Tatiana, Colorado's now-full-grown baby tiger, began eating San
Franciscans last year and repeated her performance this year, but she
never damaged any bicycles:
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7812663
http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=1765704
The same cannot be said for the lions at a turn-of-the-century Nice
circus;
"In a lion's den is about the last place in the world one would expect
to find a sane cyclist, says The Cycle correspondent, yet at Nice
recently a well-known cycing instructor, Stanley C. Harte, appeared as
a cycling Daniel. He entered the cage containing two of the most
ferocious lions in Europe no less than six times. One one occasion he
had a very narrow escape. The trainer had fixed the lions in a corner
of the cage with his piercing eye. He removed his glance for an
instant to follow the cyclist, and at the same moment the pedal of the
machine touched the paw of one of the lions, who, with a roar, wiped
out half a dozen spokes from one of the wheels. But the trainer caught
the lion's eye, and the animal made no further hostile movement."
--"Gossip of the Cyclers," NYT August 22, 1897
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D07E3DE153DE633A25751C2A96E9C94669ED7CF
The lion may have feared that Harte's spoke pairs had not been
squeezed together hard enough.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel