A mountain biker in Montana had a reason to pedal faster while riding down a hill – a black bear apparently in furious pursuit, video shows.
The terrifying footage, released Monday by the Montana Knife Company, shows the unidentified biker discovering he is not at the top of the food chain in Whitefish, a town in the Rocky Mountains just outside Glacier National Park.
“A quick reminder that Montana is not Disney Land,” the company posted on Facebook along with the wild 18-second clip.
At one point, the bear appears to have an angle on the rider as he makes his way down a scenic dirt path, but he manages to furiously pedal away as the beast charges downhill.
TMZ reports the close encounter occurred about a year ago and that the man was unharmed during the hair-raising ride.
The biker had his bear encounter outside Glacier National Park in the Rocky Mountains. Montana Knife Company“This is why even bikers and hikers should be carrying out knives,” a spokesperson for the company told TMZ, adding that the bear “didn’t get the guy!”
Some commenters on Facebook, meanwhile, insisted the bear wasn’t chasing after the rider, claiming it was running quickly after “being spooked” by the man during an earlier point of his ride or the drone that apparently captured the footage.
Some social media users think the bear was frightened of the biker, and not in attack mode. Montana Knife Company“Good that all the omnivorous mammals were able to go their own way, but let’s not turn the innocent victims of human/wildlife interactions into the boogie man,” one man wrote.
