Touring and underattack

[sisson]

Well this happened along time ago but it is worth recanting. Went on a long week end bike tour with a friend of mine riding the wisconsin hills and decided to camp in a little city park and campground in Stockholm, Wisconsin. We left our bikes leaned up on a tree near our tent. Mine is small as am I and my friend is pretty tall so of course had a bigger bike. No one was camping except us. Well....about 1-2:00 am we are awakened with the sound of a bunch of teenage boys building a fire about 100 feet from our tent. They were making the usual conversation and drinking (we could hear bottles smashing)...well we were petrified. Then to make matters worse they walked by our tent (crunch crunch crunch) and started talking to "the people in there." May be we should just take your bikes..etc." We motioned to each other to say absolutely nothing so that they wouldn't necessary know there were two women in the tent. Then they went to their cars and drove around the tent somehow over and over again with their headlights flashing in to the tent. We didn't know if we were going to get run over or not. Now you might say...why not get out and challenge them. My instinct was to lay low and do nothing to rile them anymore than they already were. There were at least 4 and we were clearly outnumbered in the middle of the night and they still didn't know who was really in the tent. Finally they left after about 2 hours of this stuff. I felt so vulnerable and it taught me a good lesson about not camping where there are no other people. I was also furious that as a woman I no longer felt I could go bike touring without making sure that I was somehow protected (or with a man). Anyway, it happened along time ago but I'll never forget it.
Scared in Stockholm!!!

[Grog]

Oh my God, I would have been scared to death. What a bunch of idiots... You probably did the best thing you could do at that moment. Having a cell phone and dialing 911 would have been great too, but I would have hated doing that.

[Pax]

That absolutely sucks! I'm glad you and your friend got out of the situation safely.

I hope never to have to use it but when I travel solo I take along my handgun. I realize there are MANY folks who don't like guns but I grew up with them (military family) and was a law enforcement officer for serveral years, I'm well trained and while that situation would have been frightening I would have felt more pissed than scared. I hate the fact that our options seem to be:
1. Don't go anywhere alone
2. ALWAYS be on guard if you do
3. Carry personal protection (in concert with #2) /or/
4. Risk harm if you encounter a situation you're not prepared for

Kind of a dismal picture, the thing that pisses me off most is having to waste the energy thinking about "what to do IF".

[Trek420]

OMG, so sorry your trip was marred by a bunch of morons. (((((hugs))))) and glad that you're safe.

No guns for me, skeered of 'em. Would probably shoot myself in the foot if I did.

Carry a cell phone and have the local police dispatch number programed in. Calling 911 gets you who knows where and 3 misstransfers later you're at the local PD. I keep the PD for the city I live in and the city I work in programmed into my cell. If I was touring would probably get a local number for one there.

My alien tool has a knife, it's funny that we're talking about this I just reached my 10 year service anniversary at work and we have a choice of lovely gifts. My best friend at work said
"What? You didn't choose the pearls?"
"no, I got the buck knife with the leather scabard. I don't have an angora bike jersey to go with the pearls"

anyways....

Ok, going there again. My "other" sport is Aikido, a Japanese martial art, derived from Jiu Jitsu it's deeply rooted in a philosophy of non violence. Our aim is to defuse the situation and actually protect the assailant by causing minimal harm. Some people call the art "dance like" but it is devestatingly effective and particularly with multiple attackers.

I've been training since about 1979-80.

I hope I never ever have to "use it"....again, that's not the goal. I just love to train, those "ah hah, that's how it works" moments.

But let's go there shall we? You absolutely did the best thing you could. Seeing the bigger bike those jerks probably presumed a man was there, they are drunks, they are chicken s*** and they left you alone.

You survived, you win!

There is no way I could break down years of training to a single post or even a book. And I probably would not have done better than you. But if I distill the training down to a post it would be this.

You always want to avoid conflict, diffuse the situation, leave. These days for one thing you don't know who's armed. Who knew Queen has the gun rack attachment on her bike?

If you find yourself in a situation where there is no way out but to fight:

1) make as much noise as you possibly can, yell, scream, keep doing that continually
2) keep moving by that I mean fighting
3) repeat steps 1 & 2 until they are not a threat anymore and you can take that anyway you want ie: you've got away and are in a safe place or they are not a threat anymore.

Remember for one thing you are fit cyclists, they likely are sedentary out of shape drunks, all 4 of them.

If there are multiple attackers identify the leader and or largest one, I'd go for him. The rest may think you're nucking futs and leave.

BTW I hope you did call the police? They need to know this is going on.

[doctorfrau]

Wow, that Sooo sux

I do most of my riding alone, and though it is usually on fairly well-travelled rail trails, there have been times (especially at dusk) when I have had a moment or two of the creepies. It bugs me that if I were male, that I would not be having too many of those personal safety thoughts.

I try to comfort myself with the thought that potential rapists are lazy and would go for the easy targets - not be stalking 20 miles out on a rail trail in the middle of the state forest. ( at least I HOPE not )

[KSH]

That sounds so scary! Thank goodness you weren't hurt and your bikes were left alone!

I think if I were going to travel on bike "alone"... or with another female... I would invest in handgun training and carry one with me, just in case.