After years of speculation, I can finally provide a definitive answer to one of humanity’s oldest questions: bears do indeed shit in the woods.
I was – against my better judgement – alone under dense canopy cover in the Carpathian Mountains, just south of the city of Brasov in Romania. The range yawns some 1,500 kilometres across Eastern Europe – from Ukraine to Czechia – and is home to Europe’s highest density of brown bears, wolves and lynx.
Brasov is known, quite alarmingly, as the City of Bears.
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“Avoid the parks after dark,” our taxi driver told us during the journey from the airport to the AirBnB. “Bears will come down from the mountains to look for a late supper, and if you take them by surprise, well…,” he let the sentence hang. We got the gist.
Brown bears – Ursus arctos, if you’re feeling Latin – sit just one rung below grizzlies on the ladder of things you really don’t want to annoy. If you ever see one, it ideally wants to be through a very powerful pair of binoculars or from the safety of an armoured vehicle.
Yet here I was, on a bicycle. Never mind bears shitting in the woods, I was absolutely bricking it.
Just a month before our visit, a motorcyclist had been wrenched from his bike and dragged into a ravine by the side of one of the major roads on the way out of the city. Sadly, he did not emerge with a pulse. However, he had made a mistake that causes the most bear-related human fatalities – he had tried to feed them. Unfortunately, though, they forewent the appetiser and moved straight on to the main course.
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I’d been given a thorough briefing by two separate parties before venturing into the bear-infested wilderness. Firstly, the bike rental shop owner was keen that under no circumstances should I attempt to get a selfie with a brown bear. This advice seemed fairly obvious to me, as I imagined – phone in hand – pleading with a grizzly friend, “if you could refrain from trying to eat my head for a moment please, you’re not quite in focus.”
But a number of Darwin awards have been dished out to people doing just this.
“Romania’s forests have capacity for around 3,000 to 4,000 bears,” Marius from Cycle Explore told me. “We think there are now more than 12,000. Attacks do happen, but they’re usually because people try to feed them. They can turn very quickly.”
I had absolutely no intention of sharing a sachet of SiS Beta Fuel with a 400-kilogramme killing machine, so I asked a more pertinent question.
“How can I – feeding and selfies aside – avoid being chased down a mountain and relieved of my limbs?”
“Make a lot of noise, particularly when rounding sharp corners,” Marius instructed. “Coming between a mother and her cubs will always end badly, so announcing your presence is key.”
I climbed into the Carpathians, then, letting rip a suitably loud rendition of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, yet still every single crack or snap in the forest provoked another wave of anxiety.
Why, then, was I doing this? I’m very much of the opinion that visiting a different country and not turning a pedal in it is tantamount to treason. I was here with mates, who were not cyclists; the Hammer Horror fans were instead visiting Bran Castle, home briefly to Vlad the Impaler who inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The views along the way may, or may not, have been worth the fear
(Image credit: Steve Shrubsall)
I told them that while they were taking pictures of fictitious fangs, to spare me a thought while I rode amid real ones.
I’d just finished Lauper’s 80s anthem when my front tyre stopped dead before, slewing slideways violently. It felt like I’d just ridden into a swamp. I looked down to find that my tyre had become acquainted with a gargantuan pile of matter. Inspecting the gloop, I saw that it contained berries, lots of berries.
“Bear shit!”; fresh bear shit, to boot.
Vocal cords already shot, I gave myself a mental kicking for ignoring the advice of a friend who lives in Montana. The western state is home to the densest grizzly bear population in the United States, where venturing into the backcountry generally involves carrying two essential items.
“A lot of people in Montana use what’s known as a bear bell,” explained Andy Ryan, who’s currently cycling around the world and riding through brown bear country in Japan. “It’s simply a small bell attached to your backpack or bike. Bears are generally solitary animals and, for the most part, they don’t want an encounter with people. Making noise gives them a chance to move away before you surprise them.”
Fortunately, I had taken his second piece of advice: “Bear spray is the number one thing,” he said.
“If you attract the attention of a brown bear and you’re on a bike, get off it and hold it above your head if you can, spread your arms, shout loudly and stand your ground. If the bear continues to approach or charges, it’s time to deploy the bear spray. The canister is highly pressurised and has an effective range of around 30 feet. Rather than aiming directly at the bear’s face, sweep the spray from side to side to create a cloud that the bear has to run through.”
And if that fails? “Curl up into a ball and pray!”
I reached behind me and touched the back pocket of my cycling jersey. The canister was still there, cocked and loaded.
Another cyclist riding to the top, bear spray in his bum bag
(Image credit: Steve Shrubsall)
There was a bear in my midst. And if its bowel movement was anything to go by, it was a big one.
I carried on riding towards the summit, now approaching 5,000 feet. The forest gradually gave way to sweeping views across Brașov and deep into the Carpathians, affording my mind a few blissful, bear-free moments. Those vistas were the real reason I’d come up here. Some, though, are harder earned than others.
Despite lasting barely two hours, it was the most exhilarating bike ride I’d ever been on. It felt less like a ride through the mountains and more like a trip through a theme park, every blind corner carrying the promise of the next jump scare.
Eventually I turned for home, hurtling back towards Brașov at speeds touching 38mph – still nowhere near fast enough to outrun a charging bear. Yet with every metre of descending trail, the forest began to thin and the tension slowly ebbed away. The ride’s finale, it seemed, wouldn’t be a face-to-face encounter with Romania’s most famous resident, but the quiet satisfaction of rolling back into the city with all my limbs still attached.
For once, I hadn’t been the apex predator. I was somewhere much further down the food chain in that forest.
