Mountain lions are elusive, looking for food, and more likely to attack if you’re moving. What’s a cyclist to do?

The first attack came out of nowhere.

Keri Bergere and her four friends, all competitive women cyclists in their 50s and 60s, were riding along a gravel trail through a picturesque Washington forest when two mountain lions crossed their path. One of the animals kept going; the other, a 75-pound young male, unexpectedly – and terrifyingly – pounced.

The lion knocked 60-year-old Bergere off her bike and to the ground, clamping his powerful jaws around her face as it settled in for the kill, in the way that mountain lions do: Crushing and suffocating the life out of captured prey. Bergere could feel her teeth loosening and her bones crumbling as the animal held fast – but her friends sprung to action.

Grabbing large sticks, the women spent an astonishing 45 minutes tackling the lion. They attempted to pry its jaws open and even repeatedly dropping a 25–pound rock on its head, all the while petrified that its large feline companion could return. Eventually, and incredibly, the animal loosened enough that Bergere could crawl away. The cyclists pinned the lion down with a bike until the arrival of a parks and wildlife officer, who put the animal down. Bergere, miraculously, survived the 17 February attack and has lived to retell the tale as she recovers.

Another attack, however –