Banging pots and pans together will usually scare bears away. If not, just remember you don't have to outrun the bear - you just have to outrun your slowest friend.
As you move through the wilderness, the wildlife around you runs away depending on how loud or out-of-place you are. Think of it as being a really effective animal-chasing flashlight.
In the vast, vast majority of cases, a confrontation with an animal of any size will lead to the animal trying to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. I've been within 20 feet of big black bears and had coyotes sniff my toes; all I had to do was move a little and they took off. People just like to imagine "confronting" a bear and scaring it away because those few cases get a lot of media attention, and they're exciting.
So try instead to shrink your circle as much as possible and see what you can encounter out there. I like to sometimes find the right sort of spot and sit really quietly for a few hours, to see what comes along.
Tom Brown's books on tracking &etc. are pretty OK and talk about this a bit.
