Step right up and make your bets. Who do you think wins in this heavyweight matchup between a biker gang and a herd of bison?
You never want to come face to face with an angry bison, and you certainly wouldn’t want to do it while you are riding your multi-thousand dollar motorcycle. This encounter took place in Custer State Park in South Dakota (back in 2010) and definitely deserves to be revisited again.
If you didn’t know, bison are absolutely massive creatures. In fact, they are the largest land mammals in North America, with some weighing in at over a ton (2,000 pounds) and standing as tall as 8 feet. These beasts would make even Shaquille O’Neale appear small, and that’s saying something.
And as cool as people probably feel riding around on motorcycles, nothing will stop a bison from showing you whose boss. No leather jacket or revving of your chopper will deter the big horned animal from asserting his or her dominance.
That’s not exactly what went down in Custer State Park with a bison herd and a bike gang, though things did get rather chippy when some of the bikers tried to pass by the bison that were standing by the road. Of all the situations where you would rather be in a car than on a motorcycle, this has to be number one at the top of the list.
The parade of choppers slowed down as they approached the herd of bison, with one beast in particular being confrontational when bikes started to pass on the road. It’s exactly like the children’s tale where the troll wouldn’t let people pass over the bridge, only this time it was a bison enforcing the rules (and it’s just a road, not a bridge, so maybe not the best comparison).
Some of the bikers make it by the bison without much of a problem, while others weren’t so lucky. A number of the motorcycle riders that tried to pass narrowly avoided being gored as they passed by, with one biker even having to bail off the road and into the grass to avoid the charging bison.
The video below shows the closest of all the calls in slow motion, giving viewers a closer look at the bison getting inches away from hitting the back of a passing motorcycle.
If it would have made contact, who knows how bad things could have gone, but luckily for all of those riding that day in Custer State Park, it appears that everyone made it through the encounter in one piece (I guess that’s a low bar to strive for).
Take a look:
