Stung by Pellets, Cyclist Gives Chase : Shooting: Lake Forest man catches up and then struggles with attacker in car, enduring four more blasts at close range.

Bicyclist Dan Barberich didn’t think twice when someone in a passing car shot him with a pellet gun Friday morning. He pedaled after the car--and got hit four more times while struggling with the shooter.

Barberich, who was riding to his job installing pool fences, suffered six ugly welts to his side. But the incident, he said, left his prized mountain bike--his only means of transportation--crumpled under the car and his sense of justice ruffled.

“I’m a little angry just how stupid people can be,” said the 21-year-old Lake Forest resident. “It didn’t make any sense to me that they did it.”

Barberich, who was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, felt the first two shots fired from a passing Subaru as he pedaled along Ridge Route Drive just before 8 a.m. He said he recognized the sting from having been shot while playing with pellet guns as a youngster.

“It felt like a pellet gun,” he said.

Barberich, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 270 pounds, said he raced after the car--loaded with five men in their late teens or early 20s--and caught up as it stopped at a traffic light a block away. He tossed his mountain bike in front of the car to block it and began struggling with a man in the passenger seat through the open car window. The man shot Barberich four more times in the side.

The weapon was described as a six-inch-long pellet handgun. Pellet guns use pressurized air to fire rounded chunks of lead.

The bicycle was lodged under the car as it pulled away and was destroyed. But as the driver stopped and pulled over to free the wreckage, a passerby offered Barberich a ride and followed the assailants long enough to get their license-plate number.

Barberich’s mother was relieved her son’s injuries were minor but was not surprised he gave chase.

“He’s just a working kid who tries to go out and make a living, and jerks like this pull something. . . . It would have made him angry,” said Debbie Maitrejean. “He’s like me.”

The bike isn’t exactly blessed. Barberich had to repair the bike after he crashed into a parked car four months ago, cutting his hand and smashing a tail light on the car, Maitrejean said. “It’s just one thing after another,” she said.

Sheriff’s deputies were seeking the mustard-colored Subaru, which is registered in Elsinore in Riverside County.

“He’s just lucky this is a pellet gun instead of a real one or we’d have a real mess here,” Sheriff’s Lt. William Francis said. “We don’t recommend doing what he did.”