Biking with Bears?

I convinced myself to go for an hour and half long mountain bike ride last night. It was tough, there was a little sweat, a little cursing and a little hard work. But as I stopped and ate half a Mars bar... which as I write this I realize is probably melting in the back seat right now *ass*... in any case though as I sat and let the gentle breeze drift through my sweat matted hair, I took a moment to look at the beautiful view.

And just stopped for a moment. For that moment everything was peaceful, I could hear the low hum of bees, mosquitoes and flys but for the moment none of them were trying to eat me.

Slowly I caught my breath, and sucked back some water as my heart rate returned to that of a normal human being. That is as opposed to the overweight cardiac waiting to happen that some people achieve merely by walking up stairs.

I hopped back on my bike and made it oooh maybe 10' (and that's probably an exaggeration) before stopping dead just shy of a large green bear poop covered in flies. Now the thing is, it had just rained that night making the trail nice and cohesive... this poop had not been rained on. In fact I took off my bike glove, and held my naked hand just above it half expecting it to still be giving off heat. I mean it was practically STEAMING! Ok not quite but if this was a fish story it would TOTALLY be steaming!

In any case despite the huge hill I'd just pushed my bike up (yes I know you're supposed to ride your bike, but I'm a bit of a pansy when it comes to steep hills) I turned around and rode back down. The ride down was alright, a lot steeper on the other section of trail... and then of course I came across a dry patch of trail that had recently been rooted through *great* another bear sign.

I more or less crossed my fingers, double checked the case holding my bear spray, let out a few more *woooops* than usual and left my bear bell to warn the bear either of my location so he could avoid me or my location for dinner. Completely up to his discretion of course.

All in all the ride was good, didn't see any bear but there was definitely recent activity in the area. I would like to think that he knew I was there and decided to share rather than eat me. I know I wouldn't make a particularly good meal for him anyways... all chewy and stringy, I mean really ;o)