I am not a happy camper right now, but I know my bike is worse off than I am... I just have some road rash and a sore elbow - but in terms of damage to my bike do I have any recourse with the dog owner? I know exactly who owns the dog - they're not a friend of mine, but I ride by their place often, and my kid rode the bus with their kid. All of their dogs (4 or 5?) were loose today. It was their pit bull who charged at me (of course - I promise I am not biased against the breed, but where I live at least, the people who own pit bulls tend to be the types the LEAST prepared to own one responsibly).. there was no way to try to avoid him or even turn around.. it happened way too fast

I was riding down a small hill, and the dog came out and I was down before I fully realized what had happened, and I had a dog snarling at me in full-on attack mode with only my bike to protect me

My bar tape is shredded (thanks to the dog) and my rear derailleur is mangled... I don't know if it was from the fall (it was on that side) or from shoving my bike at the dog, but it's VERY not happy - it doesn't shift easily and it doesn't stay in gear. I lost my chain in the fall and it was all I could do to get that back on my bike and get away.

I did NOT stick around long enough to really speak with the owner other than yelling some not so nice things in his general direction as he walked away - mostly because he didn't ask if I was okay, or even apologize for being a moron with all of his dogs out, he just grabbed the one dog and took off with it, but I wanted to get the f*ck out of there before I had to tangle with one of his OTHER dogs... by the time I was far enough away to feel okay about stopping, I was pretty close to home, so I just kept going.

I was already planning on swapping out my shifters (I had ordered some new ones last week) so I am going to hold off on taking it in to my LBS until I get those (hopefully in a day or two) so they can take care of that while it's in there getting fixed. I have no idea what other damage there might be and I'm too afraid to look.

Am I supposed to do anything? Like file a police report? DH wants to go over there and face off with the idiot dog owner, but I really don't want him to - I'd rather just send him a bill for the damage to my bike. I'm not good at confrontations