Watch: Cyclist drafts behind emus while riding in Australia

In a video that can certainly be filed under "Only in Australia" one rider filmed themself sprinting up behind a group of emus then riding in the slipstream of the giant birds.

Uploaded to YouTube by "Cerebral Cyclist", the video shows handlebar-mounted camera footage of a rider riding off-road somewhere in the Australian bush.

The video shows the rider sprinting along a narrow dirt path in between rows of trees to catch up with the four birds who are also sprinting along the path.

The rider has to put in a fair effort to catch up with the flightless birds, riding at 41kmh to make the catch before sitting behind the final bird as it cruised along at 37kmh.

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The rider stays behind the group of birds for just over half a minute, before they swing off the path and into the undergrowth at the right-hand side of the path.

Once the emus disappear off the path the rider, presumably quite out of breath, drops off the pace although the emus are probably quite capable of keeping the speed up as they weren't forced to get close to their top speed of nearly 50kmh.

While cyclists in Europe might be more used to dodging squirrels and rabbits on their rides, Australian riders have a few more interesting wildlife encounters on their bikes.

There are plenty of examples here and there of cyclists colliding or having near misses with kangaroos while riding, while the magpie breeding season in the southern hemisphere spring can see birds swooping at and attacking riders.

However from the evidence in this video it seems that this particular rider isn't too concerned with such encounters, appearing to be quite confident riding in close proximity with the giant birds.