And What Did You Hit/Almost Hit Today My Dear?
Taking a back road in Utah.
I’ve been drawing from this Adventure Rider thread when it’s this slow time of year for a long time but this may be the last time. The most recent entry was in April of 2023 so it seems to have died. So here are perhaps the last of the what is the strangest thing you’ve ever hit:
- I caught a pheasant in my left shoulder once while straightening the bike up after exiting from an aggressive S-curve. The subsequent explosion damn near took me off the bike. (Felt like a bowling ball.) Then I noticed I couldn’t see, and my face was very warm. Many feathers, and much blood, came into my full-face around my chin. I stopped and tried to figure some things out, and decided to proceed to a convenience store in the next town. When I walked in to find the bathroom the crowd stopped and stared at me. The lady behind the counter asked me if I was OK, and if I’d been shot. One look in the bathroom mirror and I understood why she asked that.
- Taking a trip across the US on a Suzuki T500 in the mid 70s, somewhere in the UT dez doing about 80mph and the road goes on forever, pretty much straight but lots of rollers. Come over a rise and see a buzzard in my lane feeding on something and he has the easy choice of going right or left to get away but he goes off in the direction I’m going. He’s taking off, so not going very fast, I’m doing 80, very fast and I hit him directly with the front of my fairing (he covers the whole thing), he rolls over to the right and glances off my shoulder. I didn’t go down or get hurt but it bent my fairing back so I pulled over to survey the damage. Looking back I saw him flying away, slowly with a great story to tell his friends.
- Hit by, as opposed to run into. An attacking Barn Owl. I don’t know why, but apparently it thought my white helmet was dinner. It was night, and I saw it half a second before it hit. The classic flared pose, talons out, wide spread.
- I was taking my soon to be wife on her second ever (at 46) motorcycle ride down a 2 lane road.As we met a square body pick up truck his hood flew off an sailed right over our heads with inches to spare.
- I had a Canada goose fly into the right side of my Super Tenere a couple of days ago. It didn’t kill him but literally knocked the @&%# out of him all over the right front panel of the bike.
- Was in middle-of-nowhere West Texas windmill country on my TW200 headed for Utah last spring. Doing about 35 on a gravel road at dusk and top a small rise to see a herd of 20 or so wild/feral pigs running across the road. Handful of drum brake slowed me down enough to tap the slowest one on the rump and send him into a barrel roll while thankfully barely altering my trajectory.
- My riding buddy on his way to Sturgis somehow missed a cinder block that was in the road with his front wheel but couldn’t/didn’t with his rear wheel. He blew out his tire and destroyed the wheel but managed to keep it upright.
There you have it. Just one more reminder to be careful out there.
Biker Quote for Today
You start with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.
