Don't miss a moment of the 2024 Tour de France! Get recaps, insights, and exclusive takes with Velo's daily newsletter. Sign up today!.
Cue the Rudolph jokes while I add flying deer to the ever-growing list of road hazards facing cyclists.
Riders at the Gran Fondo Hincapie on October 21 in Greenville, South Carolina were treated to an extra memorable day on the bike after a buck jumped over their group to cross the road.
“It happened just after we had left the hotel,” George Hincapie, the former pro cyclist whose event the deer nearly derailed, told Canadian Cycling Magazine. “I was just a few riders in front of the deer. It was pretty crazy!”
The athletic deer nearly cleared the group, just grazing Edwin Gonzalez Montoya who captured the near miss on his GoPro.
Also read: Dutch Cycling Championship Breaks Wind… Record
The cyclists were luckier than this man who was taken down by an antelope in this video, which made the rounds on the internet about a decade ago.
Or this mountain biker getting taken down by an elk.
Or this cyclist who had especially bad luck encountering a buck on a descent and going OTB.
There is a startling amount of footage of deer and cyclist run-ins.
Remember, fear the deer.