your own hands when night MTB riding.
 
I saw my first kamoshika the other day on a remote rindo at the Saitama-Gunma border. Even managed to take photos. This Japanese mountain goat is a very rare species and enjoys special protection.

Last year, Tom and I saw what must have been a lone wolf living up on Budo Toge (southern border of Gunma and Nagano). Also extremely rare.

I have encountered many monkeys and deer over the last three years in the mountains - far too many to count.

Also a fair number of snakes, including the other day a very long one which pretended to be dead. I played with it :eek: and took photos with it on my bike. It kept pretending to be dead, even though the breathing was visible...:cool:

I'm still waiting to encounter a bear in Japan, outside a cage. (Have seen a few in national parks in Canada and the US.)
 
I had a bear cross the road in front of me a few years ago, and monkeys are around. Kamoshika are all over, but not usually on the roads.

Lately, cicadas have been out, and I've hit one or two (or they've hit me) on the last few rides.
 
Cicadas are plentiful in Kanto/Koshinetsu, and very noisy!

Where do you see the kamoshikas? Around Haku-san? Have you done the Hakusan Super Rindo? There is even a Kamoshika-taki (waterfall). Am considering doing this Super Rindo on one of my future 2-3 day trips.
 
Lasy year...

I went out on a training ride for a 600km brevet (that I ended up as a DNS) in May last year.
I rode the last 200km of the brevet course at night, which is what I would've had to do the following week. I took the last train out to "Yatsumi", on the Sotobo-line, and got out near the Pacific coast of Boso / Chiba prefecture at around 1am...
Long story short, as a "road-kill" animal, I would never have thought an "OWL" would be so daft. A dead owl lying on the road in the middle night is a little bit freaky, and not something you forget too easily either.
And on the very same night, I came across two deer; One at the top of a climb, and the other after I had descended that same mountain.
 
A little off track - but probably the goriest experience of my racing career involved an Owl. We were driving home from a stage race in Canada when something slammed into our bikes (on roof rack of course). Not wishing to stop - we drove through to home and when we looked at the bikes - OMG! The owl had taken a direct hit and basically splattered over 3 of our bikes bending handlebars and blood and feathers were everywhere. None of us wanted to touch this mess so we drove the car to an automatic car wash - bikes and all. It was a 'brushless' type and managed to get most of the Owl goo off the bikes - then we used a steam cleaner to get the rest. I'll never forget it.

Long story short, as a "road-kill" animal, I would never have thought an "OWL" would be so daft. A dead owl lying on the road in the middle night is a little bit freaky, and not something you forget too easily either.
And on the very same night, I came across two deer; One at the top of a climb, and the other after I had descended that same mountain.
 
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