Cougars, knobs and heroes. (originally posted on our BB)

Back when I thought I could be a cross country racer we used to ride over to the shore from Vancouver. At the time I was living in my grandmother’s house overlooking Jericho beach and doing a summer semester at UBC. Life was good. I spent many an afternoon looking out at the freighters until I dozed off on the listing 50 year old naughahyde couch that adorned the listing front porch. But when we rode we went pretty hard. On the fateful day I was riding with Jeff Fink – a burly size large dude who trained like a madman and was much faster than I. My ride was a still fresh Rocky Mountain Altitude. It was a sweet, light chromo hardtail that rode like a dream.

I went down to the basement, grabbed my Rocky and went to meet Fink. I spun over to his place in Kits and then we pedalled towards Seymour and rode all the way up to the lifts. I can’t remember the trails we took down but I think there might have been a little Lois Lane, another trail (perhaps red shack, or something?) and I know we finished with Severed Dick. After Severed we headed over towards Twin Bridges. The week before I had been riding with Chris Keam and he told me there had been Cougar sightings in the Demonstration forest area. This was why I wasn’t fazed when we came to the bridges and saw the signs; DANGER: COUGAR IN AREA. I convinced Jeff that the old cat had left the building by now and we began to climb up towards the demonstration forest. We came to a left hand corner and Jeff let out a yell. I didn’t realize at first what he was on about but when I came to a stop a few metres further on and looked back I saw the Cougar which was of course what he had yelled.

Now you might be getting the impression that I have spun this yarn once or twice before. That is why I can’t really be objective about how much of what happened next remains uncorrupted and how much has been embellished by the drinks and other lubricants that have often been the appetizer to this main course tale.

Jeff was kind of frozen as I remember and he was struggling with his pedals. Another reason I am a little suspicious of my recall is that I am the hero of my version of the tale. Having done my share of bush work I was familiar with what to do in the event of a cougar encounter so I promptly forgot all that. Here’s where I get to be the hero. The Cougar sprung to her feet when we passed and was eyeing us up. Then, when it was about 20 feet from Jeff it began to lunge. I threw my arms up in the air and let out the loudest ugliest howl I could muster. The cat stopped and Jeff began to run beside his bike and I started to pedal up the hill. Jeff somehow managed to get some chain woes sorted without stopping and he too began to spin his cranks beside me. We of course kept looking back and the cat just kept trotting behind us. I think it was at this point when I looked over at Jeff with a huge grin on my face and, half laughing, said something profoundly moving like "Holy Sh#t, a fu*#ing Cougar!"

She was letting us gain some distance and we were beginning to relax when we noticed a figure on a bike hurtling down the hill towards us. I don’t know what he was thinking but our friend was a obviously a grade A knob. We were literally screaming "COUGAR" at him and waving our arms wildly but he just kept on hammering right past us his eyes avoiding ours.

You don’t have to be faster than the Cougar you only need to be faster than the slowest guy. We were looking good now and Captain Knob was about to become Cougar Soufflé. I think we were still giggling about this when he passed us again, this time on the way up the hill. Remember we had already put in some big miles. Anyway, we never exchanged a word with His knobness the entire time which reinforced our opinion of him.

You can imagine that we were a couple tired lycra boys by this point, the adrenaline long since burned. Our predator must have lost interest when we rounded the corner near the top of the hill because we never saw her again.

Sheepishly, we reported our encounter to the ranger at the Demonstration forest, omitting the part about riding past the sign and then rode back to Vancouver still buzzing.

The next day our names were in the papers (properly spelled) and they had some elaborate story explaining how we failed to see the sign. No idea where they got that one. I sat down on my grandmother’s couch that evening and tuned in the evening news in time to see 2 conservation officers tossing the beautiful lifeless beast into the back of a green government pick-up. I was furious. Having been in the presence of this indescribably majestic animal made me feel connected to her and I felt a profound sense of loss seeing her dead.

There is my tale. I don’t hear from Jeff that often these days but I’d love to share a pitcher with him and hear his version. Maybe he gets to be the hero.

Cam out