Encounter with military impostor on yesterday's ride, plus ride videos

[luv2climb]

Not to sound flip, but my guess is that his buddy was killed in Afghanistan, not because he was recorded here in the US, but because WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR THERE!

+1. He was trying to guilt-trip me bigtime. Too bad for him that I didn't fall for it. Whether he was telling the truth about that or not, it is just plain wrong to use someone's death to attempt to take advantage of someone else.

Your encounter with this was, indeed, creepy. On RBR's forum recently, there was a thread about a member's weird neighbors. They have camaras on their house and seem to be eavesdropping on conversations. That, along with some other things, led the RBR member to conclude that they were cooking meth. It makes me wonder if the guy you ran into was up to something on what he assumed was your route and was paranoid about whether you had videotaped it. I find it hard to believe that he was, indeed, military. What he told you just doesn't make any sense. Glad you got back to your vehicle without incident.

I was thinking along the same lines, which is why I will be climbing hills in Placer County this weekend if weather allows it. I don't plan on riding in that area again. The traffic sucked anyway. You don't see as much of it in my videos because I edit out a lot of the annoying loud motor traffic.

Every word the guy said was crap. He needs to get a life.

+1. Having delusions of power is just sad. He's no better than a wannabe cop.

I wonder if they were involved in some type of illegal activity and were afraid you had them on camera. They probably asked for your info to try to tgreaten you to hand over the video. Real military personnel would not talk to civilians like that. You can tell a real soldier from a fake just by their mannerism. This guy was a fake who was obviously nervous about being recorded. So scary!

I thought about that. There was no way in hell I was going to give up my ride footage, especially with all that beautiful scenery!

I'm glad this incident happened in the store where there was at least one witness (the clerk).

[smilingcat]

I wonder if there are any marijuana plantation nearby. More likely than a meth lab. Meth lab, you can smell the alcohol. Problems of hiking in northern Cal. You don't know what you will run into.

[luv2climb]

Read some of the responses in the thread I posted over on BikeForums. Census workers and Mayors have been shot or hung when they stumbled across pot farms and meth labs. Also read the description given of all the measures these scum take to secure their illegal labs.

Needless to say, if I ever get a proper mountain bike, I will be sticking to the established, popular mtb trails like I did back in my mtb days. I never had a problem back then.

[Sky King]

Yuck, wacko's always creep me out. I was discussing with the DH. As we tour and he tours alone, often. His response was to proceed with caution, getting into a "discussion" can sometimes put you in more danger. Thankfully you were in a public place and had a vehicle to get into. If the incident had occurred while touring (as ours did in Port Townsend) it would be better to just say, I am not recording, sorry to cause you concern and walk away. We too, reported the issue to the police and immediately left the area. Glad they didn't harass you further! PS - sounds like a great hill climb, good for you

[luv2climb]

Yuck, wacko's always creep me out. I was discussing with the DH. As we tour and he tours alone, often. His response was to proceed with caution, getting into a "discussion" can sometimes put you in more danger. Thankfully you were in a public place and had a vehicle to get into. If the incident had occurred while touring (as ours did in Port Townsend) it would be better to just say, I am not recording, sorry to cause you concern and walk away. We too, reported the issue to the police and immediately left the area. Glad they didn't harass you further! PS - sounds like a great hill climb, good for you

If something like this happens again I'm taking your advice, as you can't reason with a wackjob. I think if I had been on the road where the only witnesses are passing cars I would have sprinted away from him, as the possibility of kidnapping and rape would be much higher.