It's a cyclist's worse nightmare: flying around a track at 50kmh and a kangaroo jumping out in front of your bike.
It's a nightmare that has proven very real for Brad Peppinick; not once, but twice at Mt Stromlo.
"I was coming around the southern end of the track as the sun was setting, [the kangaroo] came out from behind a big wattle bush," he said.
"There was literally nowhere to go, I hit it full on and I went straight over the top of the handlebars.
"A moving log is the best thing I could describe it as."
Peppinick broke his helmet and suffered a severe concussion, and was taken to hospital in an ambulance from the Criterium Circuit at Mt Stromlo. He couldn't ride a bike for eight weeks.
Mt Stromlo's kangaroo menace
Kangaroos are a regular sight on the cycling track, which backs on to bushland at the base of Mt Stromlo in Canberra's west.
The kangaroos have become a constant hazard for the 250 to 300 cyclists who use the circuit weekly in summer.
President of the Canberra Cycling Club Steve Crispin said there were near misses with kangaroos every week on the track.
"I'm very concerned for the welfare of our members, no one wants to see anyone go down," he said.
"The sound of carbon scraping along the bitumen is just the most unpleasant sound you can hear as a cyclist and every single cyclist that races out there weekly dreads hearing that sound."
The club thinks there's an easy solution: build a taller fence.
Crispin said a bigger fence would stop the majority of the kangaroos getting on to the course, and help keep cyclists on their bikes.
The current fence is a wire fence with star picket posts, about 1.5 metres tall.
"It's not exactly something that kangaroos can't jump up over," Crispin said.
The Canberra Cycling Club has brought up the issue with the ACT government and the Stromlo Forest Park Committee but are waiting on a decision.
The ACT government is working with an ecologist on the options for managing kangaroo movement at the Criterium, a spokesperson said.
"The option of fencing has been considered, however, to be effective it would need to be installed around the entire Criterium Circuit which would come at a significant cost. In addition, any fencing would need to provide for egress points which would need to be managed," they said.
"UC Stromlo will work with cycling clubs, including the Canberra Cycling Club, to improve safety measures such as having a marshal at critical locations during events."
Better deal for kangaroos and cyclists
Peppinick said he's raced all over Australia and while Stromlo is one of the best facilities he's seen, it's also one of the most stressful.
"Every time you go out there you have to be concerned about this completely random and completely uncontrollable element," he said.
"I've had multiple stitches required, two really bad concussions, and the damage to the bikes runs into the thousands of dollars.
"The actual cost of [hitting a kangaroo] is pretty significant when it does happen."
And it's not that the cyclists want a kangaroo cull or removal; they just want the circuit to made safer for humans and animals, Peppinick said.
"To the extent we can channel them around the track, which I think should be fine to do with a fence, then both kangaroos and cyclists can live in greater harmony," he said.
